""Manuel Lemos"" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
[EMAIL PROTECTED]">news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> >I just want to make sure that I'm understanding what metabase supports.
>
> >It does not support:
> >- references
> >- primary keys
>
> >Does anyone find that this prevents you from using metabase? Or do you
find
> >that you have to hack your way around these deficiencies?
>
> You can live perfectly well without both.
>
> In practice primary keys are not much more than declaring a unique index
on
> the key fields.
>
> References or foreign keys have a role of assuring database integrity.
> This means that if you update your database tables and not assure that
> specified references exist consistently, the DBMS will fail on those
> updates.
>
> It's not like it will avoid your application bugs, but at least if your
> application has a bug that would break the database integrity, well placed
> references/foreign keys will prevent that to happen. Your application
will
> just stop working until you fix the bugs.
>
> >I use MySQL most of the time, so I've learned to design without explicit
> >references, but I'd like to have the opportunity to at least specify
> >references in the schema definition (which MySQL allows but doesn't do
> >anything with). It seems that with a DBMS-independent abstraction layer
like
> >metabase something like this should be supported.
>
> Support for primary/foreign keys is in my to do list. It just did not
> become a priority because there are other things more important to add
like
> BLOBs.
>
> Metabase is about to go Open Source. I am just waiting to finish a great
> design tool before I announce when Metabase will be open for other
> developers to contribute with work that I can't do right away.
>
> Anyway, that should not stop you from using Metabase as it is. Metabase
is
> the only PHP database abstraction package that does schema management.
You
> can live without schema management, but it provides great schema
> maintenance aid.
>
> When support for primary/foreign keys is added explicitly you will be able
> to upgrade your schemas without worry. So, you can use Metabase with
> schema management as it is now.
>
>
> Regards,
> Manuel Lemos
Thanks for your comments, Manuel. I will consider them. However, I was
wondering if anyone else who is less biased :-) wanted to comment on my
questions.
Thanks.
Dean Hall.
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