Hello, I have a few remarks concerning the Virtual Table interface as it is currently defined in CVS. I am very enthusiastic about the Virtual Table concept but can see a few limitations. Time permitting, I kindly ask the core developers to give a short feedback that they have taken notice of this.
1. xCreate Would it be possible to replace the following parameter in xCreate: char **argv --> sqlite3_value ** This would save applications to parse parameters strings for numbers, decode binary information, dequote strings, etc. Since this functionality is already buld into SQLite internally and is known to work reliably, it would be nice if applications would not have to reinvent the wheel and duplicate the parsing code for each virtual table module. 2. xBestIndex / xFilter / sqlite3_index_info The sqlite3_index_info structure contains char *idxStr; which may be used to the application's liking. In addition, int needToFreeIdxStr; can be used to instruct SQLite3 to free idxStr. Would it be possible that SQLite3 could pass idxStr back to the application when it needs to be freed instead of freeing it using sqlite3_free? This would allow to free complex memory structures which sqlite3_free can not handle. I would not mind if idxStr would just be void* so I can store to it whatever I need. 3. xRowID / xUpdate As outlined in the Wiki, the 64bit integer RowID concept is not supported by all databases and many potential uses of Virtual Tables. I proposed to add a more generic interface to ensure reliable updates for those: xGetBookmark xFreeBookmark The Virtual Table Methods wiki contains more details. Best regards, Ralf
