Re: database trouble

[David Ayers]

Ralph Moeritz wrote:

> I know that free software needs community involvement to succeed, and
> so I'd like to know what needs to be done to implement Apple's EOF.
> I'm not a great programmer, and my biggest problem is connectivity,
> as an Internet connection is really expensive in South Africa. I
> do believe that I can help, however, so if anyone would be kind enough
> to send me the EOF specifications and technical references (I don't
> have access to a Mac :-(, then I'd be glad to help out.
> 
> [1] I know that GDL2 is available, but last time I checked it was
> somewhat stale and only available through CVS.

Well, it's true that my progress in GDL2 hasn't been breathtaking and
I'd like to avoid making spurious releases without real advancements so
there has been actually only one "Developer Release" so far:

http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/discuss-gnustep/2004-05/msg00009.html

Yet as time permits, I'm hacking away fixing holes here and there and
for my current applications it works well.  There are also some efforts
to work on a EOModel editing application on the way but still in its
early stages I believe.

I mostly work with the EOF developer documentation you can find at:
http://developer.apple.com/documentation/LegacyTechnologies/WebObjects/WebObjects_4.5/webobjects.html
You can download the PDF's separately:
http://developer.apple.com/documentation/LegacyTechnologies/WebObjects/WebObjects_4.5/System/Library/Frameworks/EOControl.framework/ObjC_classic/EOControl.pdf
http://developer.apple.com/documentation/LegacyTechnologies/WebObjects/WebObjects_4.5/System/Library/Frameworks/EOAccess.framework/ObjC_classic/EOAccess.pdf
http://developer.apple.com/documentation/LegacyTechnologies/WebObjects/WebObjects_4.5/System/Library/Frameworks/EOInterface.framework/ObjC_classic/EOInterface.pdf
...

Note that we are striving for WO4.5 compatibility but I take the freedom
to fix bugs here and there if they seem obvious (documenting that of
course).

There are lots of things that still need to be fleshed out and often the
documentation is less revealing than one would hope, so there's a lot of
painstaking testing involved to get the implementations right.  But I'd
be glad if some EOF guru's could help out.  Of course there is also a
lot of the API that can just be tested and/or documented (while
verifying the implementation) so you don't need to be an EOF wiz to help
out, but you do need to be willing to really dig into the docs and
having WO45 to do testing is invaluable.

We are still missing a few classes/categories:
EOControl:
                EOAggregateEvent
                EOEvent
                EOEventCenter
                EOMultiReaderLock
                EOSharedEditingContext
EOAccess:
                EOGenericRecord (category)
                EOSchemaSynchronization

But even EOEditingContext can still use lots of reworking.

We are missing all if EOInterface but some users have tried using this
with varying degrees of success.

http://www.mulle-kybernetik.com/software/MulleEOInterface/

I've also started a greg/guile testing suite, but I'm currently trying
to rework it into a pure ObjC based test suite based on what Alexander
Malmberg proposed a while back.

OTOH, if you don't want/need the depth/constructs of EOF there is an
alternative.  Check out the SQLClient in cvs... Ah, yes Richard just
mentioned it...

Cheers,
David

PS: If you ever have cheap internet access and an IRC client you could
look for me at irc://irc.gnu.org/#GDL2