Posted by Ed Murphy on 10/19/07 02:29

steve wrote:

> On Oct 17, 11:51 am, Ed Murphy <emurph...@socal.rr.com> wrote:
>> steve wrote:
>>>> My question is if you can define a temporary variable within a query to >store tablesor fields. (Like the LET clause of LINQ).
>>> The answer is of course! Jump in anywhere and you will see what makes
>>> sense:) You can start here:
>>> http://beyondsql.blogspot.com/2007/09/dataphor-all-tables-are-typed-v...
>>> best,.
>>> www.beyondsql.blogspot.com
>> Posting only to discuss one's own product is one of the ten early
>> warning signs of crankery.
>
> If you had bothered to read the link you'd see it was exactly what the
> op was asking for. I guess you can be an sql cop. I'm not so sure
> about a detective :)

Well, this /is/ a SQL group, y'know. The guy is asking whether SQL
has a non-trivial capability, so is quite possibly working on an
existing system that has already undergone a significant chunk of
development in SQL. Responding with "this is easy in <other system>"
is all well and good, but if he's going to have to rewrite everything
under the sun to take advantage of it, then it's a bit useless, innit?

You give lots of examples of code written for your system, but what
does your API look like? Typical end-user programs consist of front-end
screens implemented in something like VB or VC# or ASP.NET, calling out
to SQL on the back end with code along the lines of (pseudocode)

loop over exec_sql("select x, y from z order by x, y", x, y)
// do stuff with x and y
end loop

populate_grid(g, exec_sql("select x, y from z order by x, y"))

exec_sql("exec spMyStoredProcedure")

Do you provide something like this for your product, or is the
developer expected to rewrite all front-end screens in the front-end
component of your system? If the latter, then it's really only
useful to people developing new systems, or at least new sub-systems.

In any case, at least you're not as nuts as the guy in this story:
http://forums.worsethanfailure.com/forums/thread/132591.aspx

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