Posted by Kenneth Downs on 08/24/05 23:35

Mladen Gogala wrote:

> On Wed, 24 Aug 2005 08:41:54 -0400, Kenneth Downs wrote:
>
>> But seriously, what does PHP lack to make it common purpose? It can
>> read/write streams, talk to databases, recurse loops, perform various
>> list operations, and it runs from the command line, what is missing?
>
> My answer would be "formats" or "report writer". They are the reason why
> I am using Perl for CLI stuff. Also, Perl supports array interface and
> bulk loads while PHP does not. That makes Perl scripts much, much faster
> when you need to load a file into database.
>

C does not have those either. Rather than the term "common purpose"
programming language, perhaps you mean something more like 4GL or
higher-level language?

My thinking is that a common purpose programming language allows me to make
anything for myself, like a formatting system.

As for bulk loads, aren't those a feature of the db server? If the db
server supports it, then PHP ought to be able to feed it. Or do I
misunderstand?

And on a lighter note, speaking of formats, I will probably have to write a
slew of commands that I miss from foxpro, like

fox_format($mynumber,"999,999.99")

--
Kenneth Downs
Secure Data Software, Inc.
(Ken)nneth@(Sec)ure(Dat)a(.com)

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