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From: news@rtech.rtech.com (USENET News System)
Newsgroups: comp.databases
Subject: Re: Parsing Query Languages in the Client or Server
Message-ID: <3750@rtech.rtech.com>
Date: 3 Oct 89 02:30:12 GMT
References: <6155@sybase.sybase.com> <6167@sybase.sybase.com> <1989Sep24.215650.15732@odi.com> <9463@blia.BLI.COM> <3715@rtech.rtech.com> <1989Sep29.172452.2619@telotech.uucp>
Reply-To: pasker@rtech.com (Bob Pasker)
Organization: Relational Technology, Inc.
Lines: 32

In article <1989Sep29.172452.2619@telotech.uucp> bsa@telotech.UUCP
(Brandon S. Allbery) writes:

>In article <3715@rtech.rtech.com>, news@rtech (USENET News System) writes:
( In article <9463@blia.BLI.COM> miket@blia.BLI.COM (Mike Tossy) writes:
[  Final note: parsing on the client does NOT mean you can use a dumb terminal
[  connected directly to a server.  You still need "smarts" on the client end.
( Uh, nothing precludes having 'smart' front-ends which can trap lexical
( errors, if not some semantic errors, and dumb terminals which cant.
>I think the issue is more along the lines of how information OTHER than the
>SQL statement itself is communicated between the front-end and the back-end.
>The back end is going to require input and output bind specifications to be
>sent to it, and will return output binding structures -- not to mention a
>(binary!) SQLDA structure -- as a result of the SQL statement's execution.

I believe What you're saying is that the BE needs to accept binary
input and produce binary output.  Something has got to transform it to
and from text so that users can SEE it (reminds me of the guy who
could read paper tape!)  It can be something like the INGRES terminal
monitor ("TM") which takes SQL from from the user and prints nicely
formatted tables on his screen.  Behind TM has to be the smarts to
convert the text into something the back-end wants to see and
vice-versa. If the back-end wants a parse tree, then the query can get
parsed by the client or some intermidiary (like the "parser server"
which I described in my last post.)
- bob
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