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From: rapp@balr.com (Chuck Rapp)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.misc
Subject: Macintosh Databases
Message-ID: <1990Jul17.212326.2459@balr.com>
Date: 17 Jul 90 21:23:26 GMT
Reply-To: rapp@balr.UUCP (Chuck Rapp)
Organization: Balr Corporation, Oak Brook, Il.
Lines: 39

My question deals with accessing a database from an application,
both of which reside on the same Macintosh.  First some background.

Environment: Macintosh SE/30 with 8MB real memory and Virtual 2.0,
making 14MB overall.  Also an 80MB internal HD.

Goal: I have access to a lexicon stored in an Oracle DB which, in
turn, runs on a VAX.  The VAX uses VMS.  I will soon be receiving
the common lisp source code for a natural language processing
system.  I have Macintosh Allegro Common Lisp (MACL) on my Mac and have
given it 7MB of memory.  I would like to port the lexical database
to a DB on my Macintosh and use it with the lisp software because this
lexicon is one of the best I have used.

My background is mostly UNIX and there is not problem with running
two communicating processes: one for my lisp program, the other for
the database.  However, concerning multifinder and databases, I
have questions:

	1) Can I get my lisp software to communicate with a database?
	   MACL	can access C functions.  I envision these C functions
	   doing the LISP<-->DB interface.
	2) Does the DB server reside in the same memory as my LISP?
	   My LISP software needs as much memory as I can give it
	   and I would not like to lose some to the database.  I
	   would prefer the database to run as a separate application
	   in another patch of memory.
	3) What database software would you recommend?  I understand
	   that 4th Dimension has an Oracle/SQL extension while
	   Foxbase+/Mac has speed.

As for storage, I can purchase an external hard drive.  I would like
to hear from those who have some experience with Mac databases and
writing C-based applications which access the database.
-- 
| Chuck Rapp    | If you're Bell Labs employees, then where are your |
| BALR, Inc.    | badges?  Badges?  Badges?!  We have no badges.  We |
| rapp@balr.com | don't need no stinking badges!                     |
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