Tim,

/*
What Raul said.  It's one of the reasons why we haven't ported our PHP
extension or ODBC driver to Linux.  Most of the shared hosts that use Linux
won't let you install *anything* like that, so it's kind of a waste of our
time to create something that can't be deployed.  And, if you're using a
virtual machine instance (or your own server), you might as well use Windows
and be able to install anything you want (and can create using
Delphi/C++Builder/Visual Studio) on it.
*/

My idea of using EWB is like the following:-

EWB <--> web service in PHP <--> DBISAM tables on shared host

or if not possible,

EWB <--> web service in PHP <--> MySQL or MSSQL database on shared host

If clients can afford it, they can use VPS or their own in-house server. Otherwise, I want to give them the option of using shared hosting. There should be some good shared hosts out there for web applications.

Frederick

Steve,

<< It's interesting that you say that because I have been running backend
processing apps on hosted Linux servers for over 10 years and have never had
a problem.  I guess it depends on who you host with, and what type of
systems you develop.  I do agree though that a virtual server is a better
option. >>

Yes, it really depends upon:  1) how much you pay and 2) how good the
hosting provider is.

Tim Young
Elevate Software
www.elevatesoft.com

Frederick,

<< or if not possible, >>

That's the problem - any shared host is likely to say "no go" to adding any
type of PHP extension for DBISAM or EDB.  So, you have to use MySQL or
whatever they're offering.  This may be fine for some cases, but there are
going to be cases where customers want to stick with what they're already
using, in which case a virtual server will be the easiest and cheapest way
to get there.

Plus, it is getting extremely easy to use dynamic DNS with routers to expose
servers for WAN access, even for small offices.  We have quite a few EDB
customers that do this and use replication to tie them all together and, of
course, you could also provide direct access to databases that way also.  I
know storing everything "in the cloud" is all the rage now, but the cheapest
option is sometimes to just use the server/router that you already have,
especially when the number of WAN/Web clients is fairly small.

Tim Young
Elevate Software
www.elevatesoft.com

Tim,

In the event my client wants me to work with MySQL or MSSQL, could you point me to some code I could use to write a service in PHP to allow database operations with these databases together with EWB?

Frederick

Frederick,

<< In the event my client wants me to work with MySQL or MSSQL, could you
point me to some code I could use to write a service in PHP to allow
database operations with these databases together with EWB? >>

You need some PHP/JSON handling code:

http://php.net/manual/en/book.json.php

and the following reference:

http://www.elevatesoft.com/manual?action=viewtopic&id=ewb1&topic=JSON_Reference

BLOBs are handled in a slightly special way in that each BLOB is actually
populated as a string that contains a URL to be used to "load" the BLOB from
the web service.  With the default dataset handling in EWB, the column name
and primary key value of the row are used as parameters in the URL in order
to allow the web service to know which column/row to load the BLOB for.

I'm going to be getting to this shortly, so I may have a solution for you in
a week or so.  I'm about half-way through the EDB PHP Extension additions
that will allow EDB to handle the EWB JSON transparently, and then I'll be
working on a pure PHP example.

If you have any other questions, please let me know.

Tim Young
Elevate Software
www.elevatesoft.com

Tim,

/*
You need some PHP/JSON handling code:

http://php.net/manual/en/book.json.php

and the following reference:

http://www.elevatesoft.com/manual?action=viewtopic&id=ewb1&topic=JSON_Reference
*/

Thanks for the references and description about BLOB handling. I will put in some practice and see if I can get something to work while waiting for your pure PHP solution.

Frederick