[Haskell] ANN: HDBC (Haskell Database Connectivity)

[John Goerzen]

Hi,

I'm pleased to announce the first alpha release (I could call it a
"developer's preview", but then I don't wear a suit) of HDBC.

HDBC is the Haskell Database Connectivity library.  It is patterned
after Perl's DBI.  I wrote it from scratch -- this is not a
reimplementation of HSQL -- because several design decisions in HSQL
have been causing me trouble.

I am also announcing the first alpha release of the Sqlite3 backend
driver for HDBC.  I anticipate writing backend drivers for the same
databases HSQL supports (though probably not Sqlite2), but it should
be easier for others to write HDBC drivers as well.

To answer a potential FAQ, HDBC does not attempt to do what HaskellDB
does, though HDBC could potentially replace HSQL as the underlying
layer of choice in HaskellDB.

I'm including the README below, which goes into a bit more detail.

To get HDBC:
  darcs get --partial http://darcs.complete.org/hdbc

To get the Sqlite3 driver:
  darcs get --partial http://darcs.complete.org/hdbc-sqlite3

Welcome to HDBC, Haskell Database Connectivity.

HDBC is modeled loosely on Perl's DBI interface, though it has also
been influenced by Python's DB-API v2, JDBC in Java, and HSQL in
Haskell.

Features of HDBC
----------------

HDBC provides an abstraction layer between Haskell programs and SQL
relational databases.  This lets you write database code once, in
Haskell, and have it work with any number of backend SQL databases
(MySQL, Oracle, PostgreSQL, ODBC-compliant databases, etc.)

HDBC is a from-scratch effort.  It is not a reimplementation of HSQL,
though its purpose is the same.  Some features HDBC has which HSQL
lacks include:

 * Ability to use replacable parameters to let one query be
   executed multiple times (eliminates the need for an "escape"
   function)

 * Ability to access returned rows by column number

 * Ability to read data from the SQL server on-demand rather than
   reading the entire result set up front

 * HUnit testsuite for each backend driver

 * Well-defined standard API and easy backend driver implementation

Features on the TODO list which will appear shortly include:

 * Support for translation between Haskell and SQL types
 
 * Lazy reading of the entire result set (think hGetContents, but
   for the results of SELECT)

 * Support for querying metadata (column names, types, etc.)

 * Additional infrastructure for querying database server properties

 * Add-on package to integrate with MissingH (filesystem in a
   database, backend for AnyDBM, etc.)

HDBC Drivers
------------

The following HDBC drivers exist:

Sqlite v3, darcs get --partial http://darcs.complete.org/hdbc-sqlite3

More will be coming shortly.

-- John Goerzen
   December 20, 2005