Programming the Perl DBI: Database Programming with Perl

by Alligator Descartes and Tim Bunce

Book Overview

One of the greatest strengths of the Perl programming language is its ability to manipulate large amounts of data. Database programming is therefore a natural fit for Perl, not only for business applications but also for CGI-based web and intranet applications.

The primary interface for database programming in Perl is DBI. DBI is a database-independent package that provides a consistent set of routines regardless of what database product...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1565926994
• ISBN13: 9781565926998
• Release Date: March 2000
• Publisher: O'Reilly Media
• Length: 366 Pages
• Weight: 1.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 7.0" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

Oh so *THAT*'s how it works!

After reading the other reviews for this book, I bought it expecting a handy reference manual plus some extra tutorial stuff that I wouldn't need (I've been using DBI for years).How wrong I was. Yes, the reference stuff is great (thanks Tim!) - but the first half of the book was entertaining to read and contained a wealth of information that I thought I knew (but didn't).The chapter on database proxying was worth more than the purchase price in itself.Other fine books have included a chapter or two on DBI, but they are no substitute for this.Excellent stuff. Highly recommended.

A must for using Perl and DBI!

The only moan I have is that it didn't come out earlier.The shop where I work asked me to cost a project using Perl as the back end for a T1 sales feed into an Oracle DB. They wanted to know if they could buy a package to do this. After a little research, I fell over the DBI. They were amazed at the "cost", and delighted with the speed.I finally got the book about a week ago. Lo and behold, it also covered flat files. A large part of this shop's income comes from a custom doc library, flat files exported from many different DBs. So not only did the book aid with optimising the script I'd already written for the Oracle interface, but it's going to make all our lives easier for the next release of their commercial app.The book is extremely well-written. (In a past life, I was a tech writer. Nothing worse than a badly written techie book.)The flow is well thought out. Not being a DB meister, the first few chapters were extremely helpful. In my case (and I'm sure, many others as well), I had to get up on DBs in a large hurry. With the Cheetah book, I was able to do so.The examples given are concise, easy to follow, and they _work_. The latter point is invaluable.I would recommend this book to anyone who uses Perl and the DBI.

Useful, even for insiders

I'm biassed; I'm the primary author of the DBD::Informix module. And I bought my copy of the book.The Cheetah Book has a lot of useful information in it. Obviously, it describes the core DBI functionality very clearly, but it also contains a lot of information that was not previously available in a form comparable to what is in the book. For example, the extensive Appendix B, which lists a lot of details about each of the various drivers, is very useful and informative indeed. The information is not yet available elsewhere in this format, and you'd have to download all the drivers to be able to get all the information in one place. The guide to using the DBI Proxy Server is invaluable. The non-DBI database information in Chapter 2 is interesting; it shows how diverse the Perl modules are. And the comparison with Win32::ODBC is illuminating.There is information in the main text which has not been documented before, such as the "use DBI qw(:sql_types);" -- that isn't in Appendix A (the DBI Specification), either, but that oversight will no doubt be fixed so that it is in 'perldoc DBI' by the time DBI 1.14 is available on CPAN.This book does not attempt to teach you the rudiments of Perl, and nor should it. It does not teach everything about SQL, and nor should it. It doesn't teach you about every possible use of DBI, and it shouldn't try to do that either. It is a pity that the use of DBI with the Apache web server and mod_perl is not covered at all, but even that would be difficult to do sensibly. Half the effort would be in explaining how to handle HTML and CGI and not in using DBI per se. Nevertheless, should there be a second edition, this is something that should be covered in outline, even if not in complete detail.If you have any intention of working with DBI, either as a regular user or as a driver writer, you need this book. It is clear and pleasant to read. Having the DBI specification printed in book format is worth the price of the book alone; the rest of the material is also very valuable.Go, Buy!

A Good DBI Reference

This book is perfect of persons of my Ilk. I know Perl quite well, and I know SQL and databases just as much. This tome fills in the blanks about DBD that hooks everything together. Most importantly, I finally have a comprehensive reference, instead of a bunch of miscellenous man pages sitting on my desktop :-)Knowing about the intricacies of each driver (in my case Sybase) clarified several issues and helped us solve some thorny problems at my job.More mod_perl stuff would have been nice, but when was the last time you bought a book with everything in it?

A must for anyone serious about Perl DBI development

Programming the Perl DBI continues the long O'Reilly standard of providing accurate technical information for a reasonable price. If you develop or use Perl DBI, BUY THIS BOOK!Chapter 2:Humble beginning to start a Perl DBI book with how to use other types of data storage and retrieval features. I found this very enlightening as a solution to persistent data challenges not requiring a full database system.Chapter 3: A basic intro to SQL. Simple and to the point.Chapter 4-6 Describes development using Perl DBI. The information is excellent, as DBI is only an interface to the database systems. These chapters describe how to use the interface, the standard features supported, and expected results. Do you want to learn about reading BLOBs or binding output columns? Need to use bound input parameters? The information is all contained in these chapters.Chapter 7: I enjoyed the quick comparison between DBI (DBD::ODBC) and Win32::ODBC.Chapter 8: The description of DBD::Proxy and how to begin, is worth the price of the book. These simple pages make interfacing Linux to Win32 (NT/9[58]) easier to explain and do.The appendixes provide information about the DBI interface, what properties are available from which handle, also, a brief description of the drivers available. Good reading. I'd reference this section if selecting a database provider for a Perl solution. Enjoyed reading which driver supported what features. Is this information available in pod format, yes, however, this book provides it in one cover with an index. I'd check the driver pods for changes or additional features, as the development of DBD drivers continues.Interacting with a database system is a complex process. Using Perl DBI gives a standard interface to this complex process. This book does not explain how to use advance features of a particular database system. This is left to the reader and the large number of database references available. If you want to use a stored procedure with a trigger or execute a stored query, Programming the Perl DBI explains how to make the call, however, you'd need to know what to execute, and results to expected.As I stated in the beginning, this book is a must for anyone serious about using Perl DBI.