Horton

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  1. Mapping Oracle types to PostgreSQL types

    Jean-Michel POURE <jm@poure.com> — 2003-10-17T08:10:26Z

    Dear friends,

I would like to port Compiere CRM from Oracle to PostgreSQL (and release it 
for free).

At first I would like to convert the data schema. This is not difficult as 
Compiere is written using portable types like NUMBER (i,d) which can be 
replaced by NUMERIC (i,d), etc... A series of Search/Replace is sufficiant. 
There are other solutions in Contrib to connect to Oracle and export the data 
(Bruce). Don't blame me to search in another (silly) direction...

The point here is that I would like to use the CREATE TYPE or CREATE DOMAIN 
syntax to map Oracle types to PostgreSQL types. Therefore I can say "Guys, 
Oracle is now mostly compatible with PostreSQL".

In PostgreSQL, I used CREATE TYPE syntax to map
Oracle nvarchar2 -> PostgreSQL varchar (see code #1).

The code seems to be the equivalent of "CREATE DOMAIN nvarchar2 as varchar;"

Now I can create tables with nvarchar2 but not nvarchar2(lenght).

Is there a way to map Oracle nvarchar2(lenght) to PostgreSQL varchar(lenght) 
in PostgreSQL 7.3? Are there plans to allow such mapping in the future using 
the CREATE DOMAIN syntax?

Best regards,
Jean-Michel Pouré

**********************************************************************
Code #1
--DROP TYPE nvarchar2 CASCADE;

CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION oracle_nvarchar2in(cstring, oid, int4)
RETURNS nvarchar2 AS
'varcharin'
LANGUAGE 'internal' IMMUTABLE STRICT;
COMMENT ON FUNCTION oracle_nvarchar2in(cstring, oid, int4) IS '(internal)';

CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION oracle_nvarchar2out(nvarchar2)
RETURNS cstring AS
'varcharout'
LANGUAGE 'internal' IMMUTABLE STRICT;

CREATE TYPE nvarchar2
(INPUT=oracle_nvarchar2in, OUTPUT=oracle_nvarchar2out, DEFAULT='',
INTERNALLENGTH=-1, ALIGNMENT=int4, STORAGE=EXTENDED);
COMMENT ON TYPE nvarchar2 IS 'Oracle type nvarchar2(length) mapped to 
PostgreSQL type varchar(lenght)';

  2. Re: Mapping Oracle types to PostgreSQL types

    Peter Eisentraut <peter_e@gmx.net> — 2003-10-17T11:40:09Z

    Jean-Michel POURE writes:

> Is there a way to map Oracle nvarchar2(lenght) to PostgreSQL varchar(lenght)
> in PostgreSQL 7.3? Are there plans to allow such mapping in the future using
> the CREATE DOMAIN syntax?

No to both.  Doing this would most likely require making the affected type
names be reserved words in the grammar or sacrifice some other
functionality, which seems a high price to pay for this cosmetic feature.

-- 
Peter Eisentraut   peter_e@gmx.net

  3. Re: Mapping Oracle types to PostgreSQL types

    Shridhar Daithankar <shridhar_daithankar@persistent.co.in> — 2003-10-17T13:39:38Z

    Jean-Michel POURE wrote:

> Dear friends,
> 
> I would like to port Compiere CRM from Oracle to PostgreSQL (and release it 
> for free).
> 
> At first I would like to convert the data schema. This is not difficult as 
> Compiere is written using portable types like NUMBER (i,d) which can be 
> replaced by NUMERIC (i,d), etc... A series of Search/Replace is sufficiant. 
> There are other solutions in Contrib to connect to Oracle and export the data 
> (Bruce). Don't blame me to search in another (silly) direction...

Rather than declaring numeric, create them as integer/float of appropriate size 
and add appropriate constraints. Numeric can be slower for large data load w.r.t 
native integers.

> 
> The point here is that I would like to use the CREATE TYPE or CREATE DOMAIN 
> syntax to map Oracle types to PostgreSQL types. Therefore I can say "Guys, 
> Oracle is now mostly compatible with PostreSQL".

You can create some sql scripts which can natively migrate from oracle to 
postgresql. Contrib could host them or gborg.

So what postgresql would say is, create a database and run the scripts and many 
of the oracle migration gotchas will be automatically taken care of.

Including such features in core postgresql is rather hard sell to postgresql 
developers. Especially when there is a rather simple workaround.

  HTH

  Shridhar

  4. Re: Mapping Oracle types to PostgreSQL types

    Andreas Pflug <pgadmin@pse-consulting.de> — 2003-10-17T13:49:44Z

    Shridhar Daithankar wrote:

> Jean-Michel POURE wrote:
>
>> Dear friends,
>>
>> I would like to port Compiere CRM from Oracle to PostgreSQL (and 
>> release it for free).
>>
>> At first I would like to convert the data schema. This is not 
>> difficult as Compiere is written using portable types like NUMBER 
>> (i,d) which can be replaced by NUMERIC (i,d), etc... A series of 
>> Search/Replace is sufficiant. There are other solutions in Contrib to 
>> connect to Oracle and export the data (Bruce). Don't blame me to 
>> search in another (silly) direction...
>
>
> Rather than declaring numeric, create them as integer/float of 
> appropriate size and add appropriate constraints. Numeric can be 
> slower for large data load w.r.t native integers.


float is *not* an alternative to numeric. While integer or int8 should 
be usable for NUMBER(i), the non-rounding precision of numeric is vital 
for such an application.

Regards,
Andreas

  5. Re: Mapping Oracle types to PostgreSQL types

    Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us> — 2003-10-17T14:05:16Z

    Peter Eisentraut <peter_e@gmx.net> writes:
> Jean-Michel POURE writes:
>> Is there a way to map Oracle nvarchar2(lenght) to PostgreSQL varchar(lenght)
>> in PostgreSQL 7.3? Are there plans to allow such mapping in the future using
>> the CREATE DOMAIN syntax?

> No to both.  Doing this would most likely require making the affected type
> names be reserved words in the grammar

Right.  At the moment, *all* the type names that support parenthesized
options are hard-wired into the grammar.  I think this is probably
unavoidable because otherwise there is a conflict between interpreting
"foo(3)" as a type name and interpreting it as a function call.  (But
if anyone can think of a way around that, I'm all ears.)

Since varchar(n) is SQL-standard syntax, can't you simply adopt the more
standard name for both databases?

			regards, tom lane

  6. Re: Mapping Oracle types to PostgreSQL types

    Matthew T. O'Connor <matthew@zeut.net> — 2003-10-17T14:32:10Z

    On Fri, 2003-10-17 at 04:10, Jean-Michel POURE wrote:
> Dear friends,
> 
> I would like to port Compiere CRM from Oracle to PostgreSQL (and release it 
> for free).

This would be wonderful.  However, I believe the guys at Compiere tried
to do this already and gave up on porting it to postgresql due too a
couple of PostgreSQL limitations.  I don't remember what they are
exactly, I think it had to do with nested transactions, maybe
savepoints, not sure exactly.  You should be able to find some mention
of this on their site.  It sounded to me like they use a lot of Oracle
features.

Good Luck!

  7. Re: Mapping Oracle types to PostgreSQL types

    Kris Jurka <books@ejurka.com> — 2003-10-17T14:43:09Z

    
On Fri, 17 Oct 2003, Tom Lane wrote:

> Since varchar(n) is SQL-standard syntax, can't you simply adopt the more
> standard name for both databases?
>

A long time ago Oracle made the varchar type equivalent to char and once
people complained about the excess space used by short entries they came
out with varchar2 which they've maintained every since valuing backwards
compatability more than the sql standard.

Kris Jurka

  8. Re: Mapping Oracle types to PostgreSQL types

    Jean-Michel POURE <jm@poure.com> — 2003-10-17T14:52:20Z

    Le Vendredi 17 Octobre 2003 16:32, Matthew T. O'Connor a écrit :
> This would be wonderful.  However, I believe the guys at Compiere tried
> to do this already and gave up on porting it to postgresql due too a
> couple of PostgreSQL limitations.  I don't remember what they are
> exactly, I think it had to do with nested transactions, maybe
> savepoints, not sure exactly.  You should be able to find some mention
> of this on their site.  It sounded to me like they use a lot of Oracle
> features.

There are only a few limitations in PostgreSQL like nested transaction, 
updatable cursors and Oracle PL error handling. Can we call these 
"limitations"? Most of us can live without them. These "limitations" are only 
a small portion of the code (sometimes a few lines like updatable cursors).

Cheers, Jean-Michel

  9. Re: Mapping Oracle types to PostgreSQL types

    Jean-Paul ARGUDO <jpargudo@free.fr> — 2003-10-18T08:23:39Z

    Le Friday Oct 17, 2003 at 10:10:26AM +0200, Jean-Michel POURE a écrit :
> Dear friends,
> 
> I would like to port Compiere CRM from Oracle to PostgreSQL (and release it 
> for free).

Hi Jean-Michel,


I did Red-Hat CCM Migration from Oracle to PostgreSQL a year ago when I
was the dba of IdealX, a french Open Source Services company in France,
you may know it. Since the job has been done for french public affairs,
I hope IdealX and this ministry did publish it GPL, I'm gonna get some
informations, I'll keep you on touch.

I do copy an Oracle production database everyday into a PostgreSQL one,
for web sites needs: production database is under Oracle, web reporting
database is on a LAPP server. (not LAMP ;-).. ).

I succeeded using oracle contrib (look at contrib/oracle or directly
to Gilles's DAROLD web at: http://www.samse.fr/GPL/).

Ora2pg is fast, simple and accurate, it handles PG schemas too, etc..

Beware of numeric(x,y) PG type, it's really slow, prefer integer
datatype. For example, translate a NUMERIC(3,2) into INTEGER. Just *100
the value, and modify client side (/100), it will be really faster (that was
the simple solution we found on another migration project at IdealX...).

[ As I told it here (http://www.geocrawler.com/archives/3/104/2002/5/0/8597590/)
 a year ago:

 « Be aware that NUMERIC(x,y) in PG is very powerfull for atypic uses, for
 example (18,9) ... and not that much for other uses. That's my point of
 view.»

 I must admit I didnt test it from one year. So with the speed you PG
 hackers work, offering each release a new *major* release (HISTORY items
 growth can show this: amazing..), I think maybe this is no more true...
]

I'd like to help you in your project, since I'm Oracle/PG experimented
DBA, and I need a good CRM solution for personal and profesional
purposes.

Please tell me if my experience can help you in any way, I'd be really
glad in participating your project. 

I can offer public CVS, web, etc.. for the project if you want.

Overall, I think we're both French ;-))

Cheers,

-- 
Jean-Paul ARGUDO
DBA Oracle, PostgreSQL, MySQL, Ingres
Membre de l'April			http://www.april.org

  10. Re: Mapping Oracle types to PostgreSQL types

    Jean-Michel POURE <jm@poure.com> — 2003-10-18T13:11:30Z

    Dear Jean-Paul,

> Please tell me if my experience can help you in any way, I'd be really
> glad in participating your project.

Thanks for your proposal, welcome in the team.

In short, we plan to port Compiere to PostgreSQL and submit the changes back 
to Compiere team. There is no evidence so far that Compiere will accept the 
changes as their main developer sells Oracle licenses.

At present, the team is:
- Vincent Harcq <vha@audaxis.com> for the Java part or Compiere.
- Jean-Paul ARGUDO <jpargudo@free.fr> and Jean-Michel Pouré <jm@poure.com> for 
the database migration.

> I can offer public CVS, web, etc.. for the project if you want.

Thanks. During the week-end, I will set up a first web page and will contact 
you back on Monday.

In a first time, our goal could be to describe the port in details, so to 
convince Compiere community to migrate to PostgreSQL. Without support from 
the Compiere community, there can be no port...

Best regards,
Jean-Michel

  11. Re: [HACKERS] Mapping Oracle types to PostgreSQL types

    Robert Treat <xzilla@users.sourceforge.net> — 2003-10-20T12:52:20Z

    On Sat, 2003-10-18 at 09:11, Jean-Michel POURE wrote:
> Dear Jean-Paul,
> 
> > Please tell me if my experience can help you in any way, I'd be really
> > glad in participating your project.
> 
> Thanks for your proposal, welcome in the team.
> 
> In short, we plan to port Compiere to PostgreSQL and submit the changes back 
> to Compiere team. There is no evidence so far that Compiere will accept the 
> changes as their main developer sells Oracle licenses.
> 
> At present, the team is:
> - Vincent Harcq <vha@audaxis.com> for the Java part or Compiere.
> - Jean-Paul ARGUDO <jpargudo@free.fr> and Jean-Michel Pouré <jm@poure.com> for 
> the database migration.
> 
> > I can offer public CVS, web, etc.. for the project if you want.
> 
> Thanks. During the week-end, I will set up a first web page and will contact 
> you back on Monday.
> 
> In a first time, our goal could be to describe the port in details, so to 
> convince Compiere community to migrate to PostgreSQL. Without support from 
> the Compiere community, there can be no port...
> 

by "community" do you means users or developers? there are certainly
enough users interested in a postgresql version that i think it would be
viable to fork it if the compiere developers aren't willing to
cooperate. certainly would be more work, but if you could get a stable
version I think it could be successful.  

Robert Treat
-- 
Build A Brighter Lamp :: Linux Apache {middleware} PostgreSQL

  12. Re: [HACKERS] Mapping Oracle types to PostgreSQL types

    Jean-Michel POURE <jm@poure.com> — 2003-10-20T13:55:54Z

    Le Lundi 20 Octobre 2003 14:52, Robert Treat a écrit :
> by "community" do you means users or developers? there are certainly
> enough users interested in a postgresql version that i think it would be
> viable to fork it if the compiere developers aren't willing to
> cooperate. certainly would be more work, but if you could get a stable
> version I think it could be successful.  

Dear Robert,

At first, the project has limited goals: porting Compiere PL server-side code 
to PLpgSQL, removing some non-SQL 99 stuff and submitting the code back and 
convincing Compiere developer community to use PostgreSQL.

Then, we will see. The problem with forking is that you have to create a 
developer community from scratch, which is highly difficult and most of times 
impossible.

Best regards,
Jean-Michel

  13. Re: [HACKERS] Mapping Oracle types to PostgreSQL

    Bruno LEVEQUE <bruno.leveque@net6d.com> — 2003-10-20T15:22:03Z

    
Robert Treat wrote:

>On Sat, 2003-10-18 at 09:11, Jean-Michel POURE wrote:
>  
>
>>Dear Jean-Paul,
>>
>>    
>>
>>>Please tell me if my experience can help you in any way, I'd be really
>>>glad in participating your project.
>>>      
>>>
>>Thanks for your proposal, welcome in the team.
>>
>>In short, we plan to port Compiere to PostgreSQL and submit the changes back 
>>to Compiere team. There is no evidence so far that Compiere will accept the 
>>changes as their main developer sells Oracle licenses.
>>
>>At present, the team is:
>>- Vincent Harcq <vha@audaxis.com> for the Java part or Compiere.
>>- Jean-Paul ARGUDO <jpargudo@free.fr> and Jean-Michel Pouré <jm@poure.com> for 
>>the database migration.
>>
>>    
>>
>>>I can offer public CVS, web, etc.. for the project if you want.
>>>      
>>>
>>Thanks. During the week-end, I will set up a first web page and will contact 
>>you back on Monday.
>>
>>In a first time, our goal could be to describe the port in details, so to 
>>convince Compiere community to migrate to PostgreSQL. Without support from 
>>the Compiere community, there can be no port...
>>
>>    
>>
>
>by "community" do you means users or developers? there are certainly
>enough users interested in a postgresql version that i think it would be
>viable to fork it if the compiere developers aren't willing to
>cooperate. certainly would be more work, but if you could get a stable
>version I think it could be successful.  
>
>Robert Treat
>  
>
I'll be happy if I can help you. I test Compiere since june and I asked
compiere what to do in order to port compiere to postgres and never
receive answer. But I think they accept this solution because they have
an old version with postgres and they know somebody running Compiere
with another database (adabas ? DB2 ? I  don't remember)

Bruno

-- 
Bruno LEVEQUE
System Engineer
SARL NET6D
bruno.leveque@net6d.com
http://www.net6d.com

  14. Re: Mapping Oracle types to PostgreSQL

    Josh Berkus <josh@agliodbs.com> — 2003-10-20T17:19:15Z

    Vincent,

> >>In short, we plan to port Compiere to PostgreSQL and submit the changes
> >> back to Compiere team. There is no evidence so far that Compiere will
> >> accept the changes as their main developer sells Oracle licenses.

Please port it.   Compiere's dependence on Oracle has prevented me from 
evaluating it for my clients.   I'll be happy to provide advice/patches down 
the line; I have some experience with accounting databases.

-- 
Josh Berkus
Aglio Database Solutions
San Francisco

  15. Re: [HACKERS] Mapping Oracle types to PostgreSQL types

    Jean-Michel POURE <jm@poure.com> — 2003-10-20T17:28:25Z

    Le Lundi 20 Octobre 2003 17:22, Bruno LEVEQUE a écrit :
> I'll be happy if I can help you. I test Compiere since june and I asked
> compiere what to do in order to port compiere to postgres and never
> receive answer. But I think they accept this solution because they have
> an old version with postgres and they know somebody running Compiere
> with another database (adabas ? DB2 ? I  don't remember)

I received identical remarks from other people. The developer of Compiere 
sells Oracle licenses. Maybe he lives on it... Let's do the port and then we 
will see. 

Bruno, I am adding you to the list of interested people and will publish a web 
page today.

Cheers, Jean-Michel

  16. Re: [HACKERS] Mapping Oracle types to PostgreSQL types

    Bruce Momjian <pgman@candle.pha.pa.us> — 2003-10-21T18:25:56Z

    Jean-Michel POURE wrote:
> Le Lundi 20 Octobre 2003 17:22, Bruno LEVEQUE a ?crit :
> > I'll be happy if I can help you. I test Compiere since june and I asked
> > compiere what to do in order to port compiere to postgres and never
> > receive answer. But I think they accept this solution because they have
> > an old version with postgres and they know somebody running Compiere
> > with another database (adabas ? DB2 ? I ?don't remember)
> 
> I received identical remarks from other people. The developer of Compiere 
> sells Oracle licenses. Maybe he lives on it... Let's do the port and then we 
> will see. 
> 
> Bruno, I am adding you to the list of interested people and will publish a web 
> page today.

My guess is that an appeal to the broader Compiere user community would
sway their thinking.

-- 
  Bruce Momjian                        |  http://candle.pha.pa.us
  pgman@candle.pha.pa.us               |  (610) 359-1001
  +  If your life is a hard drive,     |  13 Roberts Road
  +  Christ can be your backup.        |  Newtown Square, Pennsylvania 19073

  17. Re: [HACKERS] Mapping Oracle types to PostgreSQL

    Justin Clift <justin@postgresql.org> — 2003-10-21T18:56:07Z

    Hi guys,

Jorg Janke (the "main" Compiere person) and I had a brief dicussion last 
year.

Pretty much he asked if PostgreSQL (either the company and/or the 
community) would be interested in _making PostgreSQL compatible with 
Compiere_ or if not, then how about we and _make and maintain_ a fork of 
PostgreSQL that did the right kind of transaction support to work 
Compiere.  The return for doing that would have been for PostgreSQL to 
the be Compiere "default" (recommended) database.

Pointed out to him that it was unlikely to happen from the Community's 
point of view, but if there could be a good case made for it from a 
profitability point of view then it wouldn't hurt to consider it as far 
as a company-done-thing.

For this to occur, we needed statistics of how many end user 
installations of Compiere there are, and then we'd try and use that to 
get a realistic idea of market demand for PostgreSQL and PostgreSQL 
services from that, etc.  (i.e. decent common sense to start with)

Jorg absolutely refused to co-operate.  The only information he was 
willing to provide was to point at the number of downloads.

Suggested to him that it would likely be worth putting some kind of 
"installation" counting measures in places so we could at least get an 
idea of real world terms, but instead he just got offended that the 
download counter wasn't enough.  (and I was *Really* super nice in my 
approach here, trying to suggest getting information that *any* place 
would have found absolutely necessary at a very minimum in order to proceed)

No dice.  Spoke to a few others, and they had the same opinion of that 
situation - *not business practical* (especially with an unfriendly 
requestor).

That being said, if this effort to get Compiere and PostgreSQL working 
does happen successfully, then all the better.

:-)

Regards and best wishes,

Justin Clift



Bruce Momjian wrote:

> Jean-Michel POURE wrote:
> 
>>Le Lundi 20 Octobre 2003 17:22, Bruno LEVEQUE a ?crit :
>>
>>>I'll be happy if I can help you. I test Compiere since june and I asked
>>>compiere what to do in order to port compiere to postgres and never
>>>receive answer. But I think they accept this solution because they have
>>>an old version with postgres and they know somebody running Compiere
>>>with another database (adabas ? DB2 ? I ?don't remember)
>>
>>I received identical remarks from other people. The developer of Compiere 
>>sells Oracle licenses. Maybe he lives on it... Let's do the port and then we 
>>will see. 
>>
>>Bruno, I am adding you to the list of interested people and will publish a web 
>>page today.
> 
> 
> My guess is that an appeal to the broader Compiere user community would
> sway their thinking.
>

  18. Re: [HACKERS] Mapping Oracle types to PostgreSQL types

    Bruce Momjian <pgman@candle.pha.pa.us> — 2003-10-21T19:50:52Z

    Justin Clift wrote:
> Hi guys,
> 
> Jorg Janke (the "main" Compiere person) and I had a brief dicussion last 
> year.
> 
> Pretty much he asked if PostgreSQL (either the company and/or the 
> community) would be interested in _making PostgreSQL compatible with 
> Compiere_ or if not, then how about we and _make and maintain_ a fork of 
> PostgreSQL that did the right kind of transaction support to work 
> Compiere.  The return for doing that would have been for PostgreSQL to 
> the be Compiere "default" (recommended) database.

It is hard to understand that if he is willing to make PostgreSQL the
default for Compiere, why he would refuse to include any changes to
allow Oracle and PostgreSQL to both work.

-- 
  Bruce Momjian                        |  http://candle.pha.pa.us
  pgman@candle.pha.pa.us               |  (610) 359-1001
  +  If your life is a hard drive,     |  13 Roberts Road
  +  Christ can be your backup.        |  Newtown Square, Pennsylvania 19073

  19. Re: [HACKERS] Mapping Oracle types to PostgreSQL

    scott.marlowe <scott.marlowe@ihs.com> — 2003-10-21T20:46:35Z

    On Tue, 21 Oct 2003, Bruce Momjian wrote:

> Justin Clift wrote:
> > Hi guys,
> > 
> > Jorg Janke (the "main" Compiere person) and I had a brief dicussion last 
> > year.
> > 
> > Pretty much he asked if PostgreSQL (either the company and/or the 
> > community) would be interested in _making PostgreSQL compatible with 
> > Compiere_ or if not, then how about we and _make and maintain_ a fork of 
> > PostgreSQL that did the right kind of transaction support to work 
> > Compiere.  The return for doing that would have been for PostgreSQL to 
> > the be Compiere "default" (recommended) database.
> 
> It is hard to understand that if he is willing to make PostgreSQL the
> default for Compiere, why he would refuse to include any changes to
> allow Oracle and PostgreSQL to both work.

But if what he wants is nested transactions, then I could see him paying 
for development providing better ROI than forking the code.  Is that what 
was meant by "the right kind of transaction support" ?

  20. Re: [HACKERS] Mapping Oracle types to PostgreSQL

    Josh Berkus <josh@agliodbs.com> — 2003-10-21T21:00:20Z

    Scott,

> > It is hard to understand that if he is willing to make PostgreSQL the
> > default for Compiere, why he would refuse to include any changes to
> > allow Oracle and PostgreSQL to both work.
> 
> But if what he wants is nested transactions, then I could see him paying 
> for development providing better ROI than forking the code.  Is that what 
> was meant by "the right kind of transaction support" ?

If he wanted nested transactions, and was willing to pay for development, I 
can't imagine us turning him down.  Nested xtn have been on the TODO list for 
years.

-- 
-Josh Berkus
 Aglio Database Solutions
 San Francisco

  21. Re: [HACKERS] Mapping Oracle types to PostgreSQL

    Robert Treat <xzilla@users.sourceforge.net> — 2003-10-21T21:26:29Z

    On Tue, 2003-10-21 at 17:00, Josh Berkus wrote:
> Scott,
> 
> > > It is hard to understand that if he is willing to make PostgreSQL the
> > > default for Compiere, why he would refuse to include any changes to
> > > allow Oracle and PostgreSQL to both work.
> > 
> > But if what he wants is nested transactions, then I could see him paying 
> > for development providing better ROI than forking the code.  Is that what 
> > was meant by "the right kind of transaction support" ?
> 
> If he wanted nested transactions, and was willing to pay for development, I 
> can't imagine us turning him down.  Nested xtn have been on the TODO list for 
> years.
> 

I think his (his being the compiere guy) point was that if someone in
the postgresql community wanted to implement some of the more difficult
features into postgresql that he would make it the default db for
compiere.  however he tried himself to raise funds to make it happen and
he could not, so it's on the postgresql community to make it happen
now.  

The big question as I see it is whether he is willing to make
incremental steps to make compiere more postgresql compatible if it
might hurt the oracle side (the nvarchar2 to varchar data type change is
a good example of this). If he is willing to make these changes then all
is good, if not then istm that a fork would be the likely outcome. 

course, its a lot of speculation and discussion that should probably
happen on the compiere lists, they have discussed this issue before and
would do so again, and as bruce said, getting the compiere community
support is the first step.  

Robert Treat
-- 
Build A Brighter Lamp :: Linux Apache {middleware} PostgreSQL

  22. Re: [HACKERS] Mapping Oracle types to PostgreSQL types

    Bruce Momjian <pgman@candle.pha.pa.us> — 2003-10-21T22:22:52Z

    scott.marlowe wrote:
> On Tue, 21 Oct 2003, Bruce Momjian wrote:
> 
> > Justin Clift wrote:
> > > Hi guys,
> > > 
> > > Jorg Janke (the "main" Compiere person) and I had a brief dicussion last 
> > > year.
> > > 
> > > Pretty much he asked if PostgreSQL (either the company and/or the 
> > > community) would be interested in _making PostgreSQL compatible with 
> > > Compiere_ or if not, then how about we and _make and maintain_ a fork of 
> > > PostgreSQL that did the right kind of transaction support to work 
> > > Compiere.  The return for doing that would have been for PostgreSQL to 
> > > the be Compiere "default" (recommended) database.
> > 
> > It is hard to understand that if he is willing to make PostgreSQL the
> > default for Compiere, why he would refuse to include any changes to
> > allow Oracle and PostgreSQL to both work.
> 
> But if what he wants is nested transactions, then I could see him paying 
> for development providing better ROI than forking the code.  Is that what 
> was meant by "the right kind of transaction support" ?

Oh, that makes complete sense.  You can't really code around the lack of
nested transactions, at least not cleanly.  Let's get nested
transactions and go back to them.

-- 
  Bruce Momjian                        |  http://candle.pha.pa.us
  pgman@candle.pha.pa.us               |  (610) 359-1001
  +  If your life is a hard drive,     |  13 Roberts Road
  +  Christ can be your backup.        |  Newtown Square, Pennsylvania 19073

  23. Re: [HACKERS] Mapping Oracle types to PostgreSQL

    Justin Clift <justin@postgresql.org> — 2003-10-22T00:41:57Z

    Hi Scott,

scott.marlowe wrote:
<snip>
> 
> But if what he wants is nested transactions, then I could see him paying 
> for development providing better ROI than forking the code.  Is that what 
> was meant by "the right kind of transaction support" ?

Yep, that's what was needed.  :-)

Regards and best wishes,

Justin Clift