SQL::Statement::Embed - embed a SQL engine in a DBD or module

SQL::Statement is designed to be easy to embed in other modules and to be especially easy to embed in DBI drivers. It provides a SQL Engine and the other module needs to then provide a data source and a storage mechanism. For example, the DBD::CSV module uses SQL::Statement as an embedded SQL engine by implementing a file-based data source and by using DBI as the user interface. Similarly DBD::Amazon uses SQL::Statement as its SQL engine, provides its own extensions to the supported SQL syntax, and uses on-the-fly searches of Amazon.com as its data source.

SQL::Statement is the basis for eight existing DBDs (DBI database drivers). If you have a new data source, you too can create a DBD without having to reinvent the SQL wheel. It's fun, it's easy, become a DBD author today!

SQL::Statement can be also be embedded without DBI. We'll explore that first since developing a DBD uses most of the same methods and techniques.

SQL::Statement provides a SQL parsing and execution engine. It does not provide a data source or storage mechanism other than in-memory tables. The DBD::File module is a subclass of SQL::Statement that provides access to file-based storage mechanisms. It's quite possible to use things other than files as data souces, in which case we wouldn't use DBD::File, instead we'd replace DBD::File's methods with our own. In the examples below, we'll use DBD::File, replacing only a few methods.

SQL::Statement provides SQL parsing and evaluation and DBD::File provides file-based storage. The only thing missing is a data source - what we actually want to store and query. As an example suppose we are going to create a subclass called 'Foo' that will provide as a data source a simple file similar to a passwd file - one record per line, fields separated by colons, with only three fields username, uid, gid.

Consider what needs to happen to perform a SELECT query on our 'Foo' data:

 * recieve a SQL string
 * parse the SQL string into a request structure
 * open the table(s) specified in the request
 * define column names and postions for the table
 * read rows from the table
 * convert the rows from colon-separated format into perl arrays
 * match the columns and rows against the requested selection criteria
 * return requested rows and columns to the user

To perform operations like INSERT and DELETE, we also need to:

 * convert rows from perl arrays into colon-separated format
 * write rows
 * delete rows

SQL::Statement takes care of all of the SQL parsing and evaluation. DBD::File takes care of file opening, reading, writing, and deleting. So the only things 'Foo' is really responsible for are:

 * define column names and postions for the table
 * convert rows from colon-separated format into perl arrays
 * convert rows from perl arrays into colon-separated format

In SQL::Statement subclasses these responsibilities are assigned to two objects, a ::Statement object is responsible for opening the table, defining the column names and positions, and for creating new ::Table objects. A ::Table object is responsible for reading, converting, writing, and deleting data.

A subclass of SQL::Statement must provide at least one method called open_table(). The method should open a new Table object and define the table's columns. For our 'Foo' module, here's the complete object definition:

 package Foo;

 package Foo::Statement;
 use DBD::File;
 use base qw(DBD::File::Statement);

 sub open_table {
     my $self = shift @_;
     my $data = shift @_;
     $data->{Database}->{f_dir} = './';
     my $tbl  = $self->SUPER::open_table($data,@_);
     $tbl->{col_names} = [qw(username uid gid)];
     $tbl->{col_nums}  = {username=>0,uid=>1,gid=>2};
     return $tbl;
 }

Since 'Foo' is a file-based data source, we subclass SQL::Statement indirectly through DBD::File::Statement. The open_table() method lets DBD::File do the actual table opening. All we do is define the files directory (f_dir) and the names of the columns (col_names) and the positions of the columns (col_nums). DBD::File creates and returns a CW$tbl object. It names that object according to the module that calls it, so in our case the object will be a Foo::Table object.

Table objects are responsible for reading, converting, writing, and deleting data. Since DBD::File provides most of those services, our 'Foo' subclass only needs to deinfe three methods - fetch_row() to read data, push_row() to write data, and push_names() to store column names. We'll leave deleting to DBD::File, since deleting a record in the 'Foo' format is the same process as deleting a record in any other simple file-based format. Here is the complete object defintion:

 package Foo::Table;
 use base qw(DBD::File::Table);

 sub fetch_row {
    my($self, $data) = @_;
    my $fieldstr = $self->{fh}->getline;
    return undef unless $fieldstr;
    chomp $fieldstr;
    my @fields   = split /:/,$fieldstr;
    $self->{row} = (@fields ? \@fields : undef);
 }
 sub push_row {
    my($self, $data, $fields) = @_;
    my $str = join ':', map { defined $_ ? $_ : '' } @$fields;
    $self->{fh}->print( $str."\n");
    1;
 }
 sub push_names {}
 1;

The fetch_row() method uses DBD::File's getline() method to physically read a row of data, then we convert it from native colon-separated format into a perl perl arrayref.

The push_row() method converts from a perl arrayref back to colon-separated format, then uses DBD::File's print() method to print it to file.

The push_names method does nothing. That's because it's purpose is to store column names in a file. But in our 'Foo' subclass, we are defining the column names ourselves, not storing them in a file, so we don't need push_names to actually do anything.

Here's a script which should create and query a file in our 'Foo' format. It assumes you have saved the Foo, Foo::Statement, and Foo::Table classes shown above into a file called Foo.pm.

 #!perl -w
 use strict;
 use Foo;
 my $parser = SQL::Parser->new();
 $parser->{RaiseError}=1;
 $parser->{PrintError}=0;
 for my $sql(split /\n/,
 "  DROP TABLE IF EXISTS group_id
    CREATE TABLE group_id (username CHAR,uid INT, gid INT)
    INSERT INTO group_id VALUES('joe',1,1)
    INSERT INTO group_id VALUES('sue',2,1)
    INSERT INTO group_id VALUES('bob',3,2)
    SELECT * FROM group_id             "
 ){
    my $stmt = Foo::Statement->new($sql,$parser);
    $stmt->execute;
    next unless $stmt->command eq 'SELECT';
    while (my $row=$stmt->fetch) {
        print "@$row\n";
    }
 }

This is the same script as shown in the section on executing and fetching in SQL::Statement::Structure except that instead of SQL::Statement->new(), we are using Foo::Statement->new(). The other difference is that the execute/fetch example was using in-memory storage while this script is using file-based storage and the 'Foo' format we defined. When you run this script, you will be creating a file called group_id and it will contain the specified data in colon-separated format.

A DBD based on SQL::Statement uses the same two subclasses that are shown above. They would be called DBD::Foo::Statement and DBD::Foo::Table, but would otherwise be identical to the non-DBD subclass illustrated above. To turn it into a full DBD, you'd have to sublass DBD::File, DBD::File::dr, DBD::File::db, and DBD::File::st. In many cases a simple sublcass with few or no methods overridden is sufficient.

Here is a working DBD::Foo:

 package DBD::Foo;
 use base qw(DBD::File);

 package DBD::Foo::dr;
 $DBD::Foo::dr::imp_data_size = 0;
 use base qw(DBD::File::dr);

 package DBD::Foo::db;
 $DBD::Foo::db::imp_data_size = 0;
 use base qw(DBD::File::db);

 package DBD::Foo::st;
 $DBD::Foo::st::imp_data_size = 0;
 use base qw(DBD::File::st);

 package DBD::Foo::Statement;
 use base qw(DBD::File::Statement);

 sub open_table {
     my $self = shift @_;
     my $data = shift @_;
     $data->{Database}->{f_dir} = './';
     my $tbl  = $self->SUPER::open_table($data,@_);
     $tbl->{col_names} = [qw(username uid gid)];
     $tbl->{col_nums}  = {username=>0,uid=>1,gid=>2};
     return $tbl;
 }

 package DBD::Foo::Table;
 use base qw(DBD::File::Table);

 sub fetch_row {
    my($self, $data) = @_;
    my $fieldstr = $self->{fh}->getline;
    return undef unless $fieldstr;
    chomp $fieldstr;
    my @fields   = split /:/,$fieldstr;
    $self->{row} = (@fields ? \@fields : undef);
 }
 sub push_row {
     my($self, $data, $fields) = @_;
     my $str = join ':', map { defined $_ ? $_ : '' } @$fields;
     $self->{fh}->print( $str."\n");
     1;
 }
 sub push_names {}
 1;

Assuming you saved the DBD::Foo shown above as a file called Foo.pm in a directory called DBD, this script will work, so will most other DBI methods such as selectall_arrayref, fetchrow_hashref, etc.

 #!perl -w
 use strict;
 use lib qw(/home/jeff/data/module/lib); # or wherever you stored DBD::Foo
 use DBI;
 my $dbh=DBI->connect('dbi:Foo:');
 $dbh->{RaiseError}=1;
 $dbh->{PrintError}=0;
 for my $sql(split /\n/,
 "  DROP TABLE IF EXISTS group_id
    CREATE TABLE group_id (username CHAR,uid INT, gid INT)
    INSERT INTO group_id VALUES('joe',1,1)
    INSERT INTO group_id VALUES('sue',2,1)
    INSERT INTO group_id VALUES('bob',3,2)
    SELECT * FROM group_id             "
 ){
    my $stmt = $dbh->prepare($sql);
    $stmt->execute;
    next unless $stmt->{NUM_OF_FIELDS};
    while (my $row=$stmt->fetch) {
        print "@$row\n";
    }
 }

Now that we have a basic DBD operational, there are several directions for expansion. In the first place, we might want to override some or all of DBD::File::Table to provide alternate means of reading, writing, and deleting from our data source. We might want to override the open_table() method to provide a different means of identifying column names (e.g. reading them from the file itself) or to provide other kinds of metadata. See SQL::Eval for documentation of the API for ::Table objects and see DBD::File for an example subclass.

We might want to create extensions to the SQL syntax specific to our DBD. See the section on extending SQL syntax in SQL::Statement::Syntax.

We might want to provide a completely different kind of data source. See DBD::DBM (whose source code includes documentation on subclassing SQL::Statement and DBD::File), and other DBD::File subclasses such as DBD::CSV.

We might also want to provide a completely differernt storage mechanism, something not based on files at all. See DBD::Amazon and DBD::AnyData.

And we will almost certainly want to fine-tune the DBI interface, see DBI::DBD.

The dbi-devATperl.org mailing list should be your first stop in creating a new DBD. Tim Bunce, the author of DBI and many DBD authors hang out there. Tell us what you are planning and we'll offer suggestions about similar modules or other people working on similar issues, or on how to proceed.

Copyright (c) 2005, Jeff Zucker <jzuckerATcpan.org>, all rights reserved.

This document may be freely modified and distributed under the same terms as Perl itself.