Forum OpenACS Q&A: Re: Problem Installing The Jabber Package

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Posted by Nima Mazloumi on
Bjoern, is there already a postgres port for your jabber package? If not, how difficult do you think could it be? If it is not too difficult I would like to help in porting it.
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Posted by Tom Ayles on
I've had a (casual) look through the code for this. In terms of the OpenACS part of the package, porting to PostgreSQL would be as easy as for any other package, i.e. a little tedious but not hard. Oracle to PostgreSQL is generally easier than the other direction, IMO.

What could be tricky is removing database-dependence from queries in the C code. Generally, access is done via PL/SQL accessors, however PL/SQL blocks in Oracle are different to those in PostgreSQL (at least from within OpenACS, PostgreSQL db_exec_plsql blocks are really functions that get executed with a select statement, and so have to have a return value), so this would raise an issue. Making it run on PostgreSQL _instead_ of Oracle would be comparatively easy, database independence would be hard (but maybe a fun problem to crack 😊).

If I decide to go ahead with using this package for my current project, I think it quite likely that I'd need to port to PostgreSQL, so I'll try and keep the community informed to avoid duplication of effort.

Nima

This is where I was coming from when I ran into the problem which started this thread. I wanted to get it installed and try porting it to pg. Unfortunately, events overtook me and I never managed to progress it very far - although I did get the  jabber module compiled and installed 😊.

From what I remember there isn't much to convert in the sql. Its mostly tables, selects and calls to existing acs functions. I was fairly confident at being able to convert it and my exposure to Oracle is minimal.

    - Steve