Re: Supporting non-free SQL clients in ob-sql (was: [PATCH] ob-sql: Add support for Athena)

[Tim Cross]

Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> writes:

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> [[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies,     ]]]
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>
>   > > Would someone please tell me more concretely what kind of "support"
>   > > this is?
>
>   > You can find interactive support in `sql' library, functions such as:
>
>   > M-x sql-oracle 
>
>   > which supports proprietary Oracle Database:
>
> This raises two questions.
>
> 1. For this purpose, what kind of thing is "the Oracle Database"?
> a. A library to link with?
> b. A program to run in a subprocess?
> c. A server running SaaSS?
>

None of the above!

Richard,

to be very clear, ob-sql is not adding any NEW interface to any external
program. It is just using the Emacs built-in SQL library (Elisp), which
has been part of Emacs for a long time (I was using it in late 90s to
work with Oracle RDMS). It is this library that provides the 'support'
for things like Oracle's RDMS. If you want more specific information,
ask on emacs-devel. Org mode is just using this built-in library.

The Oracle database is simply a relational database management system in
the same way as Postgres, MySQL, Ingris, MS-Sql server etc. All of these
have a CLI client and support connections via JDBC. The sql.el library
provides specialised comint based interfaces which run the CLI to
communicate with the RDMS. The closest of your 3 choices is b, as the
build-in Emacs sql library executes the RDMS CLI in a sub-process comint
buffer.