Message-ID: <3F1C1192.5000205@cybertec.at>
Date: Mon, 21 Jul 2003 18:15:14 +0200
From: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Hans-J=FCrgen_Sch=F6nig?= <hs@cybertec.at>
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To: Joe Conway <mail@joeconway.com>
Cc: Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>, Bruce Momjian <pgman@candle.pha.pa.us>,
	Peter Eisentraut <peter_e@gmx.net>,
	=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Hans-J=FCrgen_Sch=F6?= =?ISO-8859-1?Q?nig?=
	<postgres@cybertec.at>, pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org, EG <EG@cybertec.at>
Subject: Re: dblink_ora - a first shot on Oracle ...
References: <200307211339.h6LDdTR00206@candle.pha.pa.us>
	<4455.1058796993@sss.pgh.pa.us> <3F1BFD36.70200@joeconway.com>
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> I think for that very reason (SQL-MED) we need to come to terms with 
> this issue. If/when connections to external data sources is in the 
> backend, you'll have those exact same dependencies. And in fact, we do 
> today: consider '--with-openssl' or '--with-tcl'.
> 
> I had always assumed we would need '--with-oracle', '--with-jdbc',  etc 
> (or whatever you want to call them) to support backend connections to 
> external sources. And this discussion is the very reason I was hesitant 
> to pursue dblink_ora or jdbclink now, because I didn't think people 
> would be comfortable with configure options to support a contrib library.
> 
> Joe

If dblink was a core module I would say that adding the configure stuff 
would be very natural. Since this is contrib stuff I was not that sure 
about configure anymore. We will need additional flags for external data 
sources in the (hopefully) near future so I think we should add it.

Personally I tend to think about a solution like that. dblink has a 
great future and many people simply love it (I cannot think of a 
customer who does not like it - it is a killer feature):

- implement the concepts proposed by Joe on this list yesterday (I am 
talking about the functions dblink should provide)
- add support to configure
- merge dblink with dblink_ora as soon as the changes are ready
- adapt jdbc_link and merge it with dblink
- implement dblink_db2, dblink_csv, dblink_xml, and maybe some others
- leave it in contrib because this way it will be shipped with the core 
distribution and people will use it more frequently

I hope that I will finish the Oracle stuff (named connections, ...) 
within the next 3 days.

	Regards,

		Hans


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