DBAPI or DBI or something else?

[ViralBShah]

#1 discusses DBI. I thought it is best to open a new issue. DBAPI.jl is looking quite good, and there seems to be general agreement on following the lead of python. We now have a fair number of database drivers in JuliaDB, and it seems that with a little bit of effort, we can take our database support to the next level.

[iamed2]

Thanks :)

I'm currently working on a PostgreSQL.jl complete revamp and migration to the DBAPI.jl interface. I planned on pushing for DBAPI.jl once that was in place. I'm still making some small changes to DBAPI.jl as I develop PostgreSQL.jl.

[ViralBShah]

I believe @nkottary is working on a couple other migrations to DBAPI.jl, which is why I figured this discussion is best started.

[iamed2]

Exciting! :) I did not know.

[datnamer]

Any thoughts on a dataframe/table front end to replace the current dataframe?

Or would this be another level of abstraction higher than DBAPI?

[iamed2]

@datnamer I would think it would be higher. With the fetchinto methods in DBAPI.jl it's easy to get results in a DataFrame or Table structure. I'm planning to make DBAPI available as a DataSource in @quinnj's new framework so his work on table-like structures should be usable with DBAPI.

[datnamer]

Cool. Would this be a view into the original database or something like another Julia native data structure like an array?

[iamed2]

Both are definitely possible. The latter is essentially implemented. We have some experimental work going on at invenia/DataViews.jl for the former (essentially a view+cache) but it is definitely experimental at this point.

[TheOnlySilverClaw]

Erm...I'm currently trying to understand how to use databases with Julia and I'm a bit confused. Looking at the more active projects, there are at least two APIs (DBI und DBAPI). SQLite.jl and MySQL.jl do not mention whether they implements any of those, PostgreSQL.jl seems to implement DBI, but is in 'maintenance mode' and ODBC.jl is a completely different standard and I guess not yet compatible with DBI or DBAPI.
So, what are people actually using nowadays and is there any progress regarding a common API?

[iamed2]

As far as I know, no one is working on a common database interface. ODBC is probably your best best as it supports a bunch of databases and fits into the DataStreams framework.

[quinnj]

Here's my understanding (as the author of the SQLite.jl and ODBC.jl packages):

• ODBC.jl is kind of it's own DBAPI of sorts, since it works with any DB, as long as you have the ODBC driver for the DB installed, along with the ODBC admin program itself
• ODBC.jl and SQLite.jl currently implement the DataStreams.jl framework, allowing them to seemlessly transfer data to and from other DataStream packages (CSV.jl, Feather.jl, DataFrames.jl, etc.). Both packages are actively maintained

I think it'd be great to come up with an actual DBAPI that packages could code against, but there hasn't been a lot of effort here for a while. It's on my radar, but I have other pressing interests for the moment (i.e. webstack).