Re: SQL server application porting headache

Curt Sampson wrote:
> On Sun, 23 Jun 2002, Oskar Berggren wrote:
>
>
>>Thanks for your research! I appreciate it. Now at least I know why it
>>is like it is. Perhaps this is sufficient argument to get them to
>>correct their queries.
>
>
> Well, my research may be indicating that they are doing their queries
> this "stupid" way for a very good reason: they can't do them the correct
> way. (Well, they could probably use [] instead of "" in the WHERE
> clause, but that's hardly compatable with postgres!)

True. What I meant was for them to correct their queries in such a
way as to always use the correct capitalization. If you combine
that with a slightly hacked Postgres that is case sensitive even when
not using qoutes (which I hope won't have any bad unexpected side
effects) it Should(TM) work.

But now another idea comes to mind... Would it be hard to make the
parser recognize [] in the same way as ""? That way you don't have
to meddle with the case sensitivity. But it still require modification
of all the queries.

> The correct solution is probably not to use mixed-case (or any-case)
> table names, so that no quoting is necessary. And I have a funny feeling
> I know what your developers are going to say when you ask them to change
> all of their table names....

The problem is even bigger; the developers aren't mine. This is software
from another company and I'm afraid they will say exactly what you
think they will say.

>
> BTW, I've asked the Windows admin at my company if we don't happen to
> have a copy of SQL Server kicking around, and maybe a server we could
> install it on. If that is the case, I'll have no problem doing more
> playing like this. If not, it's a bit tough, since I lose all access to
> e-mail and everything when I boot up windows on my machine.

I'm getting ready to give up and recommend to my bosses that we hire
a consultant to run the darn thing on Windows and SQL Server. Which
I suppose means that Microsoft has succeeded with their little strange
case-sensitivity trick. Anyway, I will talk to the head developer
at the company that made the application tomorrow and we'll see what
happens.

regards,
Oskar

--
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| Oskar Berggren beo(at)sgs(dot)studenthem(dot)gu(dot)se |
| Network and Software Engineer SGS Datanätgrupp |
| Gothenburg, Sweden |
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