On Wed, 14 Jul 1999, Peter Lister wrote:
> Before PH devotes any time to specific DB engine hooks,
In the Grand Scheme of Things, it actually takes very little time,
especially when somebody starts me off with a patch.
> I suggest that PH's first pass SQL lookups in Exim is a "turbo alias file"
> - i.e. no SQL visible in the Exim config itself, just "if you provide DB
> tables that looks like this, Exim does the right thing", just like "if you
> provide a text file in this aliasfile format, Exim does the right thing".
That is of course more work for me, since I have then to invent some
syntax for the query, and parse it and turn it into SQL. Just passing
the caller's SQL straight through is very simple! Also, I know that the
people wanting to use SQL want to look up lots of other things than just
aliases. I would be continually pestered for enhancements, I fear, and
one thing I do not want to have to do is become an SQL expert.
> NB1 - just read Malcolm Beattie's coment on DBI; I second his warnings -
> think hard before making SQL visible at this sort of level or releasing
> something which will be treated as an API.
Has my response made it to the list yet? I commented that we already
have NIS+ and LDAP in Exim. MYSQL is just another similar thing. Easily
added. (And heck, we made Perl visible. :-)
> NB2 - anyone considered delivery into a DBMS (cf /var/spool/mail), while
> we're here? An IMAP / Web client or something is required, I know, anyone
> seen anything like this? Again, I'm thinking in terms of bug tracking.
If you don't want to do it via a pipe, a new transport could be written,
and plugged in just as new lookup types can be plugged in.
--
Philip Hazel University of Cambridge Computing Service,
ph10@??? Cambridge, England. Phone: +44 1223 334714.
