Link to home
Start Free TrialLog in
Avatar of Steve Wales
Steve WalesFlag for United States of America

asked on

Database options for Delphi hobbyist ?

Years ago, I  used to develop freeware programs using Delphi 5 for hobby / gaming use - little assorted database programs that stored assorted information about whatever hobby I had going at the time.

I'd write the program using Delphi 5 Professional and stored the data in Paradox tables.  When someone else wanted the program, they could install the BDE and download the program and data files and be away.

I bought a copy of Delphi XE3 a little while back and have thought about delving into this again - updating some of my old programs just for the sake of learning with the updated tools.

I want to be able to use standard SQL to query the database.

From the point of view of ease of redistribution (I know a few people who would use updated versions of the programs if I ever got around to updating them), what's the easiest DB software to deal with  ?  If someone wanted to play with the updated program, what's the easiest solution for someone else to install so they could use the program ?

The version of XE3 I have supports ODBC (and I think it even has support for some other databases, I think the version of XE3 I have is Enterprise or Ultimate, I'd have to check what it was I bought).

Have not toyed with Dephi much in years (still have Delphi 5 installed and when I need a quick programmatic solution for a problem I still use it) but figured I should use the newer version I went to all the trouble of buying rather than sticking with the old one :)

Thanks in advance for sharing your experiences.
ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION
Avatar of Geert G
Geert G
Flag of Belgium image

Link to home
membership
This solution is only available to members.
To access this solution, you must be a member of Experts Exchange.
Start Free Trial
SOLUTION
Link to home
membership
This solution is only available to members.
To access this solution, you must be a member of Experts Exchange.
Start Free Trial
Avatar of Steve Wales

ASKER

Definitely no commercial usage - and as an Oracle professional, Oracle XE is certainly appealing personally, but installation and configuration of Oracle for someone else to use and maintain is probably more trouble than it's worth.

I will definitely look into the other three options presented though.  Thanks!
Actually, I will throw one other question out related to this.

Do any of the above offer the equivalent to a formatted memo that Paradox had ?  One of the columns in the application I plan on trying to upgrade contained bolded or italicized text at times.
You can store large strings in a Text or nText column in Firebird.  If you limit the length below that, you have a few more variable length character fields from which to choose.  You can store HTML in the field and render the formatted text in a tHTMLviewer component (or equivalent).
SOLUTION
Link to home
membership
This solution is only available to members.
To access this solution, you must be a member of Experts Exchange.
Start Free Trial
formatted memo ?

i use synedit to display formatted text, the database in this case doesn't matter
http://sourceforge.net/projects/synedit/
I've been using embedded Firebird in my hobby project www.PictoSelector.eu and that works great. The nice thing of firebird embedded is that it can also connect to a server, which makes it very flexible. Most of my users are parents and not aware that they are using a database except for a few system administrators which have installed it in schools and other institutions.
I'm using Unified InterBase to talk to firebird: http://sourceforge.net/projects/uib/
SOLUTION
Link to home
membership
This solution is only available to members.
To access this solution, you must be a member of Experts Exchange.
Start Free Trial
SOLUTION
Link to home
membership
This solution is only available to members.
To access this solution, you must be a member of Experts Exchange.
Start Free Trial
Thanks for all for the input.  Started playing with SQLite.  We'll see how that goes.