Class: Metabase

Package of classes that provide DBMS independent access and management of databases.

Currently it features:

o BSD style license.

o Dual API call forms:
* Direct driver class object calls
* Global function calls

o Set of functions that call the selected DBMS driver objects functions supporting when possible:
* Database connection setup with support for connection strings
* Operation error handling
* Query constant data conversion
* Direct queries
* Prepared queries
* Query result rows random access
* Retrieve a limit range of rows of a SELECT query.
* Nested transactions
* Large object fields (BLOBs - storing files in the database)
* Database object creation (tables, indexes, sequences)
* DBMS driver supported feature query

o DBMS Drivers classes that support the most important databases being used on the Web.

o Driver conformance test suite to verify if the driver classes are working and features are properly implemented.

o A parser class that is able to interpret DBMS independent database schemas file defined in a custom XML format supporting the following types of objects:
* Tables with fields of the types: text, integer, boolean, date, time, timestamp, decimal, float, character large objects (CLOBs) and binary large objects (BLOBs), auto-increment.
* Primary keys
* Indexes
* Auto incremented sequences

o A manager class that is able to:
* Install a new database from a schema description interpreted by the parser class.
* Ability to compare a previously installed schema with a new schema and only install the changes without affecting data stored after the previous installation or update.
* Dump database structure and contents in the same XML format handled by the parser allowing for moving data between databases of different DBMS vendors.
* Reverse engineer schemas of already installed databases

If it is used the schema management support, this class is used to parse the XML schema definitions

Database independent abstraction layer used to access many SQL databases

Used by the custom linked select plug-in class that retrieves groups of options from many SQL databases

Database independent abstraction layer used to access many SQL databases

Metastorage is a PHP Object-Relational mapping (ORM) code generator tool. It generates PHP classes of persistent objects that use Metabase API to install the schema and access many types of databases with the same code.

The PHP Classes Repository site uses Metabase to install and access to the database that holds all the information related with classes hosted in the site.

NeoAssist is a suite for providing intelligent help to the users of a site generating automatic answers to questions submitted online. Metabase assured fast deployment of NeoAssist while it allowed to be implemented in a large number of platforms with different types of databases without further effort. This made possible for Vem.Ca, NeoAssist developer company, to sell licenses to a broader market.

Framework for developing full featured Web sites. Metabase was used because of its capability to abstract every database access operation including table creation.

Web interface to manipulate data stored in a database. It uses Metabase to achieve database independence, so it will work with many database systems.

I-Know is the name of technology developed to implement knowledge bases. It was used in the site «É na Net» to implement a service that is able to answer questions about the Internet based on extracts of the book «Estar na Internet».

Obliquid is a PHP and XML based framework for building groupware Web portals. It provides "Lego bricks" that may be composed to build an Internet application. Metabase was chosen after experiencing database portability problems with others database abstraction layers. Metabase is also used also to install the database schema.

Database independent Web hit counter and manager.

phpSecurityAdmin is a package for managing user accounts and access rights. Metabase was used due to its extensive database driver support and its API that is meant to provide portability to the database packages like this.

Wanadoo is an European ISP. Pierre-henri Delaval developed the Informix driver for Metabase when he worked on Wanadoo portal.

Beta version of Metabase source unreleased files

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Mailing list for the development and support for Metabase users

If you are looking for other Metabase drivers that are not available here, go to this page to tell which drivers are you looking for.

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Driver conformance database schema for testing auto-increment fields

Metabase Frequently Asked Questions

Metabase manual in HTML format

Portuguese version of Metabase tutorial in HTML format

Metabase tutorial in HTML format

Driver class conformance test script.

Driver class conformance test database schema description.

Driver class conformance test configuration script.

EditPlus template file for editing Metabase schemas Contribution by Aral Balkan.

EditPlus template file for editing Metabase schemas Contribution by Aral Balkan.

EditPlus template file for editing Metabase schemas Contribution by Aral Balkan.

EditPlus template file for editing Metabase schemas Contribution by Aral Balkan.

Utility script to reverse engineer installed database schemas to Metabase XML definition

BSD style license

Database schema to test large object fields.

Base class for database schema management extensions

Interbase schema management extension class

Informix schema management extension class

Mini-SQL schema management extension class

Microsoft SQL server schema management extension class

MySQL schema manager extension class

Oracle OCI schema management extension class

ODBC schema management extension class

Microsoft Access schema management extension class

PostgreSQL schema management extension class

SQLite schema management extension class

XML style sheet to render database schemas in Metabase XML format contributed by Stefano Locati

DBMS driver base class.

Driver class for Interbase contributed by Meir kriheli

Driver class for Informix contributed by Pierre-henri Delaval

Database interface function library

Large object fields handler classes

Database manager class.

Driver class for Mini-SQL

Driver class for Microsoft SQL server

Driver class for MySQL

Driver class for Oracle using the OCI

Driver class for ODBC

Microsoft Access driver class via ODBC contributed by Svemir Brkic

Schema definition parser class.

Driver class for PostgreSQL

SQLite flat file database API driver contributed by Jeroen Derks

Template driver class.

Test database setup script.

Test database schema definition in Metabase XML format