Postgres port

[Ivan Kohler]

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On Fri, 27 Mar 1998, News Subsystem wrote:

> Greetings,
> 
> 	I am still working on the PostreSQL port.  It is going pretty 
> well, but I am having a few problems.  To try and fix these, I have a 
> couple of quick questions:
> 
>     1)	Does MySQL null-terminate strings in the database?

I don't know.  If so, it doesn't seem to be visable through DBI.

>     2)	Is there a reason you used char(255) so much?

False Laziness.  It really needs a good cleaning.

>     3)	Do you like your current layout?

In general.  Not everything is perfect.

> Reasons:
>     1)	I assume the edit/cust_main.cgi script works on your machine 8),
> 	it does NOT on mine.  I mean, it runs okay, but since county is 
> 	char(120) in cust_main_county and char(255) in cust_main, the
> 	string comparison fails, so my State/County changes to taxnum 1
> 	each time I update customer information.  I have fixed this by
> 	adding 'unpack("A120", ...)' calls in the edit/*.cgi files whenever
> 	this bytes me.  Trimming is not always guaranteed in SQL I believe.

Yes, I'll make sure to make these are the same in 1.0.1.

>     2)	You have a LOT of char(255)'s in the databases.  This makes the 
> 	records much larger than they could be and probably hampers the
> 	performance of the system.  I checked, and there are 8 fields in 
> 	cust_main that are char(255).  In my experience, it is not 
> 	necesarry to allow names/addresses to be that large, usually a 
> 	char(30) or char(40) is sufficient.

I agree.

>     3)	Okay, I know this is picking a nit, but some of your layouts are 
> 	VERY vertical.  I have about 40 packages defined at present in my 
> 	test database, and it takes several page downs to get to the 
> 	submit button.  I have made changes in my version to convert 
> 	these to tables, which are 2 or 3 columns wide.

I think that make the CGI stuff more visually appealing is in the TODO
somewhere.  :)

> 
> Well, that is it, you can now proceed to tell me to go to .... ;-}

...fix some of the problems you noted above and contribute the fixes back
into the source tree?  ;-)

- -- 
Ivan Kohler <ivan at sisd.com> - finger for PGP key
Silicon Interactive Software Design - http://www.sisd.com/
"I want to go on a mountain-top / with a radio and good batteries
 play a joyous tune / and free the whole human race from suffering" -Bjork

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