Re: [users] BOOLEAN field in Database

On Tue, 2005-09-13 at 10:02 -0700, James E. Lang wrote:
> Dale Erwin wrote at 13:12 on 12 Sep 2005:
> 
> > James E. Lang wrote:
> > > Oh, dear!
> > > 
> > > I just read elsewhere that OOo does not include a database engine but rather
> > > that OOo uses a standard interface to an external database engine. I was
> > > assuming that there was a database engine within OOo. This probably explains
> > > my problem in that I have not first configured OOo to use an external database
> > > engine.  
> > 
> > OpenOffice.org 1.x.x does not include a database engine, but in
> > OOo 2.0 (still in beta, but stable) there is a database engine
> > integrated into it, even though it was not developed by the
> > OOo team.  It is HSQLDB.  Its integration into OOo was done by
> > a joint effort of the OOo team and the HSQL team.
> > 
> >     <http://hsqldb.org>
> 
> Thank you for this information. It is good to know.
> 
> Unfortunately the response I received on the Help forum for HSQLDB said, "We do 
> not deal with the user interface of OOo." This leaves me with my initial 
> problem of being unable to reliably set the default value for BOOLEAN fields to 
> be Yes (TRUE). It was suggested that I try the SQL command SCRIPT 'logfile' 
> which showed me that there is no DEFAULT clause in the definitions. I suspect 
> that the problem is *not* caused by HSQLDB though I have posted this 
> information there as well.
> 
> I wish I could state that the result is consistent since that would make it 
> much easier to track down the fault. Usually the default value for these fields 
> reverts to No (FALSE). Sometimes the length attribute of these fields changes 
> to zero (0). On rare occasions these field definitions have been as I intended 
> them to be. The database that I'm creating will have ten tables with up to 
> seven BOOLEAN fields in a single table. Most of the BOOLEAN fields need to 
> default to Yes (TRUE).
> 
> > > Where can I find information about how to configure OOo to make use of a
> > > database package? I am just getting started designing and building my first
> > > database application which is for my personal use.
> > 
> > If you are going to build your application in OOo, I see no reason
> > why you couldn't use OOo2.0beta2 and its integrated HSQLDB.  Many
> > DBMSs were evaluated for this project and HSQLDB was chosen for
> > its superior performance.  Even though it is written in Java, it
> > outperformed Mysql, PostgreSQL, and several others.  I have used
> > it in several Java applications I have written, and it is really
> > lightning fast.
> 
> I'm sorry. I thought I stated in the original post that I am trying to use OOo 
> version 1.9.125 (OOo v2.0 Beta2).
> 
> I might add that I have experienced other quirks in the process of creating my 
> tables with descriptions vanishing or field order being scrambled but this is 
> the only one that I have found that I cannot work around and that, IMO, has an 
> impact on the usage of the database.
> 
> Am I by any chance one of the first to try to create a database using this 
> internal engine? I'm guessing that creation of a BOOLEAN field with a default 
> value may not yet have been tested by any official test script. If that is the 
> case then I suppose I should be reporting my problem in some other manner to 
> bring it to the attention of the developers/testers but I don't know how to 
> properly do that.
> 

Boy are you getting in deep. I will bet you will get a better answer by
asking on the dba.openoffice.org mailing lists. I have taken the liberty
of forwarding this message to [email protected] so they may help
you to resolve this.
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