On Wed, Feb 26, 2003 at 08:58:43AM -0800, Chris Shiflett wrote:
> --- David Banning <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > The company I am working with is using an old database, which 
> > doesn't even support memo field beyond 256 characters, so it is probably
> > too difficult, and not worth trying to interface the database with php.
> > 
> > I was wondering how easy it would be to have php access the database
> > via SQL. The data we are looking for is accessible via SQL.
> 
> I think you are confused about what SQL is.
> What you need to access a database is some sort of library (driver) that
> translates your SQL statements into something specific to the database you are
> interacting with.

I may be confusing -some- terms, but I know my system. In my case,
I have a program, which is called SQL and -also- a language, which is 
also called SQL. I just put the SQL query in a file, and then execute
the SQL query file with the SQL program. Like I mentioned, like this;

$ SQL sqlqueryfile

and the result spools to the screen.

None of this matters to the question I ask, I see now, in hindsite.
What I really want to ask is, is it possible for php to execute a shell
command, and then have the results of that command be read by php,
decoded, separated and displayed as separate fields?

The result of my command;
$ SQL sqlqueryfile

might simply be

"Frank"   |100.00   |1
"John"    |145.00   |2
"Dave"    |321.56   |3

If php executed a command that normally send this result to the screen,
could php read the result and display each field as separate entities?

> For performance, you always want to try to use a native driver, but in your
> case, you might be restricted to something like ODBC. SQL is just a query
> language.

This database predates ODBC by many years.

thanks for your response -

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