The mailing list for listmasters using Sympa

[Miles Fidelman <address@concealed>]

On Mon, 29 Dec 2003 address@concealed wrote:

> I am really confused, some people told that SYMPA only works with
> these 4 Types of Databses (MYSQL, SYBASE, ORACLE, POSTGRESQL)

The documented answer is that you can use ONLY the above four databases
using an "out-of-the-box" installation.

> others told me that SYMPA can work with Microsoft SQL, (using ODBC)

As one person mentioned, Microsoft SQL is based on SYBASE (I can't vouch
for the accuracy of that).  As I mentioned, I THINK that Microsoft SQL
will talk ODBC (ODBC is basically built around Microsoft software).

> what is the correct thing ? and how can i use the ODBC to connect to
> my MicrosoftSQL (if it is ok and SYMPA can work with ODBC and
> MicrosoftSQL)

The answer is that you MIGHT be able to make them work together, but
you'll probably have to work at it a bit - and it helps a lot if you can
read and play with the Sympa code.  (Note: I've found that even to get a
routine Sympa installation going, it sometimes helps to look through the
code to understand how some of the less-well-documented features work.)

Since Sympa uses the perl DBD modules to talk to databases, and since you
can find a perl DBD module to support ODBC, you just might be able to make
Sympa work with Microsoft SQL with minimal tweaking.  But you'll need to
figure out how the various modules plug together, set up the database
configuration to make things work, and probably tweak a line or two of
code.

If I were trying to make it all work, and based on what I've read on the
list, I'd start by:

1. installing the ODBD DBD module
2. configuring Sympa to use Sybase
3. finding the line(s) of code that select which DBD module to use and
then tweaking the code so that it uses the ODBD module instead of the
Sybase module
4. expecting to do a lot of debugging

Which still leaves the hassle of loading the initial data structures into
Microsoft SQL (Sympa comes with setup code for the four supported
databases, but not for Microsoft SQL.

----
All in all, since you obviously have root access to install Sympa, I'd
install mysql and be done with it (along with a backup scheme).

If you have data in Microsoft SQL that you need to access, Sympa has hooks
for querying external databases that you may be able to use.  You'd still
need mysql, for Sympa's own data structures.


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