[support] Seeking Advice on Integrating drupal

[Larry Garfield]

On Tuesday 27 May 2008, Earnie Boyd wrote:
> Quoting "Christopher M. Jones" <cjones at partialflow.com>:
> > Very helpful. Thank you. In view of the fact that precisely what we're
> > looking to avoid is the cost of creating a new engine, what about other
> > solutions? We like Drupal. And if the tweaks we need were simple we'd
> > love to contribute. But if that's just not realistic, then what about
> > eCommerce? I steered clear of it, because reviews of it seemed a bit
> > luke warm. And then there's Zen Cart, which I can't really get a good
> > feeling for, since they seem to have removed their documentation so you
> > have to buy their book. That doesn't give me a lot of confidence.
> >
> > Suggestions?
>
> If it were me, I would create a Drupal DB engine for mssql for the
> version you wish to use.  I would use Ubercart with changes for the
> product data you need.  It is possible to have multiple DB within the
> settings.php file so the missing parts are the mssql support within the
> Drupal DB engines.  Edison Wong has a SF project[1] where he is working
> on supporting more DB engines with Drupal and perhaps you can use his
> work for the mssql Drupal DB engine.
>
> [1] http://sourceforge.net/projects/siren/
>
> Earnie -- http://for-my-kids.com/
> -- http://give-me-an-offer.com/

Drupal currently cannot connect to more than one database type at a time;  All 
databases must be either MySQL or PostgreSQL.  While one could write an MS 
SQL driver for Drupal's current database implementation, there's no guarantee 
that it would work with the vast array of contrib modules out there; in fact, 
odds are against you.  MS SQL, because AFAIK it doesn't require any 
additional field handling, is one of the few that are even possible to think 
about.  You would have to move the entire Drupal system over to MS SQL, 
though.

Siren is of no use in practice, because it makes far-reaching changes to the 
syntax of every single query, changes that no contrib module has or will ever 
implement.

The database layer is being gutted and rewritten for Drupal 7 to address many 
of these issues; I know that won't help you now, but we are aware of 
them. :-)

-- 
Larry Garfield			AIM: LOLG42
larry at garfieldtech.com		ICQ: 6817012

"If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of 
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