[development] Database schema abstraction and *reflection* (was: Referential integrity -- finally?)

[FGM]

When doing a Firebird 1.x port of Drupal, I met a limitation of the
underlying DBMS with the node_access table, which can't be created with a
structure equivalent to the MySQL/PGSQL versions (see
http://cvs.drupal.org/viewcvs/drupal/contributions/docs/developer/database/core.jpg?view=markup
for the workaround).

Would that level of abstraction enable us to use this type of solution (an
additional table f-keyed to a base table) ? It looks like iti wouldn't be
sufficient yet.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Barry Jaspan" <barry at jaspan.org>
To: <development at drupal.org>
Sent: Friday, January 26, 2007 1:03 AM
Subject: [development] Database schema abstraction and *reflection* (was:
Referential integrity -- finally?)


> I raised the issue of database schema abstraction last summer, and I
> know that other people raised it before me.  The arguments this time
> seem to be the same as the used to be (though apparently Dries is
> closer to being persuaded :-).
>
> I would like to elaborate on my primary reason for supporting a
> database schema abstraction layer (not for data manipulation (SELECT,
> etc.), just for CREATE TABLE, ALTER, etc): database schema reflection.
>
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