NetNews Usenet Archive 1993 #3/NN_1993_3.iso/spool/comp/os/mswindo/programm/tools/2182

Text File | 1993-01-21 | 2.6 KB | 56 lines

Newsgroups: comp.os.ms-windows.programmer.tools
Path: sparky!uunet!uunet.ca!cognos!smithb
From: [e-mail] (Brad Smith)
Subject: Re: Subroutines for developing Databases
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Organization: Cognos Incorporated, Ottawa CANADA
References: <[e-mail]>
Date: Thu, 21 Jan 1993 19:22:03 GMT
Lines: 45

In article <[e-mail]> wayne@unix1 (Solan Gundersen) writes:
>Hello everybody!
>
>Does anybody know about where i could find subroutines that i could
>include into my c code. I am makeing an alarm system for hospitales
>and need to store data into a database (info about callers etc.) on
>line while doing other thing. Since Windows is partially multitasking,
>we desided to program in C for Windows. So the problem is how to
>access a database fast to store a record and then continue. We also
>like to store in a standard database format like DBASE or someting
>like that. If anybody can help me, i whould be eternaly happy.
>
As it happens, a little over a year ago I too was working on an alarm system
for hospitals (and similar). I've moved on now, but some of my early research
may be of some use to you.

I would strongly recommend that you look at Borland's Paradox Engine (for
Windows, in your case, though a DOS version is available).
What it is, is a bunch of DLL's that handle all the database access for you. I
never actually got to *look* at this myself, but the literature I read made it
look like it could save a lot of work.
The bonus is that the database file created *is* a Paradox file, so you could
maintain it off-line using Paradox for DOS (and for Windows, whenever it's
released). Our long-term plan was to allow networking of the PC's, so that an
administrator could to data entry & reporting on a separate machine, without
risking tying up the alarm software.

One question that came up early is that the users were interested in running
things like WordPerfect, etc *while* the alarm software was running. Our answer
was to forget it. Windows is simply *not* stable or fast enough to allow this
to be done without risking data loss to the alarm system.

Hope this helps;
Brad.
--
Brad P. Smith - Software Designer
Cognos Inc.; 3755 Riverside Dr.; Ottawa, Ontario, CANADA; K1G 3Z4
Voice: [phone] ext 3702      FAX: [phone]
Internet: [e-mail]         BIX: [e-mail]

--
Brad P. Smith - Software Designer
Cognos Inc.; 3755 Riverside Dr.; Ottawa, Ontario, CANADA; K1G 3Z4
Voice: [phone] ext 3702      FAX: [phone]
Internet: [e-mail]         BIX: [e-mail]