Re: DBF/Network Application

["Brian Catlin" <BrianC@sannas.org.bad>]

Take a look at http://www.adalog.fr/publicat/aws.pdf  They dealt with many of 
the same issues that you are struggling with

 -Brian


"Brian May" <bam@snoopy.apana.org.au> wrote in message 
news:sa4r7ser82r.fsf@snoopy.apana.org.au...
> Hello,
>
> I have been asked to write an application that reads/writes DBF files
> and communicates via encrypted TCP connection over a slow network
> (GPRS).
>
> Writing this application without reinventing the wheel is obvious the
> preferred approach ;-).
>
> There is a push to use Delphi as some code is already written with
> Delphi, but as I am unfamiliar with Delphi, especially on Linux (both
> Windows and Linux platforms are required) where I don't know how much
> I can trust it, I am tending to sway towards Ada.
>
> Questions:
>
> 1. Are there any Ada libraries for reading/writing dbase DBF files
> from Ada? Or would I need to write my own? Alternatively, are there
> any C libraries that I could use?
>
> 2. What is the best way of getting encrypted network communications in
> Ada?  I have considered:
>
> * using SOAP over https with AWS, but I gather SOAP has relatively
> high overheads, due to encoding everything in XML. This might be an
> issue with slow network.
>
> * Something like Glade or PolyORB might be more appropriate, but I
> don't think these support encryption, making it necessarily to add
> encryption elsewhere, eg. IPSEC. Also the issue remains that I don't
> yet understand the different between the two, although I gather Glade
> is specific to Ada, but PolyORB will allow programs written in
> different languages to communicate.
>
> * I probably could use openssl directly, but this probably requires
> that I design my own network protocols.
>
> 3. What is the preferred way of accessing SQL databases via Ada on
> Linux?  GNADE seems to be one way, except the authors of this article
> <URL:http://www.adalog.fr/publicat/aws.pdf> concluded it was better to
> use ODBC directly.
>
> Any ideas/suggestions?
>
> Thanks in advance.
> -- 
> Brian May <bam@snoopy.apana.org.au>