2 <!DOCTYPE book PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DocBook XML V4.2//EN"
3 "http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/4.2/docbookx.dtd" [
4 <!ENTITY % myents SYSTEM "entities.inc">
8 <chapter id="introduction">
9 <title>Introduction</title>
12 <title>Purpose</title>
13 <para>&clsql; is a Common Lisp interface to <glossterm
14 linkend="gloss-sql">SQL</glossterm> databases. A number of Common
15 Lisp implementations and SQL databases are supported. The general
16 structure of &clsql; is based on the &commonsql; package by
22 <title>History</title>
24 The &clsql; project was started by Kevin M. Rosenberg in 2001 to
25 support SQL access on multiple Common Lisp implementations using
26 the &uffi; library. The initial code was based substantially on
27 Pierre R. Mai's excellent &maisql; package. In late 2003, the
28 &usql; library was orphaned by its author, onShore Development,
29 Inc. In April 2004, Marcus Pearce ported the &usql; library to
30 &clsql;. The &usql; library provides a &commonsql;-compatible
34 <para>The main changes from &maisql; and &usql; are:
37 <para>Port from the &cmucl; FFI to &uffi; which provide
38 compatibility with the major Common Lisp
39 implementations.</para>
42 <para>Optimized loading of integer and floating-point fields.</para>
45 <para>Additional database backends: &odbc;, &aodbc;, and &sqlite;.</para>
48 <para>A compatibility layer for &cmucl; specific code.</para>
51 <para>Much improved robustness for the &mysql; back-end
52 along with version 4 client library support.</para>
55 <para>Improved library loading and installation documentation.</para>
58 <para>Improved packages and symbol export.</para>
61 <para>Pooled connections.</para>
64 <para>Integrated transaction support for the classic
65 &maisql; iteration macros.</para>
71 <sect1 id="prerequisites">
72 <title>Prerequisites</title>
77 &clsql; uses &asdf; to compile and load its components.
78 &asdf; is included in the <ulink
79 url="http://cclan.sourceforge.net"><citetitle>&cclan;</citetitle></ulink>
88 url="http://uffi.b9.com/"><citetitle>&uffi;</citetitle></ulink>
89 as a <emphasis>Foreign Function Interface</emphasis>
90 (<glossterm linkend="gloss-ffi">FFI</glossterm>) to support
91 multiple &cl; implementations.
97 <para>&clsql;'s postgresql-socket interface uses Pierre Mai's
98 <ulink url="ftp://clsql.b9.com/">md5</ulink>
103 <title>Supported Common Lisp Implementation</title>
105 The implementations that support &clsql; is governed by the supported
106 implementations of &uffi;. The following implementations are supported:
108 <itemizedlist mark="opencircle">
109 <listitem><para>&acl; v6.2 and 7.0b on Debian Linux x86 &
110 x86_64 & PowerPC, FreeBSD 4.5, and Microsoft Windows
111 XP.</para></listitem>
112 <listitem><para>&lw; v4.3 on Debian Linux and Microsoft
113 Windows XP.</para></listitem>
114 <listitem><para>&cmucl; 18e on Debian Linux, FreeBSD 4.5, and
115 Solaris 2.8.</para></listitem>
116 <listitem><para>&sbcl; 0.8.5 on Debian
117 Linux.</para></listitem>
118 <listitem><para>&scl; 1.1.1 on Debian Linux.</para></listitem>
119 <listitem><para>&openmcl; 0.14 on Debian Linux
120 PowerPC.</para></listitem>
125 <title>Supported &sql; Implementation</title>
127 Currently, &clsql; supports the following databases:
129 <itemizedlist mark="opencircle">
130 <listitem><para>&mysql; v3.23.51 and v4.0.18.</para></listitem>
131 <listitem><para>&postgresql; v7.4 with both direct API and TCP
132 socket connections.</para></listitem>
133 <listitem><para>&sqlite;.</para></listitem>
134 <listitem><para>Direct &odbc; interface.</para></listitem>
135 <listitem><para>&oracle; OCI.</para></listitem>
136 <listitem><para>Allegro's DB interface (&aodbc;).</para></listitem>
142 <sect1 id="installation">
143 <title>Installation</title>
146 <title>Ensure &asdf; is loaded</title>
148 Simply load the file <filename>asdf.lisp</filename>.
156 <title>Build &c; helper libraries</title>
157 <para>&clsql; uses functions that require 64-bit integer
158 parameters and return values. The &ffi; in most &clsql;
159 implementations do not support 64-bit integers. Thus, C helper
160 libraries are required to break these 64-bit integers into two compatible
161 32-bit integers. The helper libraries reside in the directories
162 <filename>uffi</filename> and <filename>db-mysql</filename>.
166 <title>&mswindows;</title>
168 Files named <filename>Makefile.msvc</filename> are supplied
169 for building the libraries under Microsoft Windows. Since
170 &mswindows; does not come with that compiler, compiled
171 <type>DLL</type> and <type>LIB</type> library files are
172 supplied with &clsql;.
177 <title>&unix;</title>
179 Files named <filename>Makefile</filename> are supplied for
180 building the libraries under &unix;. Loading the
181 <filename>.asd</filename> files automatically invokes
182 <application>make</application> when necessary. So, manual
183 building of the helper libraries is not necessary on most
184 &unix; systems. However, the location of the &mysql; library
185 files and include files may need to adjusted in
186 <filename>db-mysql/Makefile</filename> on non-Debian
194 <title>Add &uffi; path</title>
196 Unzip or untar the &uffi; distribution which creates a directory
197 for the &uffi; files. Add that directory to &asdf;'s <varname>asdf:*central-registry*</varname>.
198 You can do that by pushing the pathname of the directory onto this variable.
199 The following example code assumes the &uffi; files reside in the
200 <filename>/usr/share/lisp/uffi/</filename>
203 (push #P"/usr/share/lisp/uffi/" asdf:*central-registry*)
208 <title>Add &md5; path</title>
210 If you plan to use the clsql-postgresql-socket interface, you
211 must load the md5 module. Unzip or untar the cl-md5
212 distribution, which creates a directory for the cl-md5 files.
213 Add that directory to &asdf;'s
214 <varname>asdf:*central-registry*</varname>. You can do that by
215 pushing the pathname of the directory onto this variable. The
216 following example code assumes the cl-md5 files reside in the
217 <filename>/usr/share/lisp/cl-md5/</filename> directory.
219 (push #P"/usr/share/lisp/cl-md5/" asdf:*central-registry*)
225 <title>Add &clsql; path and load module</title>
227 Unzip or untar the &clsql; distribution which creates a
228 directory for the &clsql; files. Add that directory to &asdf;'s
229 <varname>asdf:*central-registry*</varname>. You can do that by
230 pushing the pathname of the directory onto this variable. The
231 following example code assumes the &clsql; files reside in the
232 <filename>/usr/share/lisp/clsql/</filename> directory. You need
233 to load the <symbol>clsql</symbol> system.
236 (push #P"/usr/share/lisp/clsql/" asdf:*central-registry*)
237 (asdf:operate 'asdf:load-op 'clsql) ; main CLSQL package
243 <title>Run test suite (optional)</title>
245 The test suite can be executed using the &asdf;
246 <symbol>test-op</symbol> operator. If &clsql; has not been
247 loaded with <symbol>asdf:load-op</symbol>, the
248 <symbol>asdf:test-op</symbol> operator will automatically load
249 &clsql;. A configuration file named
250 <filename>.clsql-test.config</filename> must be created in
251 your home directory. There are instructures on the format of
252 that file in the <filename>tests/README</filename>. After
253 creating <filename>.clsql-test.config</filename>, you can run
254 the test suite with &asdf;:
256 (asdf:operate 'asdf:test-op 'clsql)