[FX.php List] FM SQL capabilities?

[Leo R.Lundgren]

Dear list,

This is slightly off topic, but may I ask you what the current  
features in FM's support for SQL databases are? I know there has been  
ODBC support since long, but I am asking about the more "built- 
in" (even though I know one still needs the ODBC drivers) support  
called ESS.

- I have been reading a bit about it, but I constantly get the  
impression that ESS can only /read/ data from SQL sources, it doesn't  
seem to be able to create or update records in the SQL source. Is  
this correct?

- If so, is it also correct that in order to have a FileMaker  
database update one value in a SQL database, I need to use the  
Execute SQL script step, together with an ODBC driver?

- If so, is it also correct that in order to update that SQL database  
using the Execute SQL script step, I need to have the ODBC drivers  
and connections set up on each client, i.e. I cannot have the FM  
server supply the ODBC connection used for the updating? I believe so  
after reading the following in the ESS tech brief:

	"One important note about the ODBC Import and Execute SQL features  
is that they are not able to take advantage of server-side DSNs, as  
is the ESS feature set. DSNs defined on a remote host are only  
available to ESS operations. Using ODBC Import and Execute SQL still  
necessitates configuring a DSN on each client desktop."

- Also, if doing this "update using ODBC", how slow would it be?  
Currently I have a solution where a web viewer in FM triggers a PHP  
script on a remote server, which then fetches a tiny bit of data from  
the FM server and inserts it into a MySQL database on the remote  
server. A collegue reports that this is slow and doesn't work  
sometimes though, which is why we're investigating other alternatives.

Thank you in advance.

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