reini@tolsun.oulu.fi (Jukka Reinikainen) (09/18/88)
A month or two ago I posted an article asking information about PD or
commercial ISAM and end user terminal interface sources available.
I promised to write a summary and this summary is about e-mail I have
received. This summary is quite long but I belive it's worth posting.
Summary contains parts of e-mail I received, some parts of the original
articles have been discarded. I hope no one of the authors get mad
because I publish their names here. If you do, blame on me
(Jukka Reinikainen: reini@tolsun.oulu.fi).
I want to thank all of you who have helped me.
**********************
**** ISAM-sources ****
**********************
/*------------------------------------------------------------------------*/
{uunet,mcvax}!enea!kullmar!bk (Bo Kullmar):
Michael Widenius has written a ISAM database in C. It is currently
running on XENIX 386, HP 9000 and a swedish System V clone
(DIAB Data DS90).
Contact: T-D-X SoftWare AB
Michael Widenius
Gamla Skomakarbolevagen 1EII
00740 HELSINFORS FINLAND
/*------------------------------------------------------------------------*/
friedl@vsi.com (Steve Friedl):
===== D-ISAM =====
An inexpensive commercial implementation of C-ISAM 2.0 (100%
source and data file compatible). $595 for full source plus a
manual, no royalties until the application exceeds 100 copies, 30
day return full refund guarantee.
We used the very first version out the door and found it buggy,
but this was six months ago and they're likely to have gotten it
down by now. In addition, the company is nice to work with
(programmer = Bruce Fast).
Byte Designs Ltd. or
Box F195-76 6-3511 Viking Way
Blaine, WA 98230 USA Richmond, BC V6V 1W1 Canada
+1 604 278 5200
===== C-Tree ====
Probably the best record mananger around, and it's been ported to
everything including your analog wristwatch. Full source, no
royalties for around $400 with good docs and excellent technical
support.
We have this but haven't used it enough to have an independent
opinion on the operational characteristics, but the code is
excellent. They have additional products that build on top of
C-Tree (reports library, application generators, etc). They have
been around a long time, and I've never heard anything bad about
C-Tree; really professional stuff.
FairCom
2606 Johnson Drive
Columbia, MO 65203 USA
+1 314 445 6833 voice
/*------------------------------------------------------------------------*/
C-TREE was also mentioned by clindh@stride.Stride.COM (Christer Lindh).
He pointed out few things about C-TREE:
- it works well
- the code is sprinkled with comments
- it has lots of defines so you can tune it to your
UNIX/C-compiler
- it doesn't support "transactions"
/*------------------------------------------------------------------------*/
David Beckemeyer (david@bdt.uucp):
I use a package from a company in Canada called Softfocus. The product
is a ISAM/Btree system. It was originally written for PC-DOS and most
of their customers are DOS; UNIX is a smnall percentage of their
business. I have had mixed experiences with both the company and the
software, although I have gotten it to work pretty well under many
operating systems including: 4.3BSD, SysV, SysIII, Xenix, PC-DOS, and
our own propietary multi-user OS called Micro RTX for the 68000 CPU.
The Softfocus ISAM has many of the features you mention, but it lacks
a few:
1) It does *not* include any tools or utilities for reconstructing
damaged index files; I had to write my own.
2) It isn't very fast or efficient when the multi-user mode is used.
In multi-user mode, all caching is disabled, and data is sync'd
all the time. Also the lock/unlock glue that you provide to
their code better be *very* efficient becuase the Softfocus code
is not very smart about low-level lock/unlock and ends up calling
lock/unlock hundreds of times in a typical operation. It has no
instrinsic "undo" mechanism; these must be built into the
application.
Softfoucs' address is:
Softfocus
1343 Stanbury Dr.
Oakville, Ontario L6L 2J5
(416) 825-0903
I believe the price is about $200 for the multi-user version. That buys
you full binary distribution rights for as many copies on as many machines
as you want.
/*------------------------------------------------------------------------*/
********************************************************************
**** ISAM and end user interface related litterature references ****
********************************************************************
/*------------------------------------------------------------------------*/
russell@civil.civeng.oz.au (Russell East):
Have you looked at a book titled
"C DEVELOPMENT TOOLS FOR THE IBM PC"
by Al Stevens, copyright 1986, and published
by Prentice Hall Press, New York,
ISBN 0-89303-612-9
This probably has everything you need.
/*------------------------------------------------------------------------*/
friedl@vsi.com (Steve Friedl):
If you don't mind doing some development, I now remember some
industry texts that contains some of the information you want.
_The C Toolbox_ contains, among other things, a B-Tree indexed
record manager (full source, of course) will lots of explanations
on what is doing what. It's specific to the IBM-PC but I would
think that the file manager parts would be a little more
independent. The source to everything in the book is available
on disk for US$30 as well.
_The C Toolbox_
(Serious C Programming for the IBM PC)
by William James Hunt
Addison-Wesley Publishing Company
ISBN 0-201-1111-X
I've another book called _Advanced C Programming for Displays,
with subtitle of "Character Displays, Windows, and Keyboards for
the UNIX and MS-DOS Operating System". It is perhaps a little
too low-level for you -- somebody writing a curses-replacement
would want this -- but it seems to be along the right lines.
It's written by Marc Rochkind, an excellent writer whose books
I always buy.
_Advanced C Programming for Displays_
by Marc Rochkind
Prentice-Hall
ISBN 0-13-010240-7
/*------------------------------------------------------------------------*/
*************************************
**** End user terminal interface ****
*************************************
/*------------------------------------------------------------------------*/
friedl@vsi.com (Steve Friedl):
For this part of the application you might want to consider
Windows for C and Windows for Data from VCS. These are libraries
that give pretty powerful access to the screen. You get
attributes, fkeys, pop-up scrolling windows with lookups, field
entry, etc. It's been ported to DOS, UNIX, Xenix, and VMS, plus
source is available. We use it and like it.
Vermont Creative Software
21 Elm Avenue
Richford, VT 05476 USA
+1 802 848 7731 voice
+1 802 848 3502 FAX
/*------------------------------------------------------------------------*/
David Beckemeyer (david@bdt.uucp) has developed a menu/forms system
for his own use and it seems quite promising (according what he told
me about it).
/*------------------------------------------------------------------------*/
********************************
**** General C source stuff ****
********************************
/*------------------------------------------------------------------------*/
obie!wes@mcvax (Wes Peters):
Austin Code Works
Ask for a complete list of the products they carry. They seem to carry
quite a variety of C code, and they have some pretty interesting
data packages as well.
/*------------------------------------------------------------------------*/
reini@tolsun.oulu.fi
--