Target audience:
DBMS developers, DBI developers and anyone with a curious mind, who is proficient in C and PERL.

What attendees will learn:
Attendees will not only gain in-depth understanding of PERL DBI and its interaction with DBMS through DBD drivers, but also learn how to write DBD drivers for DBMS.

Tutorial outline:

• Introduction to DBI--The purpose of this section is to warm up the mind about DBI and prepare to understand how DBD methods relate to DBI methods.
  • What is DBI?
  • Why use DBI?
  • Who wrote DBI?
  • Where is it installed?
  • Who should be concerned with DBI and why?
  • What are the DBI methods and how to use them?
• Introduction to DBD--The purpose of this section is to show how DBD is related to DBI. It prepares the way for section 3 where we detail how DBD methods are implemented in the two main types of DBD drivers.
  • What is DBD?
  • Who is responsible of writing DBD?
  • Where is it installed?
  • Dissecting DBD
  • Understanding the dr package
  • Understanding the db package
  • Understanding the st package
  • DBD methods in action
• Building a DBD driver--Learn the process and techniques of DBD driver development through examples. We will start with the development of a sample PERL DBD driver, and then proceed to the exciting aspects of applying the XS scripting language to bind C libraries with a PERL module in the development of a sample C/XS DBD driver.
  • Setting up a development environment
  • Driver development to-do list
  • Driver development templates
  • About the PERL DBD template
  • About the C/XS DBD template
  • Preparing Makefile.PL
  • Writing Driver.pm for a PERL DBD driver
  • Writing a C/XS DBD driver
  • About XS glue code
  • Writing Driver.pm
  • Writing dbdimp.c and dbdimp.h
  • Writing Driver.xs and Driver.h
  • Finishing touch: README, MANIFEST and test.pl
  • Zipping it up for distribution