# RDBI needs reviewers

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/rdbi-needs-reviewers/190102>\
**Category:** Ruby\
**Created:** [June 15, 2010, 8:22am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/rdbi-needs-reviewers/190102 "2010-06-15T08:22:08Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![happolati](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/h/51bf81/32.png) [@happolati](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/happolati)\
**Post date:** [June 15, 2010, 8:22am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/rdbi-needs-reviewers/190102/1 "2010-06-15T08:22:08Z")

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RDBI is a rewrite of the notable Ruby/DBI database interface library,  
and is largely complete at this point. It sports a few new ideas, but  
those of you familiar with Ruby/DBI or perl’s DBI would be unsurprised  
at its API, which has been trimmed heavily to a minimal set of calls.

I desperately would like to position this as a compelling alternative in  
the middle to the current situation of our database layers being borne  
of several independent APIs that merge into some huge library that does  
a lot more than process data queries. A more unix philosophy of small,  
interchangeable parts doing the right things, if you will. Another  
person coined it as a “potential rack for databases”, and I think that  
makes a lot of sense in retrospect.

So, what I’d like, and have been pushing on various places in IRC and in  
local user groups, is some honest criticism on where it is and where it  
can go. Documentation is currently weak largely because I’m waiting for  
commentary like this to shape the final product. You’ll need to be able  
to read the code.

We have various plans such as async support and the library is largely  
thread safe, if coarsely grained. There is a sqlite3 driver that is  
working and is mildly tested.

I would like to get things documented a little more, and to RC within  
the next two weeks. Any assistance you can provide as a group would be  
great.

[http://github.com/erikh/rdbi](http://github.com/erikh/rdbi)  
[http://github.com/erikh/rdbi-dbd-sqlite3](http://github.com/erikh/rdbi-dbd-sqlite3) # sqlite3 driver.

Thanks for your time,

-Erik

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**Author:** ![happolati](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/h/51bf81/32.png) [@happolati](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/happolati)\
**Post date:** [June 17, 2010, 11:14am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/rdbi-needs-reviewers/190102/2 "2010-06-17T11:14:04Z")

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Erik H. wrote:

> RDBI is a rewrite of the notable Ruby/DBI database interface library,  
> and is largely complete at this point. It sports a few new ideas, but  
> those of you familiar with Ruby/DBI or perl’s DBI would be unsurprised  
> at its API, which has been trimmed heavily to a minimal set of calls.

> -Erik

Sadly, in all these years I have still not been able to find a decent  
replacement of JDBC in ruby. I am hoping your rewrite of DBI will look  
into this. What’s lacking is that no ruby library seems to be able to  
give me database metadata in an independent, API way. I am perhaps  
expected to give specific calls for each database - and I may not know  
them for more than a couple.

So i cannot write a tool or utility that should work across databases.  
I should be able to get table names, column names for a table, column  
metadata at the very least through methods and not customized SQL  
statements.

Are you addressing this ?

thanks

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![happolati](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/h/51bf81/32.png) [@happolati](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/happolati)\
**Post date:** [June 17, 2010, 11:16am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/rdbi-needs-reviewers/190102/3 "2010-06-17T11:16:34Z")

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R… Kumar wrote:

> So i cannot write a tool or utility that should work across databases.  
> I should be able to get table names, column names for a table, column  
> metadata at the very least through methods and not customized SQL  
> statements.
> 
> Are you addressing this ?
> 
> thanks

Yes, Please look at RDBI::Schema and RDBI::Column – the interface is  
weak, but is portable (portable enough to rely on it for type  
management), and I’m definitely open to suggestions if you feel its  
inadequate.

We’re in IRC in #ruby-dbi and please feel free to email me privately.

-Erik