Question

I am trying to make a Twiki user interface to an already made MySQL database. I have been doing some research throug Twiki plugins and i have found that database plugin is quite useful to keep my old database and make any query to it from Twiki pages.

But I would like to go further and move the whole database to Twiki. I found DBCacheContrib, DBCachePlugin and FormQueryPlugin and played with them. I was also trying to deal with Formatted Search in order to extract data items from topics. I have two differente questions:

Q1: Correct me if I am wrong: I've read the FormQueryPluginTutorial and it is possible to create one topic per table data when using FormQueryPlugin and EditTablePlugin. It's ok when working with simple databases, but how can I make a complex SQL query? I can't find a way to extract, let's say, a name of an author (placed in AuthorsTableTopic) which wrote a book (placed in a row in BooksTableTopic) which is in a library (placed in LibrariesTableTopic) which is a certain city (placed in CitiesTableTopic)...

Q2: Is the matter above possible with Formatted Search? I can't find a way either.I have understood that I need to create one topic per each data item (every row/record from every table on my database) placing its fields value on formfields in the topics. Would you recommend me moving my whole database to Twiki or keeping the old one and communicating Twiki with MySQL DB throught Databaseplugin functions? I really prefer moving everything to Twiki, but I'm afraid the system will get very slow because of the enormous number of .txt files that it will have to open for searching.

Thanks a lot in advance

Environment

-- KimDeal - 22 Jun 2007

Answer

If you answer a question - or someone answered one of your questions - please remember to edit the page and set the status to answered. The status selector is below the edit box.

I believe you can do the query you're asking about, but it would take several nested searches. As you noted in your second question, this would take lots and lots of resources. I don't have much experience with the dbplugin so I'm not familiar with it's shortcomings or advantages. It would seem that if you can use the plugin to access the database, you would get better performance out of it.

I am using TWiki as my database, but I only have one level of data, so no nested searches. Even then, I have a couple thousand files that get searched regularly and it is getting slow. I will be looking to move my data to a database as a result.

Good luck.

-- MatthewCardozo - 26 Jun 2007

Thanks a lot for your answer, Matthew. I would prefer to have everything on Twiki, but I think Twiki doesn't provide us with a better database performance than MySQL or such, at least when talking about complex databases.

-- KimDeal - 27 Jun 2007

Kim, there is another, not quite completed option - you could help us find sponsorship to make the DatabaseStore a production ready system.

-- SvenDowideit - 28 Jun 2007

I have been reading DatabaseStore and found also SearchWithTWikiQueryLanguage, which I didn't know about. I would like to help if possible, but I have only being like 5 weeks working with Twiki and I don't know if I am useful...

-- KimDeal - 29 Jun 2007

Closing this after more than 30 days of inactivity...

-- PeterThoeny - 12 Aug 2007