From: phaedrus@halcyon.com (Mark Phaedrus)
Subject: Relational database recommendations needed
Organization: The 23:00 News and Mail Service
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 1992 19:09:51 GMT


     Hi.  I have a rather large database of books and stories which has 
outgrown Filemaker Pro.  I'm looking for a more powerful, customizable 
database program to convert it to, and I'm looking for recommendations 
on what I should buy.  If possible, please email me instead of posting; 
I'll summarize to the net if there's interest.
     Here's the features I'm looking for:
     Fully customizable, now and in the future.  (I know my needs are 
going to change a great deal, so I don't want to buy some prepackaged 
solution that I can't change myself to accomodate what I want.  And I'm 
an experienced programmer who's been looking for a long time for an 
excuse to learn a database language, so I don't mind [and in fact am 
looking forward to] coding a good many of these features myself, as long 
as the database language gives me the tools to do it.)
     Fully relational.  (I should be able to change information in any
file, and have that information updated in all the places where it's 
used in the other database files.  Filemaker Pro-style "lookups", where 
information from other files can be retrieved but not modified, aren't 
enough.)
     Strong, configurable validation on fields and whole records.  For 
example, ISBN numbers for books are of the form X-XXX-XXXXX-X (where X 
is a digit); sometimes the first or last digit (and the accompanying 
hyphen) is omitted; the middle hyphen can move around; and some older 
ISBNs have an extra hyphen and the price tacked on to the end.  The 
digits between the first and second hyphen are a publisher code, and it 
should check to make sure that the "Publisher" field matches up with the 
ISBN (allowing for the fact that one publisher can use multiple codes, 
and one code can be shared by multiple publishers or multiple lines by 
the same publisher), and provide a warning if the two don't match.
     Configurable sorting.  In a sort by ISBN, for example, the hyphens 
should be ignored, and ISBNs that don't have the first digit and hyphen 
should be sorted as if they started with "0-".
     Something akin to Filemaker Pro's repeating fields (where multiple 
similar pieces of information can be stored in a given field) would be 
nice.
     Very flexible calculated fields.  (For example, I need a field that 
displays the most common character in another field, so that it displays 
"+" if the other field contains "+-0++0-".)
     Multiple views and display formats.
     Must be able to import my existing Filemaker Pro database 
(shouldn't be a problem, since Filemaker can export as text and my 
database doesn't have pictures or anything complex like that).
     Must be able to "print" attractively to a text file (in other 
words, create something like this for each record:)

  Lastname, Firstname   Title                       Location
     [Publisher; ISBN; Publication Year; price]
         "This is a very long comment about this book.  To make it
       readable, it should be word-wrapped, and indented a few spaces
       from the 'margin'." -Comment Author
         "This is another comment." -Another Comment Author

     I'd like to eventually be able to distribute this thing, so it 
would be nice to be able to build a standalone application out of it.  
This is way in the future, though, so it's all right if this capability 
is an optional extra I can buy later.
     Price is a very important factor; I just can't justify spending a
thousand dollars to organize a collection of $1 books. :)
     Anyway, thanks in advance for any help you can give me.

-- 
\o\ Internet: phaedrus@halcyon.com  (Seattle, WA Public Access Unix)     \o\
 \o\ "How'd you like to move a few steps down the food chain, pal?"       \o\
  \o\ If you enjoy fantasy/SF stories with transformation themes, email me \o\
   \o\ for a copy of the Transformation Stories List.                       \o\