Is it possible to use SQL queries in a ULP/SCRIPT somehow?

Vidar, its possible to accomplish the automation of the lookup of components in an external system using ULP. Ive done a similar project where I have integrated a ULP with an external database/application. The ULP I wrote extracts necessary data from the Eagle board file and then communicates with a web application via REST calls. The web application uses the data to do lookups in its internal component library, builds assembly files, generates the 3D models, and then responds back to the ULP so it can display the 3D models. The ULP is called IDF-to-3D and is posted on the ULP download page under eagle_to_3d_4_0.ulp. This ULP will communicate with a web application owned by Simplified Solutions Inc which specializes in 3D model generation from IDF file types. They have a very large component database of 3D models and also a deep understanding of PCB business processes.

To accomplish what you are looking for you would need a ULP that would be able to extract the component data you need from the board file and then talk with the database via an interface. If the database already has a web front end then I would recommend you have a simple web REST interface setup so that the ULP can use a HTTP_POST/GET call to talk to the database and get the results back.

Another potential approach would be to build a tool to automate this process outside of Eagle. The Eagle board files are an XML format and can be read directly without using Eagle. You could write a batch program that processes each Eagle file and makes the necessary connection to your database and then writes out the results. If you have a lot of Eagle board files this will be the most efficient as you can run this program in a batch mode and have it run on its own and process large sets of files. It can also then write out the results to a consolidated report.

The final comment I want to make is that what I have seen is most companies dont have component naming standards which tie directly to component names. As a result when we try to link components in the Eagle boards to a component database we dont see good one-to-one matching on names. For the application I wrote previously it included rules based matching to increase the hit rate when looking up components in the database. You may find that you need similar capabilities.

If you want more info on how to implement something like this or you are interested in working with me on such a project let me know. Im glad to share what I have done and I am also open to contract work to help you accomplish the automation you are looking for.

-Marc

Vidar, its possible to accomplish the automation of the lookup of components in an external system using ULP. Ive done a similar project where I have integrated a ULP with an external database/application. The ULP I wrote extracts necessary data from the Eagle board file and then communicates with a web application via REST calls. The web application uses the data to do lookups in its internal component library, builds assembly files, generates the 3D models, and then responds back to the ULP so it can display the 3D models. The ULP is called IDF-to-3D and is posted on the ULP download page under eagle_to_3d_4_0.ulp. This ULP will communicate with a web application owned by Simplified Solutions Inc which specializes in 3D model generation from IDF file types. They have a very large component database of 3D models and also a deep understanding of PCB business processes.

To accomplish what you are looking for you would need a ULP that would be able to extract the component data you need from the board file and then talk with the database via an interface. If the database already has a web front end then I would recommend you have a simple web REST interface setup so that the ULP can use a HTTP_POST/GET call to talk to the database and get the results back.

Another potential approach would be to build a tool to automate this process outside of Eagle. The Eagle board files are an XML format and can be read directly without using Eagle. You could write a batch program that processes each Eagle file and makes the necessary connection to your database and then writes out the results. If you have a lot of Eagle board files this will be the most efficient as you can run this program in a batch mode and have it run on its own and process large sets of files. It can also then write out the results to a consolidated report.

The final comment I want to make is that what I have seen is most companies dont have component naming standards which tie directly to component names. As a result when we try to link components in the Eagle boards to a component database we dont see good one-to-one matching on names. For the application I wrote previously it included rules based matching to increase the hit rate when looking up components in the database. You may find that you need similar capabilities.

If you want more info on how to implement something like this or you are interested in working with me on such a project let me know. Im glad to share what I have done and I am also open to contract work to help you accomplish the automation you are looking for.

-Marc