How about ODBC support for parts?

Hi Craig,

ODBC support has been requested several times previously by a number of people, myself included. I agree it would be a nice addition.

I have worked around this issue by writing a php interface to my back end database (in this case sqlite but the principle is the same for MySQL) running on nginx (or you could use apache or whatever) and then using ULP's network functions to interact with the database via this web interface. It actually works reasonably well although I still need to iron out a few wrinkles in my implementation and rewrite some of my code to be more elegant.

Best Regards,

Rachael

On 05/22/2016 11:15 AM, rachaelp wrote:

I have worked around this issue by writing a php interface to my back

end database

Would you be willing to share your PHP and ULP code?

Thanks,

Craig

Craig Arno wrote on Tue, 24 May 2016 15:52

On 05/22/2016 11:15 AM, rachaelp wrote:

 

I have worked around this issue by writing a php interface to my

back

end database

 

Would you be willing to share your PHP and ULP code?

 

Thanks,

Craig

Hi Craig,

I will share the essence of the code once it's tidied up and not quite so

"hacky"! It's very tied to how my database works for me so probably not

useful to share it in its entirety and also at the moment it's not elegant

as components are matched based upon building a description string in ULP

from the attributes of a part and then doing a lookup in the database on

that description. My end goal is to have it look up on all the parameters

individually and if there is more than one match it would pop up a window

with the choices for me to select or if a match could not be found at all

it would pop up a list of all the database parts in the category for me to

do a manual search or add a new entry. This is the long term goal but I

have other work to do in the mean time though!

If I get a chance to pull together some sanitized code snippets based on

where I am currently I will pop them on here in the interim until I can get

something better to share.

Best Regards,

Rachael

--

Web access to CadSoft support forums at www.eaglecentral.ca.  Where the CadSoft EAGLE community meets.

Craig Arno wrote on Tue, 24 May 2016 15:52

On 05/22/2016 11:15 AM, rachaelp wrote:

 

I have worked around this issue by writing a php interface to my

back

end database

 

Would you be willing to share your PHP and ULP code?

 

Thanks,

Craig

Hi Craig,

I will share the essence of the code once it's tidied up and not quite so

"hacky"! It's very tied to how my database works for me so probably not

useful to share it in its entirety and also at the moment it's not elegant

as components are matched based upon building a description string in ULP

from the attributes of a part and then doing a lookup in the database on

that description. My end goal is to have it look up on all the parameters

individually and if there is more than one match it would pop up a window

with the choices for me to select or if a match could not be found at all

it would pop up a list of all the database parts in the category for me to

do a manual search or add a new entry. This is the long term goal but I

have other work to do in the mean time though!

If I get a chance to pull together some sanitized code snippets based on

where I am currently I will pop them on here in the interim until I can get

something better to share.

Best Regards,

Rachael

--

Web access to CadSoft support forums at www.eaglecentral.ca.  Where the CadSoft EAGLE community meets.

On 05/24/2016 08:13 AM, Rachael wrote:

Craig Arno wrote on Tue, 24 May 2016 15:52

On 05/22/2016 11:15 AM, rachaelp wrote:

... This is the long term goal but I

have other work to do in the mean time though!

 

If I get a chance to pull together some sanitized code snippets based on

where I am currently I will pop them on here in the interim until I can get

something better to share.

Yeah, I get your position all too well. I wondered how much I'd have to

do to change from SQIlite to network connected MySQL.

I'm still trying to decide Eagle vs Altium Designer (AD) for my next

effort.  AD has ODBC and revision control using SVN.  ~$1000 vs ~$8000.

Eagle is pretty attractive, and less buggy with extremely good

forward/back annotation, and decent auto-router. Then there's KiCAD.

Eagle is looking like my best trade-off so far. And yes, I also use GIT

"manually".  It works with XML. i.e. I can pretty quickly and

unambiguously identify what changed between versions. ODBC is the bigger

issue.

On 05/24/2016 08:13 AM, Rachael wrote:

Craig Arno wrote on Tue, 24 May 2016 15:52

On 05/22/2016 11:15 AM, rachaelp wrote:

... This is the long term goal but I

have other work to do in the mean time though!

 

If I get a chance to pull together some sanitized code snippets based on

where I am currently I will pop them on here in the interim until I can get

something better to share.

Yeah, I get your position all too well. I wondered how much I'd have to

do to change from SQIlite to network connected MySQL.

I'm still trying to decide Eagle vs Altium Designer (AD) for my next

effort.  AD has ODBC and revision control using SVN.  ~$1000 vs ~$8000.

Eagle is pretty attractive, and less buggy with extremely good

forward/back annotation, and decent auto-router. Then there's KiCAD.

Eagle is looking like my best trade-off so far. And yes, I also use GIT

"manually".  It works with XML. i.e. I can pretty quickly and

unambiguously identify what changed between versions. ODBC is the bigger

issue.

Craig Arno wrote on Tue, 24 May 2016 17:22

Yeah, I get your position all too well. I wondered how much I'd have

to

do to change from SQIlite to network connected MySQL.

It shouldn't be much of a change to swap out sqlite function calls for

mysql ones, they're both doing pretty much the same thing, it's just the

back end mysql database is more fully featured and scales a lot more. There

are limitations with sqlite but on the plus side its very light weight.

Really I should probably swap it out for mysql myself, I only used it

because I was messing around with a Pi and that is currently where my

components database resides..... probably not where I should leave it

though!

Craig Arno wrote on Tue, 24 May 2016 17:22

I'm still trying to decide Eagle vs Altium Designer (AD) for my next

effort.  AD has ODBC and revision control using SVN.  ~$1000 vs

~$8000.

Eagle is pretty attractive, and less buggy with extremely good

forward/back annotation, and decent auto-router. Then there's KiCAD.

Eagle is looking like my best trade-off so far. And yes, I also use

GIT

"manually".  It works with XML. i.e. I can pretty quickly and

unambiguously identify what changed between versions. ODBC is the

bigger

issue.

I guess it depends on what you're trying to do design wise. I mean, EAGLE

can technically do quite complex boards, but for some things there are

areas where it could definitely be improved and Altium is pretty much the

best (expensive) fully commercial toolset these days. But as you say it

comes with an $8000 price tag which is quite a lot!

The down side of Altium and the biggest reason I won't ever buy it is it's

Windows only. I like that I can use EAGLE natively on my Mac and it's rock

solid stable these days. Also EAGLE is so configurable with ULP that losing

that flexibility would be a difficult thing for me to accept.

I looked at KiCAD briefly a few weeks ago just for interest and yes it may

have some features that EAGLE really should have already but it's UI is

awful and it's got big functionality gaps also, I couldn't live with that

for professional work.

GIT vs SVN for version control.... Well I really don't get on with SVN so

that's not selling Altium to me either! :d I'm going to try to write some

ULP to integrate GIT into my setup (again when I have some spare time!) so

if I get that going I will share that as well as my database access stuff.

Best Regards,

Rachael

--

Web access to CadSoft support forums at www.eaglecentral.ca.  Where the CadSoft EAGLE community meets.

On 5/24/2016 9:56 AM, Rachael wrote:

I guess it depends on what you're trying to do design wise. I mean, EAGLE

can technically do quite complex boards, but for some things there are

areas where it could definitely be improved and Altium is pretty much the

best (expensive) fully commercial toolset these days. But as you say it

comes with an $8000 price tag which is quite a lot!

 

The down side of Altium and the biggest reason I won't ever buy it is it's

Windows only. I like that I can use EAGLE natively on my Mac and it's rock

solid stable these days. Also EAGLE is so configurable with ULP that

losing

that flexibility would be a difficult thing for me to accept.

 

I looked at KiCAD briefly a few weeks ago just for interest and yes it may

have some features that EAGLE really should have already but it's UI is

awful and it's got big functionality gaps also, I couldn't live with that

for professional work.

 

GIT vs SVN for version control.... Well I really don't get on with SVN so

that's not selling Altium to me either! :d I'm going to try to write some

ULP to integrate GIT into my setup (again when I have some spare time!) so

if I get that going I will share that as well as my database access stuff.

 

I pretty much agree with all your points. SVN is great, but GIT is

better in multi-server and off-line usage scenarios.

KiCAD looks great, but isn't there yet, and doesn't have the same level

of support as Eagle (neither does Altium), important during a schedule

crunch when you need quick answers to "stupid" questions and are running

real short on sleep and patience. A number of my potential contracts

want Altium, so I would like to improve my skills. I think Mentor (never

used it) is supposed to be even more capable, but at up to $700,000 per

-all out- seat, way out of my league.

Like you, I prefer a non-windows platform, but run Windows 7 in a

VirtualBox window when there is no other choice (a lot of embedded

environments).  This is one of the reasons I like a networked database,

I can access it using LibreOffice Base from either platform.  Given a

choice I'll also do my documentation using LibreOffice!  Less buggy than

MS Office, and with OpenDocument ISO/IEC international standard ISO/IEC

26300 for long term storage/access and tool portability. And LibreOffice

has a built in document Version Control system which stays with the

document file!

Yeah, slightly off topic unless we broaden the discussion scope to

"infrastructure", and fitting Eagle into an existing infrastructure

(ahem, ODBC). My 2¢.

Craig