Ideas for connecting to database

[bagonterman]

I am exploring options to connect/build  a database. Connecting from Bridge. I am currently producing data and writing it to a text file. I am interested in stepping things up and making an organized  readable file from multiple users. Or a website that reflects all the data from the multiple users. I am considering a few options limits being cost. The first might be an excel database, next maybe filemaker pro, and or sqlite database. The number of users inputing data would be around 15. The number of users viewing the database would be around 5. I am curious about what comments or conversations this may bring. Thanks BG.

[scriptnoob]

I'm working in a Photostudio and we are doing catalogue productions with hundreds and thousands of articles and pictures, and I made some good experiences with AppleScript and shell script to write and read information to databases, mostly to txt and csv files which look like excel files and can be sorted and filtered in excel but read and used by an AppleScript from any user even if Höhne doesn't have excel...

I didn't try any if these tasks in bridge because I didn't got so deep into JavaScript, but for me AppleScript and shell script work well ...

Maybe it's helpful 🙂

[bagonterman]

This is what I am thinking of doing. Use Bridge to talk to a database. I am trying to use mongoDB. I am able to right to it from a shell on terminal. What I would like to do is automate the process by having bridge talk to it. I think I can use

var con=app.system(commandLine:"db=connect('localhost:27020/test');") the system commandLine fuction to write commands to the db from the shell. However this piticular piece of code did not work. I am missing something. But I think I am getting close. Then the next step will be connecting the db to a html doc to reflect the data in a graphical sort of way. Has anyone used the app.system(commandLine: string) before? What kind of results did you get?

[mselbach2]

what about setting up a webservice with e.g. json response for the data-access tasks. Some time ago Bridge had a HttpConnection class that could be loaded via ExternalObject. I'm not sure if that's still possible but the underlying socket object is still there. If I remember correctly app.system did not return the result of script execution, so you are forced to use temporary files. If I were you I would spent 1 day implementing a basic communication via sockets. If that doesn't work fall back to system calls and intermediate files.

[bagonterman]

Thanks I am going to take a look at the ExtendScript tools and External Communication Tools. Thanks for the input. I think you might be right about sytem not returning.

[bagonterman]

So I am just wondering about your Idea (mselbach2). So the Bridge HttpConnection would send the data to the webservice possibly formatted as json? Then the web service would send that data to the database? I think this might work I am just asking to be clear.

[mselbach2]

Yes, you would send your complex data via POST in any type of format (json, xml, csv) or simple data via GET as url parameters to your webservice which would return e.g. json or xml.