New to Databases Question

[TTChrisbo]

Hi,
I have been doing simple Delphi applications but now want to do another simple project including a data table and I'm unsure on how to start it.

I'm using D7 Personal, and need to build a table that will record 5 columns of data per record:
Start (int); End (int); Total (float); Price (float); Where (char)

I'll have to do some simple math on the numeric data and also pull some of the data for a graph.

I was going to use a text file, but thought there might be a simple table that has some of those math functions built in.

Any help would be awesome!
Thanks,
TTChrisbo

 

[DelphiAaron]

the BDE has paradox and a few others built in for you, but requires the BDE to be distributed with your app.

http://www.torry.net

has a few good db vcl's including text file based ones.

as with the calculations thats generally done with delphi functions not the db.

hope this helps

Aaron

 

[Stretchwickster]

The following is a pretty good tutorial for bringing you up to speed with databases in Delphi:

http://delphi.about.com/od/database/a/databasecourse.htm

Clive

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"To err is human, but to really foul things up you need a computer." (Paul Ehrlich)
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To get the best answers from this forum see: faq102-5096

 

[lespaul]

However, the key to good database development is the understanding of the how to structure a table. Find a few links below that are good resources. Having a correctly designed table will greatly increase the ease of extracting useful and meaningful data.

Leslie

Anything worth doing is a lot more difficult than it's worth - Unknown Induhvidual

Essential reading for database developers:
The Fundamentals of Relational Database Design
Understanding SQL Joins

 

[TTChrisbo]

Thanks for the suggestions, I'm checking them out right now. However, since I'm using the personal edition of Delphi which ships without any database support, I may have to go another route.

I may have to use a flat text file (.csv), then do the math after parsing out the relevant data.

...that is, unless I have it all wrong! Do I?

Thanks again,
TTChrisbo

 

[Stretchwickster]

If you do go down the csv route, Delphi's TStringList is a pretty handy object to use in this context as it has a CommaText property which is very useful for importing csv formatted text files. Check out the following thread for an example of how to import a csv file into a TStringGrid: thread102-839480

Clive

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"To err is human, but to really foul things up you need a computer." (Paul Ehrlich)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
To get the best answers from this forum see: faq102-5096

 

[TTChrisbo]

Thanks for the tip, Clive.

I'll go that route, and besides, I'll have (at most) a few hundred records anyway and the .csv method should be fast enough - and I'm not really that interested in performance.

TTChrisbo