[coldsync-hackers] ColdSync::PDB - Palm::PDB over DLP/SPC
Christophe Beauregard
I've spent the last week or so working away at a perl module that enhances
the whole SPC/DLP remote database protocol for sync conduits to use the
"helper" concept from Palm::PDB and just generally make it a little nicer
to write sync conduits.
I think I've got most of it working now - certainly everything I need - so I
thought I'd throw it out there and see if there's anyone interested in
playing with/breaking it.
The meat of it is the ColdSync::PDB module (the name is tentative...
ColdSync::SPC::PDB might be more appropriate), which provides for things
like loading databases, reading records, writing records, deleting, etc. It
directly uses the Palm::PDB helpers (Palm::Mail, Palm::ToDo, etc) to handle
the conversion of records to and from something a bit more meaningful than
a raw C structure.
Perhaps a before and after might be appropriate here. Here's how you'd
iterate through mail records using ColdSync::SPC:
my $dbh = &dlp_OpenDB("MailDB",0x80);
while( my $recordraw = &dlp_ReadNextRecInCategory( $dbh,$catno ) ) {
# turn it into a Mail record
my $record = Palm::Mail->ParseRecord(%$recordraw);
die "501 Record $recordraw->{'id'} isn't mail!" unless defined $record;
print "$record->{subject} from $record->{from}\n";
}
&dlp_CloseDB( $dbh );
Here's the corresponding ColdSync::PDB code:
my $db = ColdSync::PDB->Load("MailDB","r");
while( my $record = $db->nextRecInCategory( $catno ) ) {
print "$record->{subject} from $record->{from}\n";
}
In terms of style, I've tried to mostly stick with Palm::PDB conventions
where possible. I'm not convinced that this is such a good idea, however.
Confusing a DLP database with a local database is asking for pain. For one
thing, ColdSync::PDB changes are immediate while Palm::PDB doesn't commit
until an explicit Write() method call. Performance wise, there are things
you can do with a local database that are just silly with a 1000 record
remote database.
Included in the module are a couple of (barely tested) example sync conduits
to demo some of the capabilities. I'm also attaching a ColdSync::PDB
version of send-mail.
A bunch of caveats:
- this is built and tested on Red Hat 8.0. This particular Red Hat distro
has given nothing but grief with respect to perl, so I wouldn't be terribly
surprised if things just plain don't work.
- you NEED the latest CVS version of coldsync. Any version older than this
morning WILL NOT WORK. I'm serious. In order to get the feature set for I
needed for this module I've spent the last week pummeling Alessandro with a
stream of assorted bugfixes/enhancements. This morning we reached a point
where I slowed down and he caught up.
I could say more, but I have to go break up a dog fight... Enjoy.
c.