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                          New Release (v1.3) of :

                WDB - A Web interface to SQL Databases

                                  by

                          Bo Frese Rasmussen

           Space Telescope - European Coordinating Facility
                    European Southern Observatory
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    WDB is a software tool-set that tremendously simplifies the
    integration of Sybase databases into the World Wide Web. WDB lets
    you provide WWW access to the contents of your databases without
    writing a single line of code ! (unless you realy want to ...)

    Included with WDB is a Sybase, mSQL and an Informix interface, but 
    is should be relatively easy to port WDB to other SQL databases,
    provided they have a Perl interface (like Oracle, Ingres ...)

    All there is needed to use WDB is the WDB script (written in
    Perl) and a set of high-level form definition files, each
    describing a different view on the database.  WDB automatically
    creates HTML forms, on-the-fly, to allow the users to query the
    database, and given the users query constraints it will query the
    database and present the result to the user. WDB even comes with a
    utility to automatically extract information about a table from the
    database and create a working template form definition file.

    WDB is a cgi-script written in Perl for NCSA's HTTP server. WDB
    was written for the ESO and ST-ECF science data archive.

    More information and instructions on how to download and install it 
    is available at "http://arch-http.hq.eso.org/bfrasmus/wdb/wdb.html".

    For an example of what a WDB interface to a database looks like
    try the Hubble Space Telescope Science Exposures form at :

       http://arch-http.hq.eso.org/cgi-bin/wdb/hst/science/form

    New features. 

     * 'sameline' field attribute added, to keep a field on the same
       line as the previous field in the query and full screen output
       pages.

     * 'html' field attribute to define html to be output before the
       current field in the query and full screen output pages.

     * The wdb script now works with Perl5 

     * You can now query on computed fields. (It takes a bit of work on
       your side to make it do something though....)

     * Uses single quotes rather than double quotes around strings in
       the SQL query. (to be compatible with mSQL)

     * mSQL interface included. 

     * Informix interface included. (by Curtis Wong) 



    If you have any questions, problems, requests for new features, etc.,
    please e-mail me at bfrasmus@eso.org.


    - Share and enjoy !

    Bo