need a starting point for researching a database solution

[pathare535]

hey guys, to start I'm typically more of a hardware integration engineer and so my general programming experience is limited to "C" and more recently Labview.

I just inherited a new project that has been forgotten about for a couple years now. The original implementation of the project was done very fast and by someone who also didn't know what they were doing, the current database solution is .csv files on the local disk. I have no official software requirements, just the original project as a template, although it doesn't have a single comment.

the database would need to handle images and text, at this point I really dont have any current knowledge of databases so any starting point would be a great help.

Thanks

[Yamaeda]

A pure import of the .csv files to a real database is easy enough, the question is if it's the right thing to do? If the test data is simple it might be ok, else you should consider some hierarchical design with linked tables, in which case you'd need a import program ... well maybe not. In e.g. Access it can analyze and give suggestions how data can reduce redundancies by splitting to tables. Such a database is also easily imported to SQL server.

This might all be moot points, it your main goal is to make a 1:1 change from .csv to DB, there's a couple pointers:

1. Import existing .csv to a database manually

2. change code to write to this new table (should be easy enough)

3. Deside if images should be added as Blobs, or copied to DB server with a path/filename in the DB.

/Y

[pathare535]

this is going to be a fresh start type thing the goal is to recreate the original functionality but ensure robustness and scalability with future additions.

we did just decide to do a photo link type system and I guess its going to be sql type data base. I guess I need to get an sql book or something, I need to learn how to organize and create a database now.

Thanks

[aputman]

There is an express version of Microsoft SQL that will work for small applications with minimal users.  SQL Server Management Studio for Express is how you design and interact with the dataase.  It's not difficult at all.  If you have the Database Toolkit for Labview, you'll have everything you need.  If you don't have the toolkit, look up LabSQL toolkit, which is a free set of VIs for accomplishing basic dB tasks.