Type management via rasql instead of rasdl

[Vlad Merticariu]

Type information and creation should be available through rasql.

[Dimitar Misev]

I can't wait for this Basically the rasdl parser should be migrated to qlparser.
What is the time plan for doing it? We should assign it to a milestone.

Did you think about how to do this? I see two options

1. specify type definition file (like with rasdl): rasql -q 'insert types $1' -f types.dl
2. directly allow typedef statements, e.g: rasql -q 'typedef marray <char, 2> GreyImage'

I think I'd prefer 2.

[Dimitar Misev]

Also we need database creation/deletion

rasql -q 'create database RASBASE'

rasql -q 'drop database RASBASE'

however rasserver needs to be adapted for this, currently it cannot be started if RASBASE has not been initialized previously.

[Dimitar Misev]

We might think of integrating the database creating into the update_db.sh scripts though, would be more consistent with petascope and we don't need modification of rasserver.

[Vlad Merticariu]

Unfortunately no time plan for now. If we go for migrating the rasdl parser into rasql I agree that solution 2 makes sense.

[Peter Baumann]

on my Xmas wishlist since so many years, definitely good to raise this!

Agreed that #2 is preferrable.
Mainly, rasdl needs to be merged into the server - the client interface wouldn't be affected.

For DB creation, I'd suggest to simply change the create_db.sh script to run rasql statements instead of rasql invocation.
Putting database creation into the release update scripts hides it too deeply and interweaves separate concerns (initialization and software version management).

[Dimitar Misev]

So first step is to collect the requirements regarding type management: creating and deleting types (base, array and collection types), and retrieving type information (e.g. DESCRIBE TYPE ...). We should take into account how this is done in SQL (and SQL/MDA).

Special collection type might go out unless this is too much work (I have a feeling we would need to change raslib/rasj API for this, not sure).

Creating and dropping RASBASE has nothing to do with type management, so I'd say that should stay in rasdl for now.

[Dimitar Misev]

Also ALTER TYPE could be supported, to allow renaming type names, and changing dimensionality and base type (as long as the type is not already used by any objects).