Subject: Announce: IBPerl, the Perl 5 module for Borland InterBase V4.0
From: Bill Karwin <[email-masked]>
Date: 6 Aug 1996 12:53:59 GMT
Newsgroups: comp.lang.perl.announce,comp.lang.perl.misc

Announcing the first public release
                         of IBPerl, the Perl 5 module
                          for Borland InterBase V4.0

                       Copyright (c) 1996 by Bill Karwin

What is IBPerl?

    IBPerl is an object-oriented class module and extension for
    Perl 5.  It provides an interface to the InterBase API library,
    for programming dynamic SQL applications with Borland's scaleable
    RDBMS server.  IBPerl is available for free, distributable under
    the GNU GPL or the Perl Artistic License.

Why would you want this?

    IBPerl provides a Perl-ish programming interface to InterBase.
    Any Perl script for which you wish you had a real OLCP database
    backend you can now write.  CGI scripts for the Web, interactive
    applications, automation or systems administration tools that
    need database access, anything!

Where can you get IBPerl?

    http://www.borland.com/techsupport/interbase/ibperl/
    IBPerl will be added to CPAN in the near future.

How do you use IBPerl?

    It comes with reference documentation, as a "pod" file (viewable
    in HTML at the above web site).  The distribution also contains
    example scripts.

What else do you need to use IBPerl?

    Perl 5.003 or higher, and Borland InterBase V4.0 or higher.
    You must have the InterBase product in order to compile and
    use IBPerl.

What platforms are supported?

    I developed IBPerl on SunOS 4.1.4, and I have tested it on
    Solaris 2.5.  In the near future I will test on all the major
    platforms on which InterBase runs: HP-UX 9.x & 10.0, AIX 4.1,
    DG/UX 5.4R3.10, SCO ODT 3.0 and OpenServer 5.0, SGI IRIX, and
    Windows NT.  Not necessarily in that order.  Please do not do
    your own porting and distribution.  If you do the porting and
    testing, please let me know of your changes so I can make them
    available in the official IBPerl code.

What is InterBase?

    An SQL-92 conformant RDBMS and database application development
    product that operates on Windows, Windows NT NetWare, most of
    the popular UNIX flavors, and OpenVMS.  You may want to read
    http://www.borland.com/interbase/ibfact.html for a full description
    of this product.

What version is IBPerl?

    This is the announcement for Beta release 0.2.  IBPerl will undergo
    quite a bit of changes in the next couple of months, to add more
    functionality, more portability, and better interoperability with
    the InterBase API, and the DBI and Interperl standards.  I wanted
    to make it available as soon as possible, though.

What was that about DBI?  Is there a DBD for InterBase?

    IBPerl does not currently conform to the DBI interface.  My plan is
    to make a DBD driver that allows the DBI package to access IBPerl.

I am mailing this announcement broadly to everyone I have noted as
being interested in InterBase and Perl.  If you are interested in being
on a mailing list for announcements of future releases of IBPerl,
reply to me and I will put you on the mailing list.

IBPerl is a contributed software package, and neither Bill Karwin nor
Borland International are responsible for damages resulting from its
use or misuse.

--
Bill Karwin  -  [email-masked]
Senior Technical Support Engineer
InterBase Technical Services  -  Borland International