[Originally posted to the dbi-users mailing list.]

I'm going to be working on a Perl app using a database through the DBD set of drivers. The end production machine will run Oracle for which there is already DBD::Oracle.

However, we don't have access to Oracle locally and wish to use a replacement for the bulk of the development process before moving over to the production servers.

Because both databases can be accessed using the DBI divers then it would seem logical that the same application, if coded correctly, could be used with a number of databases without changing much, if any, of the code. This is the theory I'm working with.

However, I know in reality that small changes to SQL syntax will have to be made.

What I'm basically asking is, what is the best database to use as a development database before migrating over to Oracle? Is MySQL the most similar in terms of syntax? Or can I stick with my preferred choice of Postgresql? Are there any big gotchas to watch out for switching between both databases or if I stick to fairly standard SQL syntax and functions I should be OK. If there is a list of differences between the functions of the various DBI drivers that would be great.

Thanks for your help.

- wil

Why not install Oracle? You can download a copy of it from their site, and the install isn't too bad.

Cheers,

Alex
--
Gossamer Threads Inc.

I thought Oracle was a multi-thousand dollar application that you needed a license to use?

- wil

You can download a developers copy at:

http://otn.oracle.com/.../oracle9i/index.html

(I haven't tried 10g yet).

Cheers,

Alex
--
Gossamer Threads Inc.

Waw! That's an amazing license scheme. I never knew that. There isn't a linux version of 10g so I'll go with 9 for the time being. I bet, but I have no confirmation, that the end production database will not be 10 anyway.

Thanks for the heads up.

- wil