FrontBase releases FBAppleScript

FrontBase has released FBAppleScript, an application that lets you control and interact with your FrontBase database using AppleScript, according to a report at Stepwise , a Web site that focuses on Mac OS X, Java 2, UNIX and open source news and products.

FrontBase is a scalable relational database for Mac OS X. It’s designed to be the foundation for dynamic and scalable Web site and application deployments on Mac OS X, according to Geert Clemmensen, founder and CEO of FrontBase.

FBAppleScript is a scriptable application that forwards commands to the database. In addition to sending raw SQL commands, FBAppleScript can start, stop, create and delete FrontBase databases. This application exposes a great deal of database functionality that has previously only been available through more complex database client libraries, according to Stepwise. You can now do most, if not all, the interesting things you want to do with FrontBase simply by keying in a few AppleScript commands.

The application lets the scripter deal with meta-data and data-handlers. If a database query were to select 1,000,000 records, for example, this would be difficult for most applications to deal with if all the data were immediately returned, Stepwise’s Scott Anguish explains. When you execute an SQL statement in FBAppleScript, it returns a meta-data object which the programmer can query to determine how many records were selected, whether any errors or warnings were generated by the statement, the execution time, the column names, etc. The meta-data also includes a fetch “handle,” which may used to subsequently fetch the records, in batches if required, Anguish said.

The application, with documentation and examples, is available for download. To use FBAppleScript you’ll have to download and register a copy of Frontbase. For registration information see the “Buy” section on FrontBase’s Web site. (Thanks to MacCentral reader Malcolm Crawford for the heads-up on this item.)