vsbabu.org

WebDAV meets PostgreSQL

Fozbaca: “mod_dav_psql is a webdav interface to PostGreSQL databases. It facilitates the browsing of tables, columns, rows, functions, languages, sequences, and other database objects through any webdav enabled client. ”

I agree, this is a *really* cool idea. Obviously cool enough to generate several random thoughts.

What it is

Provides a WebDAV interface to PostgreSQL. At the moment, can do browse and delete. The code is simple enough.

Just suppose

Let us say we could add write operations like POST, PUT, MOVE, COPY etc.and change it to save to Oracle. May be with some groups/roles based authentication. Shouldn’t be that hard because all you need is to translate DAV calls to SQL calls (COMMIT, INSERT, UPDATE, INSERT-SELECT for the example above).

Wild fantasies

This can be the corner stone of a zero effort knowledge management system. People use web folders to access and post things to database. Simple hooks can be written on the client side to easily integrate office applications with the database.

Write a synch script and people can make export/import of data they need to work offline using a process as simple as drag and drop.

Since IE provides web folders functionality in Windoze, it should be a simple matter to attach "mime types" with table records; and then attach mime types with small "helper applications" (coded in minimal html + javascript) to edit. Think about how easy it will be if people could copy-paste-edit records in a typical timesheet system!

Couple that with LUFS - a hybrid userspace filesystem framework supporting an indefinite number of filesystems (localfs, sshfs, ftpfs, cardfs and cefs implemented so far) transparently for any application - and suddenly a whole lot of possibilities can open up.

May be use this as a storage layer for Groove, Zope, Jabber etc. and you’ve an intelligent storage. Zope already does this by exposing ZODB via WebDAV. If only they could finish adding the V (Versioning) part in their DAV support...

OK - enough fantasizing. Back to reality!