Choice for a desktop database.

[Frank Rizzo]

I am building a vs2005/c# stand-alone desktop application that will need
to store quite a bit of relational data locally. The database will be
mostly a read-only data store. This application will be distributed to
many locations, so I am definitely not going to use a server-based
product (like SQL Server or SQL Server Express), because I don't need
the installation and support headache.

So I am considering what to use. So far my choices are:

SQL Server Everywhere (cons: no sprocs or views support)
Microsoft Access (cons: has to have OLEDB Jet driver installed)
XML files (cons: have to use XPath for querying and it will probably
get slower as the amount of data increases - I can't slap an index on
the XML file).

I was wondering what folks here thought about these choices and whether
anyone has another alternative to offer.

Regards

[Cor Ligthert [MVP]]

Re: Choice for a desktop database.

Frank,

In my idea are you not needing a database, just a DataSet in a flat XML file
will do the job for you.

I assume that the client has not to do any writting to that file and that
you are delivering that completely.

Cor

"Frank Rizzo" <nospam@nospam. comschreef in bericht
news:%23vZbaVY% 23GHA.4428@TK2M SFTNGP04.phx.gb l...

>I am building a vs2005/c# stand-alone desktop application that will need to
>store quite a bit of relational data locally. The database will be mostly
>a read-only data store. This application will be distributed to many
>locations, so I am definitely not going to use a server-based product (like
>SQL Server or SQL Server Express), because I don't need the installation
>and support headache.
>
So I am considering what to use. So far my choices are:
>
SQL Server Everywhere (cons: no sprocs or views support)
Microsoft Access (cons: has to have OLEDB Jet driver installed)
XML files (cons: have to use XPath for querying and it will probably get
slower as the amount of data increases - I can't slap an index on the XML
file).
>
I was wondering what folks here thought about these choices and whether
anyone has another alternative to offer.
>
Regards

[Philipp Reif]

RE: Choice for a desktop database.

Frank,

we just faced the same problem - and decided to try SQLite. There's an
ADO.NET 2.0 provider without any external dependencies
(http://adodotnetsqlite.sourceforge.net/), so it's easy to deploy, an there
are several quite useful admin tools for SQLite. So far, after 6 months of
working with it, SQLite is a good system.

Regards, Phil

[Chris Fulstow]

Re: Choice for a desktop database.

Try Firebird, it's free, powerful and fairly lightweight:

http://www.firebirdsql.org/

It also has an ADO.NET provider:

http://www.firebirdsql.org/index.php?op=files&id=netprovider

--
Chris Fulstow
MCP, MCTS

http://chrisfulstow.blogspot.com/

Frank Rizzo wrote:

I am building a vs2005/c# stand-alone desktop application that will need
to store quite a bit of relational data locally. The database will be
mostly a read-only data store. This application will be distributed to
many locations, so I am definitely not going to use a server-based
product (like SQL Server or SQL Server Express), because I don't need
the installation and support headache.
>
So I am considering what to use. So far my choices are:
>
SQL Server Everywhere (cons: no sprocs or views support)
Microsoft Access (cons: has to have OLEDB Jet driver installed)
XML files (cons: have to use XPath for querying and it will probably
get slower as the amount of data increases - I can't slap an index on
the XML file).
>
I was wondering what folks here thought about these choices and whether
anyone has another alternative to offer.
>
Regards

[Tom Shelton]

Re: Choice for a desktop database.


Frank Rizzo wrote:

I am building a vs2005/c# stand-alone desktop application that will need
to store quite a bit of relational data locally. The database will be
mostly a read-only data store. This application will be distributed to
many locations, so I am definitely not going to use a server-based
product (like SQL Server or SQL Server Express), because I don't need
the installation and support headache.
>
So I am considering what to use. So far my choices are:
>
SQL Server Everywhere (cons: no sprocs or views support)
Microsoft Access (cons: has to have OLEDB Jet driver installed)
XML files (cons: have to use XPath for querying and it will probably
get slower as the amount of data increases - I can't slap an index on
the XML file).
>
I was wondering what folks here thought about these choices and whether
anyone has another alternative to offer.
>
Regards

This is just a me-too post I suppose. If you don't need sql server
express, then I would use SQLite or Firebird.

--
Tom Shelton

[Peter Macej]

Re: Choice for a desktop database.

VistaDB seems to be quite good and popular.

--
Peter Macej
Helixoft - http://www.helixoft.com
VSdocman - Commenter and generator of class documentation for C#, VB
..NET and ASP .NET code