Is there a database in Zope?

[Martijn Faassen]

NH <insanik at hotmail.com> wrote:
> Hello,

> I am new to Python and Zope, so please don't flame me.  I have been assigned
> to create a website for the counceling office at my high school.  I want to
> use either Zope or PHP. (Which is better?)

I don't have experience with PHP, and I do with Zope. They're different;
PHP is basically a web-programming language, while Zope is a web application
server; it does more for you than PHP does (which may be an advantage or
a disadvantage).

> Anyways, what I need to know is if there is a database with in Zope where I
> can store data or variables for an extended period of time.  This data would
> need to survive rebooting.  Something like SQL inside Zope?  I know there is
> the ZODB, but I am not sure of its capabilities.

Zope interfaces with plenty of SQL databases. Personally I've had it working
with Access (through ODBC) and with PostgreSQL. It works a lot of other
SQL databases too.

The ZODB is a way to store objects persistently (across restarts of the
server) as well; it's very powerful and quite different from relational
databases; it depends on your application what is most useful to you. So,
the ZODB is capable of storing data and variables for an extended period
of time as well.

> What I need to do is have students fill out a form that the councelor can
> view at a later time.  I will be dealing with many students.  The server is
> not that good, so I need to keep everything simple.  I am not sure if I'd be
> able to get a SQL server together.

What kind of OS are you running? Getting ODBC to work on NT or Postgres on
Linux isn't that hard. Alternatively Zope comes with Gadfly, an SQL database
implemented in Python.

Regards,

Martijn
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