NEEDED: SQL Parser callable from python?

[Paul Boddie]

mkent at atlantic.net (MikeK) wrote in message news:<efd753ca.0208250517.228fc2d4 at posting.google.com>...
>

[Legacy database antics]

> Yes, I know I would need to create my own query engine.  In reality, that
> engine would only need to map the SQL queries into the legacy system's
> queries.

I've been in a similar situation before (having to write an SQL-based
layer sitting on top of a proprietary, badly specified, non-standard
database system, albeit with various commercial entities playing "pass
the parcel" with it) and my advice is, if you really have to go
through with the activity of writing a query engine, is to find out
exactly which kinds of queries you really need and to concentrate only
on those - this may help to reduce the complexity of the engine quite
considerably.

Of course, my ultimate advice is to rewrite the application to use a
standard, open database system and to migrate the data across to that
system, but I suppose we don't all have that luxury. Sometimes,
however, what might be considered "luxury" is actually "necessity" and
vice versa, but organisational politics may obscure this
realisation...

Paul