Embperl and Databases

Believe it or not, we are done. This client editor obviously needs some help with its user interface, since it is still possible for someone to enter an illegal value (e.g., a bad DATE element for initial_contact_date, or a fraction for the TINYINT column dollars_per_hour). If you have more than three or four clients, this interface quickly becomes tedious. The lack of truly descriptive names for each column gives a hard-to-use look to a program that is far easier and less error-prone than entering straight SQL would be.

However, improving the interface is fairly straightforward once you understand how to perform the four basic database operations: INSERT, SELECT, UPDATE and DELETE. Indeed, we have seen that doing all of these in Embperl can be quite simple. Creating alternative interfaces should not be hard to do, given the examples we have already seen.

More importantly, this Embperl template is useful for much more than just the Clients table. By modifying the value of @columns and the name of the table, you could use this same template to modify nearly any record in any table.

I hope you have enjoyed this romp through the world of Embperl and templates. A number of templating systems are now available for doing similar things; even if you are unaccustomed to using such templates to communicate with databases, you should consider getting one of the available packages and trying it. Their power may convince you of their utility, too.

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