dba Tutorial: Introduction by Keith Oustalet

The dba Library contains a complete set of Hei-Level tools that make it easy for you to work with SQL Databases. These tools save you the trouble of developing your own solutions to many common database operations.

Using the pre-defined Tags in the dba Library, you can INSERT new records, DELETE or UPDATE old records, and BROWSE both forward and backward through a list of records. You can view data in any sort sequence you desire: alphabetically, by date, with one or more key fields, in ascending or descending order.

You can even SELECT records to view based on almost any set of conditions you might imagine. In short, the dba Library is so powerful you can use it as a Template-based approach to a wide variety of SQL Database Applications.

Although we have already provided quite a bit of documentation about these Tags in the heitml Libraries section of this Web Site, we recognize that it can be rather intimidating to absorb so much information at once. Therefore, we have created this Tutorial introduction to help get you started. It is a step by step reference, based on a real life example that you should already be familiar with - namely, our .

The Source Code Template we used to create the Interactive Guestbook is included in the heitml download package. If you haven't downloaded this package already, you should consider downloading it and printing out the template for the Interactive Guestbook gdba.hei. The Source Code makes it easier to see how the individual parts fit into the application as a whole and it should prove beneficial to have it handy while you are reading the Tutorial.

A dba application is divided into four parts:

1. Part 1: the dba Declaration part
2. Part 2: the Database Action part
3. Part 3: the TABLE view
4. Part 4: the FORM view

Once you have read through Part 4, you should have no trouble plugging the Guestbook Template into your own Web Site and modifying it to suit your needs.

A Tips & Tricks section is included at the end of this Tutorial that will help you move beyond the basics, and prepare you to solve problems and create more advanced applications on your own.