It has been seven months since DataMgr 2.2 was released and now DataMgr 2.5 Alpha 1 is finally available. I have gotten quite a bit of help on this version, both in terms of ideas as well as code.

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I saw a comment recently that said of DataMgr "His project does a lot more than what i need, otherwise I would use it myself. ". This was in the context of suggesting someone look at DataMgr, so I certainly don't want to seem ungrateful. Even so, this got me thinking.

I have certainly seen programs that do so much that the extra stuff gets in the way of doing the easy stuff. I don't think that is the case with DataMgr, however.

The download for the current version of DataMgr (2.2.0.2) is a 71KB zipped file (under 400KB unzipped) - hardly massive.

So, how hard is it to use? I have a database on my local computer named "TestSQL" that has a table named "widgets". Fields in this table include "color" and "size".

Here is actual code to save a widget to the widgets table:

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I just fixed a couple of bugs in DataMgr which caused an update in both DataMgr and in the com.sebtools pack. The com.sebtools package also includes an update to FileMgr among other components.

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Using Filters in Relation Field Definitions

It recently came to my attention that I haven't yet covered in blogs or documentation one of the most powerful features in DataMgr. I have covered relation fields and filters, but (until now) not how to use a filter in a relation field definition.

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In the last several weeks, I have gotten a few bug reports on DataMgr 2.2. Most of them are fixed in this release.

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After more than a year in development, including plenty of help from others, DataMgr 2.2 is now in final release state.

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The last beta of DataMgr 2.2 was released just over a month ago and things seem to have gone smoothly so I am going to release at as release candidate. Assuming that no problems are found with this build, the final version of 2.2 should follow shortly.

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I was curious yesterday about which databases were supported by which ColdFusion Data Access Layers (DALs). I went to check on that and before I knew it, I had compiled quite a few comparisons on each.

Perhaps I should back up at this point and explain what I mean by a DAL. I DAL is any application that manages access to data (usually a database). These are often referred to as an ORM. An ORM, however, is one type of DAL (one that maps objects to a database). An ORM is a DAL, but a DAL need not be an ORM.

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(What is DataMgr?)

I have tried to ensure that each version of DataMgr is completely backward compatible with every previous version of DataMgr. With version 2.2, however, I did introduce a small compatibility issue that may require a change in code.

The 2.2 code will work on previous versions, but code written for previous versions may need a small adjustment for new versions.

The reason for this is that while relation fields can call other relation fields, sometimes the combination doesn't make sense. For example, it does make sense to have a "label" relation that gets the value of a "sum" relation for another table. It doesn't make sense, however, to do a sum on a "concat" field (or any normal field that isn't numeric). It also isn't possible for any relation field to get the value from a "list" relation.

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Coming just 6 weeks after the previous beta, DataMgr 2.2 Beta 3 is ready and I expect it is pretty close to the final release.

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