Tag - SQLite3

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2013-09-10

Thread-safety of mORMot

We tried to make mORMot at the same time fast and safe, and able to scale with the best possible performance on the hardware it runs on.
Multi-threading is the key to better usage of modern multi-core CPUs, and also client responsiveness.

As a result, on the Server side, our framework was designed to be thread-safe.

On typical production use, the mORMot HTTP server will run on its own optimized thread pool, then call the TSQLRestServer.URI method. This method is therefore expected to be thread-safe, e.g. from the TSQLHttpServer. Request method. Thanks to the RESTful approach of our framework, this method is the only one which is expected to be thread-safe, since it is the single entry point of the whole server. This KISS design ensure better test coverage.

Let us see now how this works, and publish some benchmarks to test how efficient it has been implemented.

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2013-09-02

Summer videos of mORMot

During this summer, warleyalex did meet some mORMots in the mountains of REST, Java, AJAX and JSON. (picture may differ from actual user:) ) He did some videos of his experiment with our little rodent. At this time, there are 11 videos available! Latest one is a Java client application,  […]

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2013-06-16

FireDAC / AnyDAC support for mORMot

Our SynDB classes feature now FireDAC / AnyDAC access, with full speed!

Up to now, only UniDAC, BDE or ZEOS components were available as source, but we just added FireDAC / AnyDAC.

FireDAC is an unique set of Universal Data Access Components for developing cross platform database applications on Delphi. This was in fact a third-party component set, bought by Embarcadero to DA-SOFT Technologies (formerly known as AnyDAC), and included with several editions of Delphi XE3 and up. This is the new official platform for high-speed database development in Delphi, in favor to the now deprecated DBExpress.

Our integration within SynDB.pas units and the mORMot persistence layer has been tuned. For instance, you can have direct access to high-speed FireDAC Array DML feature, via the ORM batch process, via so-called array binding.

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2013-06-14

SQLite3 performance in Exclusive file locking mode

As stated in previous blog articles, the default SQlite3 write speed is quite slow, when running on a normal hard drive. By default, the engine will pause after issuing a OS-level write command. This guarantees that the data is written to the disk, and features the ACID properties of the database engine.

ACID is an acronym for "Atomicity Consistency Isolation Durability" properties, which guarantee that database transactions are processed reliably: for instance, in case of a power loss or hardware failure, the data will be saved on disk in a consistent way, with no potential loss of data.

In SQLite3, ACID is implemented by two means at file level:
- Synchronous writing: it means that the engine will wait for any written content to be flushed to disk before processing the next request;
- File locking: it means that the database file is locked for exclusive use during writing, allowing several processes to access the same database file concurrently.

Changing these default settings can ensure much better writing performance.

We just added direct File locking tuning.
It appears that defining exclusive access mode is able to increase the performance a lot, in both reading and writing speed.

Here are some new benchmarks and data, extracted from the updated SAD documentation.

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2013-06-07

Authentication and Authorization

Our mORMot framework tries to implement security via:
- Process safety;
- Authentication;
- Authorization.

Process safety is implemented at every n-Tier level:
- Atomicity of the SQLite3 database core;
- RESTful architecture to avoid most synchronization issues;
- ORM associated to the Object pascal strong type syntax;
- Extended test coverage of the framework core.

Authentication allows user identification:
- Build-in optional authentication mechanism, implementing both per-user sessions and individual REST Query Authentication;
- Authentication groups are used for proper authorization;
- Several authentication schemes, from very secure SHA-256 based challenging to weak but simple authentication;
- Class-based architecture, allowing custom extension.

Authorization of a given process is based on the group policy, after proper authentication:
- Per-table access right functionalities built-in at lowest level of the framework;
- Per-method execution policy for interface-based services;
- General high-level security attributes, for SQL or Service remote execution.

We will now give general information about both authentication and authorization in the framework.

In particular, authentication is now implemented via a set of classes.

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2013-05-24

REGEXP operator for SQLite3

Our SQLite3 engine can now use regular expression within its SQL queries, by enabling the REGEXP operator in addition to standard SQL operators (= == != <> IS IN LIKE GLOB MATCH). It will use the Open Source PCRE library (bounded since Delphi XE, or available as a separate download) to perform the queries.

It will enable advanced searches within text columns and our objects, when used as a WHERE clause of our mORMot's ORM.

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2013-04-24

mORMots know how to swim like fishes

Another great video by warleyalex. This time, a full FishFacts demo in AJAX, using mORMot and its SQLite3 ORM as server. See it on YouTube! Feedback is welcome on our forum. Update: I've just uploaded the corresponding source code to our repository. See sample 19 - AJAX ExtJS FishFacts. You need to  […]

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2013-04-02

Two videos about EXTjs client of mORMot server

Two nice videos, posted by a framework user. The first one presents a remote RESTful access of a SQLite3 database, hosted by a mORMot server: After one post in the forum, warleyalex was able to easily add remote filtering of the request: In addition to the previous video about security (by which the  […]

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2013-03-27

Introducing TSQLTable.Step() method

We have just added TSQLTable.Step(), FieldBuffer() and Field() methods, handling a cursor at TSQLTable level, with optional late-binding column access.

It allows to retrieve results from a TSQLTable / TSQLTableJSON result sets within a "cursor-like" orientation.
That is, no need to specify the row number, but write a simple while aList.Step do ... loop.

Of course, you should better use TSQLRecord.FillPrepare most of the time, and access the data from a TSQLRecord instance.
But it can be very useful, e.g. when working on a custom JOINed SQL statement.

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2013-03-23

Download latest version of sqlite3.dll for Windows 64 bit

Update: We now build the amalgamation file with mingw and release the latest version of SQLite3, from this direct SQLite3-64.7z link, as soon as it is published on the SQLite3 site. Up to now, there is no official Win64 version of the SQlite3 library released in http://sqlite.org.. It is in fact  […]

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2013-03-07

64 bit compatibility of mORMot units

I'm happy to announce that mORMot units are now compiling and working great in 64 bit mode, under Windows.
Need a Delphi XE2/XE3 compiler, of course!

ORM and services are now available in Win64, on both client and server sides.
Low-level x64 assembler stubs have been created, tested and optimized.
UI part is also available... that is grid display, reporting (with pdf export and display anti-aliasing), ribbon auto-generation, SynTaskDialog, i18n... the main SynFile demo just works great!

Overall impression is very positive, and speed is comparable to 32 bit version (only 10-15% slower).

Speed decrease seems to be mostly due to doubled pointer size, and some less optimized part of the official Delphi RTL.
But since mORMot core uses its own set of functions (e.g. for JSON serialization, RTTI support or interface calls or stubbing), we were able to release the whole 64 bit power of your hardware.

Delphi 64 bit compiler sounds stable and efficient. Even when working at low level, with assembler stubs.
Generated code sounds more optimized than the one emitted by FreePascalCompiler - and RTL is very close to 32 bit mode.
Overall, VCL conversion worked as easily than a simple re-build.
Embarcadero's people did a great job for VCL Win64 support, here!

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2013-02-25

Using external MinGW/VisualC++ sqlite3.dll - including benchmark

With upcoming revision 1.18 of the framework, our SynSQlite3.pas unit is able to access the SQLite3 engine in two ways:

  • Either statically linked within the project executable;
  • Or from an external sqlite3.dll library file.

The SQLite3 APIs and constants are defined in SynSQlite3.pas, and accessible via a TSQLite3Library class definition. It defines a global sqlite3 variable as such:

var
  sqlite3: TSQLite3Library;

To use the SQLite3 engine, an instance of TSQLite3Library class shall be assigned to this global variable. Then all mORMot's calls will be made through it, calling e.g. sqlite3.open() instead of sqlite3_open().

There are two implementation classes:

Class Unit Purpose
TSQLite3LibraryStatic SynSQLite3Static.pas Statically linked engine (.obj within the .exe)
TSQLite3LibraryDynamic SynSQLite3.pas Instantiate an external sqlite3.dll instance

Referring to SynSQLite3Static.pas in the uses clause of your project is enough to link the .obj engine into your executable.

Warning - breaking change: before version 1.18 of the framework, link of static .obj was forced - so you must add a reference to SynSQLite3Static in your project uses clause to work as expected.

In order to use an external sqlite3.dll library, you have to set the global sqlite3 variable as such:

 FreeAndNil(sqlite3); // release any previous instance (e.g. static)
 sqlite3 := TSQLite3LibraryDynamic.Create;

Of course, FreeAndNil(sqlite3) is not mandatory, and should be necessary only to avoid any memory leak if another SQLite3 engine instance was allocated (may be the case if SynSQLite3Static is referred somewhere in your project's units).

Here are some benchmarks, compiled with Delphi XE3, run in a 32 bit project, using either the static bcc-compiled engine, or an external sqlite3.dll, compiled via MinGW or Microsoft Visual C++.

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2013-02-17

Interface-based service sample: remote SQL access

You will find in the SQLite3\Sample\16 - Execute SQL via services folder of mORMot source code a Client-Server sample able to access any external database via JSON and HTTP.
It is a good demonstration of how to use an interface-based service between a client and a server.
It will also show how our SynDB classes have a quite abstract design, and are easy to work with, whatever database provider you need to use.

The corresponding service contract has been defined:

  TRemoteSQLEngine = (rseOleDB, rseODBC, rseOracle, rseSQlite3, rseJet, rseMSSQL);

IRemoteSQL = interface(IInvokable) ['{9A60C8ED-CEB2-4E09-87D4-4A16F496E5FE}'] procedure Connect(aEngine: TRemoteSQLEngine; const aServerName, aDatabaseName, aUserID, aPassWord: RawUTF8); function GetTableNames: TRawUTF8DynArray; function Execute(const aSQL: RawUTF8; aExpectResults, aExpanded: Boolean): RawJSON; end;

Purpose of this service is:
- To Connect() to external databases, given the parameters of a standard TSQLDBConnectionProperties. Create() constructor;
- Retrieve all table names of this external database as a list;
- Execute any SQL statement, returning the content as JSON array, ready to be consumed by AJAX applications (if aExpanded is true), or a Delphi client (e.g. via a TSQLTableJSON and the mORMotUI unit).

Of course, this service will be define as sicClientDriven mode, that is, the framework will be able to manage a client-driven TSQLDBProperties instance life time.

Benefit of this service is that no database connection is required on the client side: a regular HTTP connection is enough.
No need to install nor configure any database provider, and full SQL access to the remote databases.

Due to our optimized JSON serialization, it will probably be faster to work with such plain HTTP / JSON services, instead of a database connection through a VPN. In fact, database connections are made to work on a local network, and do not like high-latency connections, which are typical on the Internet.

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2013-02-12

Introducing ZEOS, UniDAC, NexusDB, BDE, any TDataset to SynDB and mORMot's ORM

Up to now, our SynDB database classes were handling ODBC, OleDB providers and direct Oracle or SQLite3 connection.

We have added a DB.pas based layer, ready to be used with UniDAC, NexusDB, or the BDE.
Any other TDataset based component is ready to be interfaced, including UIB, AnyDAC or DBExpress.

The ZEOS library (in its latest 7.0.3 stable version, which works from Delphi 7 up to XE3) has also been interfaced, but without the TDataset/DB.pas layer: our SynDBZEOS.pas unit calls the ZDBC layer, which is not tied to DB.pas nor its RAD components, and is therefore faster. By the way, it will work also with the Starter edition of Delphi (which does not include the DB components) - just like the other "regular" SynDB classes.

This is a work in progress, any testing and feedback is welcome!
We had to circumvent some particularities of the libraries, but I guess we have something interesting.

A dedicated "SynDBDataset" sub-folder has been created in the repository, to contain all SynDBDataset.pas-based database providers.
SynDBNexusDB.pas unit has been moved within this sub-folder, as SynDBUniDAC.pas + SynDBBDE.pas units have been added.
SynDBZeos.pas has a direct access to the ZDBC layer, so is not part of the "SynDBDataset" sub-folder.

Here is some benchmark, mainly about Oracle and SQlite3 database access.
Of course, our direct SynDBOracle / SynDBSQLite3 layers are the fastest around, and we can see that ZDBC layer is sometimes more efficient than the TDataset components.

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2013-01-28

External database speed improvements

Some major speed improvements have been made to our SynDB* units, and how they are used within the mORMot persistence layer.
It results in an amazing speed increase, in some cases.

Here are some of the optimizations how took place in the source code trunk:

Overall, I observed from x2 to x10 performance boost with simple Add() operations, using ODBC, OleDB and direct Oracle access, when compare to previous benchmarks (which were already impressive).
BATCH mode performance is less impacted, since it by-passed some of those limitations, but even in this operation mode, there is some benefits (especially with ODBC and OleDB).

Here are some results, directly generated by the supplied "15 - External DB performance" sample.

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2012-12-31

Enhance existing projects with mORMot

Even if mORMot will be more easily used in a project designed from scratch, it fits very well the purpose of evolving any existing Delphi project, or even creating the server side part of an AJAX application. 

One benefit of such a framework is to facilitate the transition from a Client-Server architecture to a N-Tier layered pattern.

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2012-11-28

Breaking change in mORmot: SQLite3*.pas units renamed mORMot*.pas

All former SQLite3\SQLite3*.pas units have been renamed to SQLite3\mORMot*.pas to match the database-agnostic scheme of the mORMot framework. This is a major break change, so all your "uses" clauses in your code is to be change to follow the new naming. See this commit, which includes  […]

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2012-10-28

SynDBOracle: Open Source native Oracle access

(this is an update of the article published in 2011/07)

For our mORMot framework, and in completion to our SynOleDB unit, we added a new Open Source unit, named SynDBOracle. It allows direct access to any remote Oracle server, using the Oracle Call Interface.

Oracle Call Interface (OCI) is the most comprehensive, high performance, native unmanaged interface to the Oracle Database that exposes the full power of the Oracle Database. We wrote a direct call of the oci.dll library, using our DB abstraction classes introduced for SynOleDB.

We tried to implement all best-practice patterns detailed in the official Building High Performance Drivers for Oracle document

Resulting speed is quite impressive: for all requests, SynDBOracle is 3 to 5 times faster than a SynOleDB connection using the native OleDB Provider supplied by Oracle. We noted also that our implementation is 10 times faster than the one provided with ZEOS/ZDBC, which is far from optimized.

You can use the latest version of the Oracle Instant Client provided by Oracle - see this link - which allows you to run your applications without installing the standard (huge) Oracle client or having an ORACLE_HOME. Just deliver the dll files in the same directory than your application, and it will work.

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2012-10-03

Today's sugar: "stored AS_UNIQUE" syntax

The limited RTTI available in earlier versions of Delphi we want to support (starting with Delphi 6/7) lacks of attributes.
Even the attribute feature of newer Delphi version is not compatible with the one exposed by the FreePascalCompiler, we also want to support.

Therefore, our ORM expects unique columns in a TSQLRecord published property to be defined as stored false.
It could be misleading at first, as reported by several users.
In order to avoid any confusion, we just added a new constant named AS_UNIQUE.

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2012-09-14

Updated mORMot benchmarks on another HW configuration

With a refreshed hardware, and the latest code modifications of the framework code, I run again the benchmark sample.

The new PC has an Intel Core i7-2600 CPU, running on Windows Seven 64-bit, with anti-virus (Norton) fully enabled.
Oracle 11g database is remotely accessed over a corporate network, so latency and bandwidth is not optimal.
Still no SSD, but a standard 7200 rpm hard drive of 500 GB.

The results are impressive, when compared to the previous run using a Core 2 Duo CPU - mORMot's optimized code achieves amazing speed on this platform.
And I guess the 8MB of L3 cache of the Core i7 does wonders with our code.

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