Re: DBI question

[Xilman]

To start, I'll make clear that I don't know of a freely accessible MySql engine. That's an admission of ignorance, not a statement that they do not exist.

However, I find that accessing other (relatively sane) databases is not particularly difficult once you can access any other. All you need to do install the appropriate DBD and start speaking SQL to it. The interface differences are quite minor and if you already know how to contact MySql a fewn minutes reading TFM and changing a few details in the code you arelady have will get you started.

So if you're willing to pay the entry fee (well worth paying, purely for the education you receive in return IMO), you may like to visit a FlyBase forum posting to gain free, read-only access to a massive PostgreSQL database of genetic information. The FlyBase site is driven by the underlying database and so you can see what the data looks like at a higher level than raw SQL. I'd start by first examining the table definitions and then examining some of the simpler taples, especially the "pub" (i.e. publication) table which is a relatively straightforward implementation of a bibliographic database.

Disclaimer: I work for FlyBase and I'm biased towards the pub table and its related tables because I'm the guy who, by and large, is in charge of the biblio portion of FlyBase.