Welcome to the MacNN Forums.

Simon · Jul 13, 2004, 02:40 AM

OK, it's a really simple problem: I have thousands of scientific papers and articles and I'm starting to lose track of them. They're currently all in folders, sorted roughly by topics, but it's getting too tedious to find a certain paper with this (crappy) system.

I was thinking about a simple little database that tracks paper names, authors, journal, year, etc. and a serial number by which I can sort the papers in the folders. FileMaker Pro would do the job fine. But, FileMaker is not available on Linux and I will have to be able to access the data not just from my Macs, but also from Linux machines and from remote locations (via ssh). So no pure Mac GUI either. Also, I guess it can't be web-based, because I'm not constantly running a web server on the Mac...

That's why I was thinking I'd like a simple CLI database I can have on the Mac. That would be easy and fast. If I'm on a trip and need to check something or if I'm on a Linux box I can just log in via ssh and check the database even though it's on the Mac.

So, is there a free and simple (easy to learn & easy to maintain) tool to get this done or do I really have to fire up gcc and do it by myself in C++ (which means it will never get done)...

Chris O'Brien · Jul 13, 2004, 04:29 AM

You could go for SQLite.
The tricky part is getting the data into the database - or is that the question?

Simon · Jul 13, 2004, 04:39 AM

Originally posted by Black Book:
You could go for SQLite.
The tricky part is getting the data into the database - or is that the question?

Looks interesting, thanks!

Getting the data in there should be easy enough for a student to do, so I don't have to do it myself.

If it's like entering data in FM or if it's a simple CLI query there should be no problem. If it requires some real file i/o code, it starts to sound like real work...

philzilla · Jul 13, 2004, 07:01 AM

try MySQL for your database, and phpMyAdmin for entering your data. both free, and you can enter data from a browser, over the network, if need be.

VEGAN · Jul 13, 2004, 07:07 AM

Originally posted by philzilla:
try MySQL for your database, and phpMyAdmin for entering your data. both free, and you can enter data from a browser, over the network, if need be.

Moreover, I think both MySQL and PHP are buildin Mac OS X 10.3

larkost · Jul 13, 2004, 08:04 AM

What you are describing is a great candidate for FileMakerPro. If you have a friend with FileMaker Developer they could probably dash off what you want in a half hour, and then give you the runtime (Developer builds small applications, and they can be distributed freely).

philzilla · Jul 13, 2004, 09:24 AM

Originally posted by VEGAN:
Moreover, I think both MySQL and PHP are buildin Mac OS X 10.3

i think the MySQL user is already setup, but i don't think MySQL is actually installed. not sure why that is, and i could well be wrong. i just download the latest build whenever i'm setting up a new OS X installation.

PHP is definitely installed, but not set up out of the box. again, i just grab the latest version, rather than the outdated version which shipped with 10.3, so i get up to date security patches, etc.

Simon · Jul 13, 2004, 09:28 AM

Originally posted by larkost:
What you are describing is a great candidate for FileMakerPro. If you have a friend with FileMaker Developer they could probably dash off what you want in a half hour, and then give you the runtime (Developer builds small applications, and they can be distributed freely).

But do these applets also run under Linux?

Currently I'm playing around with FM Pro. I've made some scripts that on closing the database export all the data to html and tab-text files which I can at least read from anywhere. Input from Linux is not possible. This is OK, but not really nice.

I guess I should look into this MySQL business, but it sounds like a slight overkill (I'd prefer simpler, but less time consuming to learn) for what I am trying to do.

VEGAN · Jul 13, 2004, 09:43 AM

Originally posted by philzilla:
i think the MySQL user is already setup, but i don't think MySQL is actually installed. not sure why that is, and i could well be wrong. i just download the latest build whenever i'm setting up a new OS X installation.

PHP is definitely installed, but not set up out of the box. again, i just grab the latest version, rather than the outdated version which shipped with 10.3, so i get up to date security patches, etc.

Well, I have MySQL installed via fink... so I'm not using Apple's even if it is there... but I think it's there, just turned off as default. I haven't really bothered since I had the fink version for long time

larkost · Jul 13, 2004, 10:25 AM

FileMaker (client) does not run on Linux, but it is really easy to enable the web module and let it share out simple databases. The built in setup is usually sufficient for the task, but you can get really crazy if you want (CDML on <7 and XSLT on 7).