Slingshot and MySQL version

As I get further in my Blocks attributes management tool, I realize that using Excel to retrieve data I need to access info for materials, physical properties, brand names, etc… is quite limiting.
I’m now looking at MySQL to store all the data in a more organized way, and enable more complex queries.
So naturally, I installed the Slingshot plugin for GH.

My first issue was that the Slingshot .GHA version in Food4Rhino is not up to date ; one needs to go to the “Provingground” site, and secondly, I need to install old versions of the MySQL server and .NET connector.

I chose to install the latest version because it comes with a wizard (and it’s already quite a chore !), and the best tutorial I found is based on a recent version.

Will Slingshot work anyhow ?

I also wonder if this could work with a cloud based SQL server.

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Desperately looking for some ressources here : I found no example file, no explanation whatsoever about this plugin.
I’ve not been able to connect to my RDBMS, but I suspect that it’s a version issue.

I’m also a bit skeptical about the “SQL select string” component, which seems to be the main query component.
All it does, it seems, is concatenate the basic SQL commands with table names and conditions, leaving aside other important commands…
I think that anyone who is likely to use this tool knows how to format at least a basic query, therefore, a simple “Concatenate” component should do the trick…or am I missing something ?

I would love to hear from someone who managed to get it to work
I’m really excited about databases after seeing Moshe’s tutorial, and I find that it makes a lot of sense to use them along with GH.

In my case, I want to build a database of the block object metadata from my model, and use pre-made tables to fill in relevant attributes.
The Excel + GH data tree management seems to fall short to get this done properly and concisely, even with mildly complex queries.

Hello,

I wonder whether SQLite could do the trick? It is modern and maintained with lots of associated tools…

Graham

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Oh great ! Now I have to learn SQL and Python :slight_smile:
But thanks Graham, I’ll investigate this.

EDIT : Wow ! This looks much better than MySQL for my project.
No server, no password, no versions, no user rights to worry about ; heck, this really looks like the relational database for the rest of us !

Can this be used through GHPython ? Any examples, someone ?

I haven’t tried this yet but it sounds useful…

Thanks Graham, but keep in mind I just watched a couple of videos to figure up which side is the head and which side is tail on the SQL beast.

I’d really appreciate a GH example with the import of the SQlite library and some simple database creation / editing and querying.

I’m really intrigued as to why there is so little discussion on this ; it seems to have so much potential …