[I want to apologize in advance to Colin - I did not make contact with him to tell him his work would be featured this month in the newsletter.]

Colin, a relatively new comer to Liberty Basic and to DLL interfaces, not to mention to database programming - has written a fantastic interface to the free Tsunami Database engine. This is groundbreaking work in an area that few (Dennis and Walt) have spent much time on. I wanted to thank him for his efforts and also insure the efforts are saved as a part of the newsletter legacy.

Shortly after I assembled this piece and just as I was going to press I discovered that Colin had updated his work and uploaded it the Liberty Basic files area. This article includes the updated interface and his sample code that demonstrates its use. I have included both his original message and the message announcing his latest release. The interface files, the example, the actual Tsunami database engine and the release information are all included in the zip file called tsunami.zip

On Sun Dec 15, 2002 Colin wrote regarding functions for using tzunami database:

I have been looking at Tsunami myself. The program [see zip file] is my attempt at a set of functions to access this from LB, using function calls that look like the VB string based access functions (see tsunami's documentation [that must be downloaded from the Tsunami website]).

I am very new to LB (a really fun language) and also new to DLLs and
databases in general, so I am sure that these routines are shot full
of holes [as it turns out they are quite sound]. However, someone my find them useful, until Walt Decker gets back on the case.

Please give me feedback - all learning is useful.

Thanks,

Colin McMurchie

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On Jan 1, 2003 Colin update his interface and added some examples:

Dear All, I have added files to the files area with some functions to
use Tsunami with LB. The first is the functions on their own, as I
posted last month. The second is a very short demo of using some of
these functions. The last is a short database file for use with the
demo. I am working on a short interface program to help create
Tsunami files, because the initial database specification is tricky
(see Walt Deckers post).

Some people are experiencing compile errors with these functions,
related to the winstring calls. I cannot replicate these on my
machine (running windows 98 SE), but I will keep trying. Any specific
feedback on when these errors occur would be useful.

Thanks, Colin McMurchie

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Rob Durk has been experimenting with the interface and reports:

"No problems so far! I'll post any problems I find!!" - Thanks Rob.

Walt Decker also commented on the work:

I've dropped the development of that interface. It is already done.
Colin McMurchie generously supplied me with his code to look over.
Although I could not run it (I do not have a registered LB3x version
and the code is over 200 lines), it appears to be complete and should
run without problems. There is, however, one problem with it. In
creating a database, if the position of a field is greater than 255
in the database, LB does not have tools to easily make a 2-byte
string representation of the field position. Other than that, it
should be a piece of cake.

Walt Decker
ABC Archives Admin

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Thanks to everyone for their hard work and dedication on this project. To learn more about the Tsunami Database Engine (it is free by the way) please visit their website at http://www.trm-ug.com/index.htm. If you wish to download a package to work with select the PowerBasic package as PB has a lot of similarities with Liberty Basic. Also be sure to download the manual there - it is in the form of a PDF.

- Brad