Re: FOSS equivalents of *OLD* database and spreadsheet tools?

[Greg Wooledge <wooledg@eeg.ccf.org>]

On Mon, Jul 27, 2020 at 11:16:45AM -0400, Michael Stone wrote:
> On Mon, Jul 27, 2020 at 08:09:36AM -0400, Greg Wooledge wrote:
> > For a project of this size and scope, a Tcl application with an sqlite3
> > database in a local file seems well suited.
> 
> Only on the internet can someone ask a simple question and get tcl as the
> answer. :-/

OK, here's a quick program to show how it might be done.  The interface
is quite primitive, but it's a proof of concept.

You need to install the libsqlite3-tcl package, if you're using Debian's
version of Tcl.  If you compile Tcl from upstream source, this package
is included by default.

Here's the program:

=========================================================
#!/usr/bin/tclsh8.6
package require sqlite3
set dbfile ./food.db

proc usage {} {
    global argv0
    puts stderr "usage: $argv0 {add|print|dump} arguments"
    exit 1
}

if {[file exists $dbfile]} {
    sqlite3 db $dbfile
} else {
    sqlite3 db $dbfile
    db eval {create table food (name text, calories real)}
}

lassign $argv cmd food cals
switch -- $cmd {
    add {
	if {[llength $argv] != 3} {usage}
	db eval {insert into food(name, calories) values (:food, :cals)}
    }
    print {
	if {[llength $argv] != 2} {usage}
	db eval {select calories from food where name = :food} v {}
	if {! [info exists v(calories)]} {
	    puts stderr "Food '$food' not found"
	    exit 1
	}
	puts $v(calories)
    }
    dump {
	db eval {select name, calories from food order by name} v {
	    puts [format "%-30.30s %f" $v(name) $v(calories)]
	}
    }
    default {usage}
}
=========================================================

And running it:

unicorn:~$ ./foo
usage: ./foo {add|print|dump} arguments
unicorn:~$ ./foo add pretzels 50
unicorn:~$ ./foo add corn 30
unicorn:~$ ./foo print corn
30.0
unicorn:~$ ./foo print 'potato chips'
Food 'potato chips' not found
unicorn:~$ ./foo dump
corn                           30.000000
pretzels                       50.000000
unicorn:~$ ls -l food.db
-rw-r--r-- 1 greg greg 8192 Jul 27 11:31 food.db
unicorn:~$ ./foo add corn 35
unicorn:~$ ./foo dump
corn                           30.000000
corn                           35.000000
pretzels                       50.000000

Oops.  Looks like we should consider making the name a unique index.
Well, you can add that to your version.

Do you consider this "difficult"?  If so, you are probably approaching
this problem as a non-programmer, in which case I don't know what to
tell you.  Programming languages exist for a reason, and Tcl is one of
the easiest ones for this particular job.