I am willing to give 10 US dollars to the first ten people each who can point out a real webhost (you know, appearing in Google and relevant forums for some time -- nominating the webhost that you run is not nice!) which
- Has PHP 5.2.
- Has PDO.
- Does not have the PDO SQLite driver on. ( Run print_r(PDO::getAvailableDrivers()); to see the drivers available.)
- Unwilling to switch it on after a polite request explaining that the award winning Drupal CMS would like to make pdo-sqlite a requirement in its next release.
Send applications to chx1975 at Google's excellent mail service.
Edit: given that noone came, I am changing the rules. 25 dollars to the first four.
Edit2: On Debian, php5-sqlite3 provides the new sqlite3 extension which we do not support. Install php5-sqlite.
Edit3: so far,FutureQuest.net have been proved not supporting PDO_SQLITE.
Why don't you use a VPS? That way, you can configure it however you like.
You can get a dedicated VPS from Slicehost for $220 per year.
The question is not about finding a host for the author, it is about assessing the compatibility of an enhancement to the next version of Drupal Core across a wide variety of hosting providers.
Sometimes webhosts have to be urged to invest some time and effort in offering a PHP product that is friendly to the developers of open source software. If chx can come up with enough evidence that PDO/SQlite support won't be a painful technological barrier from the web hosts, he can argue in Draupl 7 development that we can feel free to build features which depend on it.
SQlite support is installed as part of PHP5.2+ by default. That means we should have it. Any webhost that intentionally takes it out (which they would have to) should be kicked and publicly rebuked.
I'm inclined to say we just run with it. We assume the filter functions, regex libraries, and other parts of default php are there. Why not assume sqlite support is there.
PHP's "default" SQLite is not the same as PDO's SQLite. The SQLite accessible through PHP's sqlite_*() functions creates and works with SQLite 2 databases, whereas PDO's SQLite functionality works with SQLite 3 databases. The latter is definitely preferable.
I've heard of SQLite being used on mobile devices for things like repository information... but why should it be made a requirement for D7 if its such a hard thing to come by?
Is there not an argument here that it would be using a technology for the sake of it? Why is it better than MySQL?
With MySQL you need to support credentials. With SQLite you do not need to. With MySQL, it is quite possible that it is on a different server and we need to cope when that's down. SQLite is a part of PHP, it's always there so Drupal can always rely on something that understands SQL being there.
nicholas, it seems you have a gross misunderstanding of just what SQLite is used for… but you're hardly alone in that regard. It's not hard to come by at all. Odds are you're using software which makes use of SQLite right now, even if you don't realize it. Check out this list for some common uses of SQLite.
And as nk mentioned above, SQLite has lots of benefits over MySQL. I'll add one more. Since all database information is stored in a single file, database backup and restoration is a breeze; just copy or move the file in the operating system as you would any other file. No need for creating and reading dump files. It also makes it possible for large database files to be backed up incrementally by rsync and the like.
When I run
print_r(PDO::getAvailableDrivers());
I get
Array ( [0] => sqlite [1] => sqlite2 [2] => mysql )
There's nothing there about sqlite3. So does this qualify as one such host?
The unqualified "sqlite" is SQLite 3. The SQLite 2 driver is an optional (I believe) driver for backwards compatibility.
Array ( [0] => mysql )
http://www.stroobant.be/sqlite.php
http://www.stroobant.be/info.php
As I already wrote on the mailinglist, sqlite requires a separate package php5-sqlite3.
I have in fact found a qualifying host that does not support SQLite, and have emailed chx with the details.
A MyDomain.com webspace doesn't have it:
Array ( [0] => pgsql [1] => odbc [2] => mysql )
I've opened a support request to see if they will turn it on. Will report back their response.
Response from MyDomain.com support
Response (Josh V.) - 02/11/2009 08:55 PM
I'm sorry we do not support that.
Thank you