DVD Store 2.1 and Custom Size Databases

The biggest new feature in DVD Store 2.1 is easily the ability to create any size database.  This was a widely requested feature for years and I'm really glad that we were able to get it into this update.

First some background as to what this means.  When we initially created the DVD Store we provided separate scripts that allowed for the creation of a Small, Medium, or Large database which corresponded with 10MB, 1GB, and 100GB.  It was possible to take these scripts and modify them to create a different size database, but you really had to know the DVD Store pretty well to get all the needed changes made.  Despite this, we had several users who were able to create some different sizes and publish results with them.

In DS21 we have created a perl script (InstallDVDStore.pl ) that asks a series of questions and then generates a set of database creation scripts and load files.  The first question it asks is how large do you want the database to be.  It then uses that number to calculate the number of customers and orders are needed to create a database of that size based on a ratio of how many rows were in the 100 GB large database in previous versions of the DVD Store.  This number of rows is then used to create the load files using some c programs that are part of the DVD Store kit.

When the InstallDVDStore.pl script completes, a set of data files and database creation scripts are ready to be used to create the database.  This gives you the opportunity to make changes or tweaks to the scripts if wanted before the creation.  It also allows you to use the same set of scripts to create the database again without having to rerun the perl script.  Run the createall script and the database will be created and loaded with data, resulting in the size database that you specified.

Todd