The EuroWinPHP application

This post is part of a series about my experiences building a PHP app for Windows Server 2008 and IIS 7 for the European WinPHP Challenge 2009 which is sponsored by iBuildings, Microsoft and Leaseweb.

So.. I’ve decided on a name: SuccesSQL! I can almost hear the groan from here… What can I say? The name appealed to me :)

The plan is to write a web based management interface for MS SQL Server databases with a focus on inspecting the data and importing/exporting it. Essentially, I want to be able to inspect the schema and query data without having to go to all the hassle of firing up a VM, connecting to a VPN, starting the SQL Server management application, connecting to the SQL Server, drilling down though five levels of tree on the left just to find out if how many chars a given varchar has been assigned.

I’m intending to write SuccesSql so that it operates quickly with the minimum of fuss.

The plan

The application will be written using Zend Framework 1.8. The Zend_Db component doesn’t have a good adapter for MSSQL, so the first job will be to write one.

The main goals are:

• Easy to use UI
• Inspect database schema
• A data search functionality (global would be nice too)
• Ability to run arbitrary SQL statements against the database

Going forward, additional functionality that would be useful is:

• Export a database table / query result-set to a CSV file
• Eexport a database to a single text file
• Table administration: add, update and delete
• Inspection and administration of indexes
• Management of users

The next step is to understand the SQL Server Driver for PHP and compare it to using ODBC directly.