free form texual database

[Jim O'Connor]

In article <397 at ispi.UUCP>, jbayer at ispi.UUCP (Jonathan Bayer) writes:
> has to be able to store entries of arbitrary length (anywhere from a few
> lines to several pages), and be indexed by at least a header, and if
> possible by special key words located in the entries.  The key words in
> the second case would be specified in a key word list, the database
> should index any word in the entry which is in the key word list.
> 
> Additionally, it should be able to store data in a tree-structured
> order, somewhat like the net news.

Why not use the Xenix directory structure itself?  You could write a few
programs to accept the data (sounds like a WP file), create the header,
check for key words and add the file name to the key word index if any are 
found, and then store the whole thing in the appropriate directory.

By storing this data in files under the directory structure, you allow
yourself to use all of the existing Unix utilities to access this data.
Sounds like being able to use grep, awk, more (or less), etc. would come
in real handy when your user's would want to access the data.  You could
also use your favorite editor as the "data entry" program.

Sounds interesting, though.  I once thought of doing something similar as a
"report" management system, where electronic copies of all the reports
people generate around here could be stored in files, and then someone could
use "readrep" to read the reports.  Keys by topic, sender, key words, etc.
would have been useful.  If people got used to using it, it would cut down
some on the paper flow.

In reality, though, my "report" system could be done through e-mail or the news
by using special local groups.

--jim
------------- 
James B. O'Connor				jim at FSC.COM
Filtration Sciences Corp.			+1 615 821 4022 x651
105 W. 45th St. - Chattanooga, TN 37409