This repo is forked from links-lang/links. All work is based on Links developed by the programming language group in University of Edinburgh and is done by with the help from the group.
This project mainly modularizes SQL-related databases and standard libraries in the Linx interpreter, allowing it to dynamically load SQL-related databases and libraries as plugins by running Linx interpreter with flags. Postgresql, mysql and sqlite3 are currently supported, but it's rather easy for users to extend other SQL database with the API implemented in database.ml. Library implemented wraps Ocaml standard library and functions are loaded as built-in functions. Also, simple API is provided in lib.ml for users to develop their own libraries. Standard libraries wrap OCaml standard libraries. Also, it provides APIs for users to develop their own plugins.
USAGE
links -database=<path\to\the\databse\plugin> to load SQL database.
links -builtin_func=<library_name> to load library, assuming that library plugins are put in ./plugins/ocamllib before.
note:
plugins can be compiled with the following command:
ocamlopt -o <plugin_name> -shared <source file>
more detailed information can be found in Makefiles in pluglins directory.
Links helps to build modern Ajax-style applications: those with significant client- and server-side components.
A typical, modern web program involves many "tiers": part of the program runs in the web browser, part runs on a web server, and part runs in specialized systems such as a relational database. To create such a program, the programmer must master a myriad of languages: the logic is written in a mixture of Java, Python, and Perl; the presentation in HTML; the GUI behavior in Javascript; and the queries are written in SQL or XQuery. There is no easy way to link these: to be sure, for example, that an HTML form or an SQL query produces the type of data that the Java code expects. This is called the impedance mismatch problem.
Links eases the impedance mismatch problem by providing a single language for all three tiers. The system is responsible for translating the code into suitable languages for each tier: for instance, translating some code into Javascript for the browser, some into Java for the server, and some into SQL to use the database.
Links incorporates ideas proven in other programming languages: database-query support from Kleisli, web-interaction proposals from PLT Scheme, and distributed-computing support from Erlang. On top of this, it adds some new web-centric features of its own.
FEATURES
- Allows web programs to be written in a single programming language
- Call-by-value functional language
- Server / Client annotations
- AJAX
- Scalability through defunctionalised server continuations.
- Statically typed database access a la Kleisli
- Concurrent processes on the client and the server
- Statically typed Erlang-esque message passing
- Polymorphic records and variants
- An effect system for supporting abstraction over database queries whilst guaranteeing that they can be efficiently compiled to SQL