Procedural language database

The RDBMS is installed and runs on a computer that functions as a database server. Any SQL commands are executed on the server by the RDBMS. Functions written in SQL or in any of the procedural languages mentioned above are also executed by the RDBMS. This has the advantage that the data tables used by these SQL commands or procedural functions are under the control of the server. This is the most efficient way to access the data. The disadvantage is that the server may have many requests to handle from many users. Another way to operate on data tables is indirectly, using a client program typically (although not necessarily) run from another computer. 

Relational databases are not just for storage and organization of information. While they have always provided useful tools to search data, I now realize how the extensibility of a database increases its usefulness by using various procedural languages operating within the database. I have converted most of my essential tools into database functions. Whenever possible, these tools operate on whole tables rather than processing them using arrays and iterators. It seems now that I am inside the database... 

The MACCS-II link has its advantages and disadvantages at the moment. To use it, you must always be in MACCS. This problem occurs because you cannot get information from a MACCS database from outside MACCS by any direct method. ORACLE does not have this problem. For example, it is possible to retrieve ORACLE database information into a FORTRAN procedural language program for further manipulation and display. What MACCS-II does provide is a strong link to the outside. This overcomes most of the problems associated with this missing link to MACCS. 

The order of procedures that result in the publication of an EHC monograph is shown in the flow chart on the next page. A designated staff member of IPCS, responsible for the scientific quality of the document, serves as Responsible Officer (RO). The IPCS Editor is responsible for layout and language. The first draft, prepared by consultants or, more usually, staff from an IPCS Participating Institution, is based initially on data provided from the International Register of Potentially Toxic Chemicals and from reference databases such as Medline and Toxline. 

Directory database and display data and metafiles. The series of commands required to automate this procedure is written in sequence language and is shown in Figure 7. Scrolling buttons are also incorporated in the menu in order to display data that may not fit into the box. 

The computation of the generic link types from the free language links provided by experts was a non-trivial task. A set of procedures were applied to the NoteCard files to parse out the links between cards and to replace the expert values with a generic value assigned by a database. This work was undertaken in LISP as an extension to NoteCards. 

A consideration of the whole bulk of the CSD is both impractical and unnecessary. At the same time, the Cif file format in which the CSD entries are stored requires extensive manipulation of alphabetic data and is impractical for use with computer programs written in the most widely used languages for scientific calculation. For the examples shown in this chapter, some reduced databases have therefore been prepared from the CSD, containing molecular data in numerical form. A full description of the retrieval procedure is given in the Supplementary material (see OPiX manual, Retcif-Coor procedures). 

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