P-0: Virtual World Concept: Update 4: Successful integration of ODBC database connection for mySQL in T3D 3.6

by PhoenixGames on Jan.30, 2016, under Astral Realms, P-0, Servers and Networking, Spiritus Astrum

It turns out writing a database connector wasn’t too difficult after all.

I used and ODBC connector, which I downloaded from HERE.

I also came across THIS excellent tutorial, with some fully working sample code at the end, which required only minor modifications to work in T3D. According to this tutorial, only the 32-bit ODBC connector may be used. This may not be a factor anymore, but I used the 32-bit connector anyway, and it worked fine on my (64-bit Windows 10, Visual Studio 2015) system.

I was able to connect to and query my mySQL database, which is currently connected to a raspberry PI 2 on my LAN.

I need to do some more work on this before it is usable, currently I only have a test function which connects to the database, queries it, and disconnects. I need to add separate functions for connection, querying, disconnecting, etc, all exposed to script.

I will then upload my code changes here. I think mySQL integration is a very important resource to have in a modern games engine. SQLite is fine, but from what I’ve read, isn’t suitable for shared databases, particularly ones with many simultaneous users.