Introduction

During the development phase of Embedded Shruti, Microsoft SQL server for CE was considered as an option for providing database support to the application. This section will explain some of the key features of the Microsoft SQL server CE and the reason why it was not used in Embedded Shruti.

2.4.1 Rapid Application Development

SQL Server CE makes application development easy while providing a consistent development model and API set. Microsoft® Visual Basic® developers can rapidly develop Windows CE applications by using eMbedded Visual Basic and ADOCE (ActiveX data objects from Windows CE). Microsoft® Visual C++® developers can leverage their existing skills to build sophisticated Windows CE-based database applications that target mobile and embedded solutions.

2.4.2 High-Performance Database Engine

SQL Server CE offers rich relational database functionality in the small memory footprint on today's devices. Microsoft SQL Server developers will appreciate the robust feature set which includes:

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  A compatible SQL grammar with SQL Server 2000. Statements that run on SQL Server CE will, in general, run on SQL Server.
  
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  A wide range of data types, including:
  
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    TINYINT, SMALLINT, INTEGER, BIGINT
    
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    REAL, NUMERIC, FLOAT
    
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    BIT, BINARY, VARBINARY, IMAGE
    
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    UNICODE character data types NATIONAL CHARACTER, NATIONAL CHARACTER VARYING, NTEXT
    
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    MONEY, DATETIME, UNIQUEIDENTIFIER
    
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  32 indexes per table, multicolumn indexes
  
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  NULL support
  
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  Nested transactions
  
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  128-bit file level encryption
  
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  DDL: Create databases, alter tables, referential integrity, default values
  
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  DML: INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE
  
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  SELECT: SET Functions (aggregates), INNER/OUTER JOIN, subselect, GROUP BY/HAVING
  
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  Scrollable and forward-only cursors