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/ SQL Access to Web Sites
Unique among all search-engine products -- not just the two Web servers reviewed here -- Microsoft's Index Server 2.0 can accept queries expressed in SQL, in addition to traditional keyword and phrase arguments. To use this feature, you develop a query program in Visual Basic, J++, C++, or VBScript. This connects to the ActiveX Data Object (ADO), which passes the request to Index Server, which then return
s a result set containing information from Index Server's internal catalog. Microsoft says that adding the SQL capability allows
companies to treat highly structured Web sites like relational databases.
I wrote a small VBScript program that successfully connected to the Index Server catalog. However, my attempts to use a variety of relational-database query tools (e.g., Microsoft Access) failed. Nonetheless, the concept of accessing a search engine's catalog via SQL statements is a novel one that I hope Microsoft develops further in future versions of Index Server.
Matthew Wilson more...
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SQL Access to Web Sites
