SL and SQL?

Hiya everyone. Jus' a quick question for the scripters out there. Is it possible to design a system to allow SL to access a remote SQL database, to recieve set variables defined by an exterior source. Also, if so, is it possible to write new variables into that database from within the game.

I personally havnt looked into SL's scripting as of yet, so... I'm not exactly certain on the system provided as such. My scripting experience is rather basic, I did a great deal of scripting on a private nwn module a year or so back ((which worked off a custom version of C++ scripting)). That was my process of self teaching, and from there.. i've learnt alot about how scripting works.. however, there are still a few grey spots for me, my biggest grey spot, would really have to be database related scripting ^.^... absolutely hate it =P... but, if theres one thing i've learnt... without the use of databases, theres a great limit to what kinda systems you can efficiently script... Usually i'm more inclined to 'creatively' script a system to do the same task, but.. those are often long, and messy =P.

Anyways, jus' want to get a feel for things before I get my feet wet, figuritavly speaking. So, if anyone knows if using a remote SQL database is possible, i'd appreciate the feedback. =) the rest, I can work out when I start scripting again ^.^. Thankya

Yes you can, by using email and/or XML-RPC.

http://secondlife.com/badgeo/wakka.php?wakka=XMLRPC
http://secondlife.com/badgeo/wakka.php?wakka=llEmail

Reliability on those services isn't always 100%, so you need to take that into account when planning.

Yep, but usually when one is down, the other is still alive. Designing a 'packet'-style overhead to do message ordering and delivery confirmation is generally a good idea.

Kays, thankya =)

I've recently been writting Flash movies using PHP,... I use the lands Media Texture URL setting to call a .php file with arguments instead of using a movie file. From the URL you can issue commands that will send data to the PHP file and that in turn evalutes the data sent and returns a Flash movie based on what you put in. I know its slighly off topic, but I find the results to be quite fast. Once you can talk to the PHP it can pretty much pick up the work from there and do all the work with the SQL, but the only way I know how to get back information that way is via the Flash movie my PHP generates. I suppose if you can use the media texture URL to run PHP commands that don't return a movie, that talk to the outside and then XML can send data back in. But thats seems like more of an exploit.
The Flash files could be configured to return reports based on SQL queries, but beyond that you'll probably need the XML. So again, perhaps slightly off topic, but hopefully its good food for thought. Best of luck to you on your project.