Support inspection of external databases

Could you elaborate on what the code below means? Maybe use the variable name $prior_db_name? It looks like you are just changing to 'default' and then reverting to whatever you had before.

// Get the current active db name
$dbname = db_set_active('default');
db_set_active($dbname);

Wow, that's so ghetto that there's no other way to get the current DB connection's name. :\ I can confirm though; I tried global $db_active, $db_url, etc. Nothing works. I really hope this is better in D7.

Comments:

1. Small terminology nit-pick. These are not /necessarily/ db names. Settings.php calls them 'connections', so we should use the same word here.
2. Also, we don't smoosh together words in variable names (dbname). Should be $active_db_connection.
3. (minor) You've added trailing whitespace.
4. Given that this is the biggest DrupalWTF I've seen in awhile, we really need to comment this well so that people understand what's going on here and don't try to "fix" it later.

Updated patch that attempts to take these things into account. The code seems like a sensible addition to me, though, and I can confirm it fixes #402968: Read from external DB?.

Attempt #2.

This just calls db_set_active() without the 'default' parameter (since that's the default), which makes the code a bit easier to understand. Also tweaked the comments accordingly.

I am using this patch with table wizard and it works flawless. Did not test with PostGreSQL but the changes aren't PostGreSQL specific.

#5 marked this as, "reviewed & tested by the community". Which of these patches is it referring to? The original, webchick's from #4?, Seems like webchick's improvements are improvements... but what is the process here?

Shai