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# README
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DESCRIPTION:
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    DB::Introspector looks into database metadata and derives detailed
    table level and foreign key information in a way that conforms to a
    collection of common interfaces across all dbs.

    The DB::Introspector::Utils::* classes provide a collection of
    algorithms, which carry out relationship traversal and SQL
    generation algorithms (like finding the column level and table level
    mappings between two indirectly related tables and generating DDL
    code). Because the DB::Introspector::Utils algorithms take advantage
    of the DB::Introspector's database independent metadata classes,
    these traversal algorithms can be performed on any database for
    which there exists an introspector (eg DB::Introspector::Oracle and
    DB::Introspector::PostgresSQL).


Should this be in DBI?
----------------------
    I think it is appropriate to separate this interface from the existing DBI
    module since it will allow for the expression of more arbitrary mappings
    between tables and columns (like subtables and boolean simulation) which
    can take into account the database being queried (eg like interpreting the
    Postgres internal inheritance structures). In addition, future drivers can
    be written to extract metadata from a source that can't be queried as a
    regular database ( like an XML source that just contains metadata -like
    hibernate mapping files ).