{{Notability, Products, date=February 2023
Butler SQL is a now-defunct SQL-based
database server
A database server is a server which uses a database application that provides database services to other computer programs or to computers, as defined by the client–server model. Database management systems (DBMSs) frequently provide database- ...
for the
classic Mac OS
Mac OS (originally System Software; retronym: Classic Mac OS) is the series of operating systems developed for the Macintosh family of personal computers by Apple Computer from 1984 to 2001, starting with System 1 and ending with Mac OS 9. The ...
from EveryWare Development. For much of its history, it was partnered with another EveryWare product, Tango, that built dynamic database pages from SQL data. The product eventually ended up with
Pervasive Software
Pervasive Software was a company that developed software including database management systems and extract, transform and load tools. Pervasive Data Integrator and Pervasive Data Profiler are integration products, and the Pervasive PSQL relationa ...
, although it is no longer sold.
Butler was introduced to take advantage of new a Mac OS component known as the
Data Access Manager
{{short description, Classic Mac OS API
The Data Access Manager (DAM) was a database access API for the classic Mac OS, introduced in 1991 as an extension to System 7. Similar in concept to ODBC, DAM saw little use and was eventually dropped in the ...
(DAM), which was similar in concept to
ODBC
In computing, Open Database Connectivity (ODBC) is a standard application programming interface (API) for accessing database management systems (DBMS). The designers of ODBC aimed to make it independent of database systems and operating systems. An ...
, allowing end-user client programs to access various data sources. DAM, however, worked at a lower level than ODBC and did not contain any inherent query language. To address the concern that a single DAM program might want to work with different back-end databases, Apple used a second system known as the
Data Access Language Data Access Language for the Macintosh, or simply DAL, was a SQL-like language and application programming interface released by Apple Computer in 1990 to provide unified client/server access to database management systems. It was known for poor p ...
(DAL), which was a variant of SQL that included additional flow-control and data manipulation instructions. DAL queries were converted to the target database using an adaptor on the server.
Butler was written to natively support DAL as its variant of SQL, and use DAM internally to support networking. As such, it avoided several intermediary layers that would be required to use the same queries on other database servers. Butler 2.0, released in May 1996, added direct
ODBC
In computing, Open Database Connectivity (ODBC) is a standard application programming interface (API) for accessing database management systems (DBMS). The designers of ODBC aimed to make it independent of database systems and operating systems. An ...
links as well.
Butler suffered from performance problems due to the single-user nature of the Mac OS. In particular, file access was single-threaded and multitasking was coordinated by the applications, not the operating system.