Tools

Perl

Widely used scripting language - easy prototyping and lots of libraries/modules available.

DBI

DataBase Interface - Allows Perl to talk to databases.

DBD

DataBase Driver - provides routines to talk to a specific database. I'm using DBD::Sybase (note that this requires OpenClient libraries from Sybase - also known as CTLib).

Database - holds data and meta-data.

Sybase (Adaptive Server Enterprise) - Free version 11.0.3.3 for Linux available. Supported version is 11.9.2 - not quite ready for prime-time, but getting there.

Oracle, MySQL, mSQL, Postgres, many others also available

More Information

Sybase on Linux

http://www.sybase.com/products/linux/

Sybase Online Manuals

http://sybooks.sybase.com/

Sybase Transact-SQL Reference Manual

http://sybooks.sybase.com/onlinebooks/group-as/srg1100e/sqlug

Michael Peppler's Home Page (author of DBD::Sybase)

http://www.mbay.net/~mpeppler/

Philip Jacob's "How to get DBI/DBD::Sybase working on Linux"

http://www.whirlycott.com/phil/dbdsybase/

CPAN

http://www.cpan.org/

Perl Database Interfaces

http://search.cpan.org/Catalog/Database_Interfaces/