<s>
QAL	O
is	O
an	O
open-source	O
development	O
project	O
that	O
aims	O
to	O
create	O
a	O
collection	O
of	O
libraries	O
for	O
mixing	O
,	O
moving	O
,	O
merging	O
,	O
substituting	O
and	O
transforming	O
data	O
;	O
also	O
in	O
some	O
cases	O
,	O
such	O
as	O
MongoDB	B-Application
,	O
schemas	B-Application
.	O
</s>
<s>
Sources	O
and	O
destinations	O
include	O
different	O
database	O
backends	O
,	O
file	O
formats	O
like	O
.csv	O
,	O
XML	B-Protocol
and	O
spreadsheets	O
.	O
</s>
<s>
Even	O
untidy	B-General_Concept
HTML	I-General_Concept
web	O
pages	O
can	O
be	O
used	O
as	O
both	O
a	O
source	O
and	O
destination	O
.	O
</s>
<s>
For	O
SQL/RDBMS	O
backends	O
,	O
it	O
has	O
a	O
database	O
abstraction	O
layer	O
that	O
supports	O
basic	O
connectivity	O
to	O
Postgres	B-Application
,	O
MySQL	B-Application
/	O
MariaDB	B-Application
,	O
IBM	B-Application
Db2	I-Application
,	O
Oracle	B-General_Concept
and	O
MS	B-Application
SQL	I-Application
Server	I-Application
.	O
</s>
<s>
It	O
uses	O
XML	B-Protocol
formats	O
(	O
the	O
SQL	B-Application
schema	I-Application
is	O
self-generated	O
)	O
for	O
representation	O
of	O
queries	O
,	O
transformation	O
and	O
merging	O
,	O
making	O
it	O
all	O
processable	O
by	O
scripts	O
.	O
</s>
<s>
With	O
regards	O
to	O
SQL	B-Language
,	O
QAL	O
uses	O
a	O
subset	O
of	O
SQL	B-Language
features	O
and	O
data	O
types	O
,	O
which	O
while	O
obviously	O
not	O
complete	O
however	O
is	O
sufficient	O
for	O
most	O
usages	O
.	O
</s>
<s>
It	O
is	O
however	O
easy	O
to	O
instead	O
use	O
backend-specific	O
SQL	B-Language
when	O
the	O
queries	O
do	O
not	O
have	O
to	O
be	O
backend-agnostic	O
.	O
</s>
<s>
It	O
is	O
currently	O
distributed	O
as	O
a	O
Python	B-Language
Library	O
(	O
.egg	O
)	O
and	O
a	O
Debian	O
package	O
file	O
(	O
.deb	O
)	O
.	O
</s>
<s>
The	O
Optimal	O
BPM	O
SourceForge	B-Application
project	O
used	O
to	O
be	O
DAL/QAL	O
.	O
</s>
