> If you have a look at the archives, you'll see that the last idea was to
> simply allow for an alias name to be used in the connection string in
> place of the usual database specification. The engine would then be
> responsible for determining whether the connect string was an alias name
> or db string and then act accordingly.

A big part of my idea was being able to implement this scheme without
modifying the engine. This lies totally outside the realm of InterBase -
it's simply a tad overengineered way of not hardcoding connection strings.

My intention was not having to touch neither the server code, nor the
client-side connection components.

Of course, having the alias system integrated *might* make things more
"smooth". But I've no experience with the code, and I don't have the time to
get acquainted with it, modify it, and test - heck, even if I could, I just
don't have all the environments InterBase is supposed to run on to test it!
:-(

Ah, well. This system would be perfect to work with at my shop, where we
have a bunch of programmers and databases occasionaly get relocated. I'll
probably go ahead and implement it. Then, if the alias feature gets into the
IB server proper, I'll dump it (although, of course, it'll keep on working
with simply modifying the configuration file - hey, it's already forward
compatible! :-D )

Marcelo Lopez Ruiz