As usual, Jim has offered some well considered arguments.

At 5/2/00 10:17 AM (Tuesday), Jim Starkey wrote:

>I my opinion (ever humble) configuration information internal to a
>database should reside in the database.

I agree that metadata could/should reside in a database but more for the
sheer practicality of it than for following a principle. If you are already
facile with using SQL to manipulate the database data then why not use it
to manipulate the meta data as well?

As to the meta-meta-data of the database file mapping, I'm not so sure.

>And isn't XML to hold of list of name/file pairs a bit of overkill?

I don't think we are talking about just a simple list, unless you mean a
separate file for each database. How about:

<?XML version="1.0" standalone="no"?>
<!DOCTYPE ISCNS:FileMap SYSTEM "http://xml.interbase.com/FileMap.dtd'>
<ISCNS:FileMap xmtns:ISCNS='http://xml.interbase.com/'>
<Database>
<Alias>MyDB</Alias>
<File>C:\Data\DB01.GDB</File>
<File>C:\Data\DB02.GDB</File>
</Database>
<Database>
<Alias>MyOtherDB</Alias>
<File>D:\OtherDB.GDB</File>
</Database>
</FileMap>