Brad Pepers wrote:

>A couple questions on this:
>
>1. Just to clarify but the password is stored as some sort of hash so
>thats why its character set ascii right?
>
>

The hash produces ascii output.

>2. Why the use of 128 for the user_name and name_part columns? Just an
>arbitrary number choice? The actual length limit will be 32 characters
>since its using UNICODE_FSS encoding right?
>
>

I took that from the FB 1.5 USERS table. I find the Firebird
international stuff sufficiently counter intuitive that I'm going to
duck the question. The fields, however, are defined as declared, so I'm
sure somebody the max and min number of actual characters. Just not me.

>3. Why the rdb$ in front of every column name? I suppose if you join
>this table with another the column names will more likely be unique this
>way but is there a deeper reason to do this?
>
>

To avoid collisions with user metadata.

>4. Isn't the use of domains over-blown here? I can see defining a
>domain for a case where there is a global type of data used in many
>tables but for every column in the table? Thats like defining a new int
>type for every variable instead of just using int. Is the rdb$password
>domain likely to be used for any other system table? Are the rdb$uid
>and rdb$gid used anywhere else or are they just data that can optionally
>be set but doesn't mean anything to Firebird?
>
>

The system uses global field (domains) anyway. Why not specify
something meaningful?


--

Jim Starkey
Netfrastructure, Inc.
978 526-1376