A couple of things. First, I don't think loadable library names belong
in metadata, period. Information about loadable services should be in
the configuration file. Second, Vulcan already has a set abstract class
definitions for JDBC-type objects that form the basis for internal SQL.
These should service as the basis for communication between the engine
and an external engine. In specific, the engine should pass an instance
of Connection to the external procedure. The external procedure, if
appropriate, should return an instance of ResultSet. The abstract class
definitions are tightly modelled on JDBC and essentially the same as
those used in the ODBC driver (they once were the same, but the ODBC
driver code diverged). I expect these class definitions to form the
basis of the new OO API at some point in the future.

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Jim Starkey
Netfrastructure, Inc.
978 526-1376