Geoff Worboys wrote:

> My application needs some way to attach to the "server" in
> order to obtain a list of databases of interest to the user
> (and it probably should be checking version/capabilitiy
> details too). I now do this by attaching to a fixed alias.
>
> This leaves two possibilities for the 'capabilities' API
> within the current architecture.
>
> - the server could be distributed with a known (probably
> read-only) database with a fixed alias. All apps could
> then attach to that database to discover things like
> the server version.
>
> - apps that want the 'capability' information could be
> distributed with such a database. The assumption being
> that if the fixed alias database does not exist on a
> given server then it has not been setup for your app
> and so it does not have the capabilities you need.
>
> None of these are ideal. I would prefer that we acknowledged
> the existence of the server, but I can live without it and
> implement the "server" features I thought Firebird should
> offer through my own work.

I use the same technique on all my systems, with a fixed database that
provides all of the system data and if it is not accessible, then the
system is not set up properly. I can't see that there is any problem
making the system 'accessible' this way, and if people think it is bad
for security ( why I don't know? ) then they just delete that database
and alias!

--
Lester Caine
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L.S.Caine Electronic Services