From 'the Original Questioner'

<said with a big grin>
It's funny how a simple question can lead to a heated discussion!

thanks all for your input, I will have to write a 100+ full selects, I
guess I'll delve into FB system tables to have a script generating
those for me!

and also sometimes SELECT * IS THE RIGHT THING TO DO, sometimes it's
not it really depends on the circumstances like gotos, exits, jmps ...

BTW WOODY even in D5 there are quite cheap 3rd party components that
DO provide the clientdataset functionalities.

Didier