> > Daniel, from your questions I'm beginning to suspect that
> > your idea of a "DB" and ours is different. When you refer to
> > a DB are you referring to a single list of records? That is
> > known to us as a table. To us, many tables are stored in a
> > single DB and these tables can refer to each other's records.
> >
> > If you are actually talking about references which cross our
> > DB boundaries, my first question is why do you need to store
> > records in multiple DBs? Can they not be held in one for
> > multiple applications to use?
> >

There are many applications of multiple DBs - I agree with Daniel. I have
worked for several (normally very large) corporations where there is, for
example, an Accounting DB, a Personnel DB, a Stock DB and a Client DB (at
the very least). It's not the same records you're storing in multiple DBs.
Its the functionality that you HAVE to store in multiple DBs if you cannot
talk between them.

Each one of these DBs have their own metadata, with multiple tables and
other DB objects. And it is easy to see why - it is very useful to be able
to call (for example) "FINANCEDB.GETACCOUNTINGPERIOD(NOW)" (like you can in
Sybase) from any other DB (or even a SP within a DB) in the system. Stock
receiving, or sales, or whatever. It has many of the advantages of object -
orientated programming : being able to develop and use data objects while
also maintaining them separately.

I have asked this question before (about inter - DB connectivity) and I
believe that it cannot be done (in Firebird) yet. Which, in my opinion, is
a pity.

Regards

Tim



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