First I have to say oh damn! Then: thanks Andy, I had quiet stupidly
overlooked the situation you describe, where two people change the
data on their home machines. I'm new to this sort of app and had
convinced myself (without too much thought) it would be ok :(

Can I get around this by having a field that corrisponded to the
persons userid or name, and then only exporting the
records 'belonging' to that person? That way when the new data is
imported it wont overwrite another user's changes. Or do I need to
do some form of date check on each record? (and therefore add a date
field?)

Thanks again for making me think properly about this.

Pete

--- In firebird-support@yahoogroups.com, Andy Goodchild
<goodieauk@y...> wrote:

> petesouthwest wrote:
>
> > Hi
> >
> > As I said in my original post: My app will be used on users' home
> > machines as well as a LAN at work and I need to be able to allow
> > them to easly 'transfer' the work ie data they have added and
> > amended, back and forth. It needs to be a routine that allows

them

> > to select their file and then updates only the records they have
> > modeified or added automaticaly leaving existing data untouched.
>
> Sorry for my ignorance here but I am still not clear as to exactly

what

> you need.
> When users are working on the LAN do they all store their own work

in

> the same database file?
> If this is the case is it possible for two users to affect the

same

> record in the database?
> In your current process I assume the users save the CSV file to

disk or

> email to themselves is this correct?
> How do the home PC's get the current state of the database? Is it

along

> the lines that the users select which records they wish to work on

and

> take a copy of these home with them in a CSV file. Load that up

and

> then start working. Then when they are finished they produce

another

> CSV file with the changes and load them onto the LAN app when they

are

> next in the office. If this is the case what happens if another

user

> makes a change on the LAN version after the first user has taken

their

> copy. Being able to handle this situation is where the complexity

of

> database replication kicks in. If you are sure you do not need to

worry

> about this situation then there are some tools out there that will

do

> this that are based around exporting records to files that can be
> imported into different databases.
> IB LOG MANAGER might be appropriate.
> http://www.upscene.com/
> Or you could try
> INTERBASE DATA PUMP
> http://www.clevercomponents.com/
>
> There is also another utility that a member of this list wrote

that, if

> memory serves me correct, deals with import and export of data in

a

> similar circumstance. Sorry I can remember the name of the

component at

> present. But I seem to remember they produced this because of a

similar

> need to you self. Maybe someone else can point you in the right
> direction for that tool.
>
> > I did this using
> > SMI components that were reasonable priced. However, this

involved

> > mapping columns which seems long and error prone for a lot of

tables

> > with a lot of fields.
>
> Whatever solution you chose there is going to be a certain amount

of

> SETUP but this should be a one off process.
>
> Regards
> Andy