> how do you place a lock on "a part" of a file? Can you define what "a
> part" is?

I don't actually know the mechanisms that control it. Most file
operations I encounter are imports, exports and logs, and locking the
entire file is usually appropriate.

I just know that some of the guys I worked with were using XCOPY on
live databases for quite a long time and despite the databases being
quite active, they were not burnt anywhere as much as I would have
expected.

>
> A> This will cause the database engine to panic and shutdown,
> A> disconnecting and rolling back all active connections (for SS)
>
> how can you succeed in locking a file or part of it that has been
> open, and exclusively locked, by the Firebird server already?

SS doesn't open it exclusively, it must at least allow reading.
Otherwise gstat etc wouldn't work while your database was running.

Adam