At 05:18 PM 11/08/2006, you wrote:

> > Given the kind of conditions people usually write PHP applications
> > for, this risky configuration has now become distinctly
> > life-threatening....
>
>
>What action done by an client application can cause data corruption?

Not talking about what the *application* does, but the conditions for
which the application is written - typically stateless web
applications - not a friendly climate to have forced writes turned
off (even if it were NOT Windoze).

>In Client-Server operation the server should prevent the client from
>corrupting the database.

True, and not just for client/server. But what can prevent humans
from spoiling perfection? :-)

Nigel has a point, too - don't mix DDL and DML - though it didn't
*appear* that was part of the changed conditions that are breaking
their databases.

./heLen