Hej all,

Andrew Gable wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> Does anyone know any good free to use replication software.
>
> What i have is as follows
>
> I have 4-20 terminals with a database that holds all the products/
> cashier ids etc in it and I want the system to sync the local database
>
> to it the server and then delete any data that his has processed
>
> can this be done with Replication or do I need to create my own app to
> handle this

Sorry, could't resist: first answers @ google when searching for
"firebird replication"
http://www.firebirdsql.org/en/some-solutions-to-old-problems/
http://www.firebirdfaq.org/faq249/
http://www.symmetricds.org/
http://www.ibphoenix.com/download/tools/replication

IIRC, Holger Klemt (ibexpert.net) has written an article about how to
build your own replication some few years (~2005?) ago in a german
developer magazin.

There are several show stoppers buried in the database layout, such as
ids, primary and foreign keys, unique values, generators and triggers.

>
> Also does anyone know anyway of checking to see if the server is online
> before connection to it in VB6 (via ODBC Driver)

You will have no luck accessing the firebird services API via ODBC, as
ODBC is data only.

One option would be to work with something like try-catch(-finally). I
don't know if that feature is available in VB6

Feel free to take a look at:
- http://pythonhosted.org/fdb/usage-guide.html#working-with-services
Even if not programming in python, it declares a lot about how to attach
to a service.

>
> thanks
>
> Andy

hth, Marcus