On Tue, Feb 5, 2013 at 3:46 AM, Mark Rotteveel <mark@...> wrote:

> On Mon, 4 Feb 2013 17:11:08 -0500, Ann Harrison <aharrison@...>
> wrote:
> > On Sun, Feb 3, 2013 at 7:25 PM, Paul Vinkenoog <paul@...>
> wrote:
> >
> >> - but the OP wanted a solution that didn't require opening a database
> >> connection first (and as we now know, he needs it for JDBC).
> >>
> > That's a little like wanting to know the color of your prize without
> > opening your eyes. You could find a hint in the installation
> directory or
> > its contents. The JDBC interface may be able to report its own version,
> > but it's not necessarily the same version as the server. Gstat -h will
> > tell you the ODS version by opening the file without making a connection,
> > but that's not the same as the server version either. The authoritative
> > answer to "which server version?" comes from the server.
>
> There is a difference between attaching to a specific database, and 'only'
> attaching to the service manager. The latter only requires knowledge about
> existence of the server (and its username/password), the former also
> requires knowledge of a specific database (path or alias).
>

Grumble. OK, but it does open a connection to the security database. And
right, you can't open the security database any more, so I guess that does
look like magically connecting to the server without a database. And I
guess there must be some good reason to want to do that - having been on
both sides of the "why do you want to know the version?" argument more
times than I care to admit, I'll admit that there's probably a good reason
to want to know the server version without knowing about any databases....

Cheers,

Ann


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