At 09:49 AM 24-08-02 +0100, you wrote:

>And, accessing Firebird through Delphi 6, I presume that the IBX
>COmponents are
>the best to access the database, or are there any better components?

IBX is rather simply a substitute for the BDE, very much oriented toward
the clientdataset model, with nothing very impressive by way of specialised
client-side support for the features of the database or its client/server
characteristics.

There are several good alternatives, all commercial to some degree.

IB Objects covers Delphi/InterBase connectivity the most comprehensively,
offering two sets of data access components, one of which is completely
interchangeable with the BDE (you can literally edit your existing DFM file
and carry on with no BDE). The other one is highly data-driven and
provides a very high degree of control over the interface between the
Delphi or BCCPB client and the server. It's referred to as "native IBO"
and has its own data-aware controls.

FIBPlus is a "middle way", offering better support than IBX does for IB's
and FB's specific characteristics but still offering only the TDataset
model for connecting. It was developed from the same original codebase as
IBX (FreeIBComponents by Greg Deatz) and, like IBX and the IB Objects
"BDE-compatible" components, it works with Delphi's TDatasource and any
data-aware controls that you can use with the BDE.

SQLDirect is a different concept, being a more lightweight, more generic
data access layer - comparable with Delphi 6's database express model,
although not related to it. Its driver layer supports the APIs of a
number of major RDBMSs, including both Firebird and InterBase.

IBX (open source but owned by Borland) may not be an ideal choice for
Firebird since, unlike all of the others', its developer is not willing to
accept compatibility patches for new Firebird features. This is really
just a problem in principle at present: The Firebird API is currently
almost identical to InterBase 6 in most ways and there are still a few
developers using IBX with Firebird 1.

Links for all of these are on the IB Phoenix site.

cheers,
Helen