Hi John, I'll try to answer some of your questions as if they were
IBO-specific:

> 2) How do I check, in Delphi, if a table or trigger etc exists.

The TIB_Connection component have a schema cache. Two of the available
properties are TableNames and TriggerNames (e.g.
IB_Connection1.SchemaCache.TableNames)

> 3) How do I assign the result of 'Select count(*) from Student' to a Delphi variable.

Put your select in a TIB_Cursor, call First and then read the value as
TIB_Cursor1.Fields[0].AsInteger before calling Close.

> 4) How do I obtain the date from the 'Datepick' component.

The TIB_DateTimePicker has a Date property. I'm not quite sure what you
mean by this question?

No wonder your SQL manuals didn't have any answers - your questions are
not related to SQL!

Good luck in learning Delphi and IBO,
Set