Helen,

One of my questions was not clear enough. Even I only just realized it<s>.
=== your response ====
On the subject of exception message interpretation, IBO delivers the
messages that come from the database. Of course "Your user name and
password are not defined.." is the server's text for exception code
335544472 (gdscode login) meaning that the login attempt failed
authentication.
=======================

What I was actually trying to address is getting this message after a
call to IBOQuery.Open when the user is not logged in. Rather than
automatically trying to connect and getting the (reasonable) reply
from the server, I would like like IBObjects to return a "Not logged
in" message.
Is there a setting for that or do I have to check myself in every
situation?

Thanks again,
Clive