> I appreciate your detailed description but I'd have to say that I

would need

> to know a lot more about your project and your code base to make

really

> usefull directions on this matter.
> That said - If you haven't worked with interfaces much you'd need

to do some

> reading first.
> I would start looking at
> > procedure ReadIntoTableWithFields(var f: file; table:
> > TLWPortableTable; extraFields: TExtraFields);
> and thinking along the lines of where you can make the switch from

table to

> query. You could write the implementation of this procedure such

that the

> first thing it does is translate the properties of a table into the
> properties of a query.
> then you call
> > procedure ReadIntoTableWithFields(var f: file; query:
> > TLWPortableQuery; extraFields: TExtraFields);
> Thus you have the interface... you can call the second proc

directly more

> often as your code base matures. This first call may require

modification to

> pass additional propertiesin the first instance.
> I would also think along the lines of abandoning reliance on the

IBOsets and

> move to IB_sets in the same steps.
>
> Alan
>

Thanks for the input Alan. I've actually used interfaces a great
deal in my work; I just didn't see a good fit for them in this
particular case. I thought I might be missing something. I think
the most difficult part of the challenges I've faced is that I can't
entirely leave TTable/Paradox behind. I've got some users of the
system (which consists of over 200 separate dpr files) that have
third-party systems that interact with the Paradox database.
Converting them to Firebird will have to be a coordinated effort
with the developers of the other system, and that has to be planned
and then budgeted and then put out to bid and then contracted, yada-
yada-yada; it could literally take years. I would be genuinely
surprised if it gets underway in less than a year. TTable/Paradox
will be in my life for a good long while yet. In the meantime, I've
got to make the codebase happy to compile against either
TTable/Paradox or IBO at the flip of a $DEFINE.

kd