PC Pro 1999 February/DPPCPRO0299.ISO/February/Delphi/Install/_SETUP.LIB/READIB.TXT

Text File | 1996-05-16 | 17.7 KB | 474 lines

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 File: ReadIB.txt

Readme file for Local InterBase Server WI-V4.1.0.194

(c) 1996 Borland International, Inc. All rights reserved.


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WELCOME TO BORLAND LOCAL INTERBASE SERVER VERSION 4.1.0.194
-----------------------------------------------------------

This document contains information that supplements or clarifies the
information that appears in the Help files and printed documentation
provided with the Local InterBase Server.

To print this document from your word processor, use the Print command
on the File menu.
________
CONTENTS

        i. Important Installation Notes
        I. Supported and Unsupported Features
       II. Starting and Stopping InterBase on Windows 95 and
               Windows NT 4.0
      III. Starting and Stopping InterBase on Windows NT 3.51
        IV. Command-line Utilities
        V. Server Manager
       VI. Windows ISQL
      VII. General Issues
     VIII. International Issues
       IX. Deployment
        X. Tutorial
       XI. ODBC Driver
      XII. Linking and Compiling your applications.
         XIII. Errata


_______________________________
i. IMPORTANT Installation Notes

1. DO NOT install Local InterBase Server
   and InterBase Server for NT on the same PC.
   If you do, the NT server configuration will
   be invalidated and the server will not run.

2. To ensure a clean installation, remove any previously installed
   field test version(s).  If you have installed any Borland Database
   Engine (BDE) field tests, remove the GDS32.DLL
   from the BDE installation directory.

_____________________________________
I. Supported and Unsupported Features

Server features added since the release of Local InterBase V4.0c:

    - Array support
    - Server shutdown and restart
    - BLOB filters
    - Events
    - User Defined Functions (UDFs)
    - New language drivers for Korean, Taiwanese, and
      Chinese support
    - Server Configuration Utility

Updated Windows tools:

    - Windows ISQL
    - Server Manager
    - Communications Diagnostic Tool
    - Registry Configuration Tool

Command-line tools now supported on Windows NT/95 platforms:

    - Database Definition utility
    - Database Repair utility
    - User Security utility
    - Database Statistics analyzer
    - Database Backup/Restore utility
    - InterBase Registry Installation utility
    - Lock Manager Print utility
    - Interactive SQL utility

Unsupported Local InterBase features:

    - Write Ahead Log (WAL)

____________________________________________________________________
II. Starting and Stopping InterBase on Windows 95 and Windows NT 4.0

You must start the Local InterBase server prior to connecting
to a database. When the sever is running, the server icon
appears in the Task Tray.

When you install the Local InterBase Server and reboot your
system, the server is automatically started.

To start a server that has been shut down, select the InterBase
server from the Local InterBase Server 4.1 program folder under the
start menu.

To shut down the Local InterBase Server, right-click on the
InterBase server icon, located in the Task Tray, and select
Shutdown from the menu.

If you have open connections, it is recommended that you close
them before shutting down the server. You should also close
all client applications you are running.

_______________________________________________________
III. Starting and Stopping InterBase on Windows NT 3.51

You must start the Local InterBase server prior to connecting
to a database. When the sever is running, the server icon
appears on the desktop.

When you install the Local InterBase Server and reboot your
system, the server automatically started.

To start a Local InterBase Server that has been shut down,
select the Local InterBase Server icon from the
Local InterBase Server 4.1 program group.

To shut down the Local InterBase Server, left-click on
the server icon, and select Shutdown from the menu.

If you have open connections, it is recommended that you close
them before shutting down the server. You should also close
all client applications you are running.

__________________________
IV. Command-line Utilities

GFIX.EXE        Database Repair utility
GSEC.EXE        User Security utility
GSTAT.EXE       Database Statistics Analyzer
GBAK.EXE        Backup/Restore utility
INSTREG.EXE     Registry Installation utility
IBLOCKPR.EXE    Lock Manager Print utility
ISQL.EXE        Interactive SQL Data Definition utility

_________________
V. Server Manager

* Environment Variables

  Use of the environment variables ISC_USER and ISC_PASSWORD as the
  default username and password by Server Manager is not recommended.
  An unauthorized user can determine definitions and circumvent
  database security features.

  However, if you do use them,  make sure that, once defined,
  they actually exist in the local security database, ISC4.GDB.
  Add them to ISC4.GDB using Server Manager.  If they are
  not in ISC4.GDB, you will get an error message that your user
  name and password are undefined.

* Verbose Output Messages

  For backup/restore, lock manager, and database statistics the output
  text window is limited to 32K.  If your request exceeds this space,
  you will see a dialog box stating the buffer space was exceeded and
  prompting you to save the results to a file.  If you choose 'yes',
  all future results will be saved to the specified file and the text
  in the window will scroll off the top.  If you choose 'no', the
  operation will still complete, but the verbose output will stop.

* Slash Character

  When issuing a connect, backup, or restore to a database on a Unix
  server, always start the pathname with the slash character (/).

________________
VI. Windows ISQL

* The SQL Output area is limited to 32 KBytes of output.  Output
  that exceeds this amount will be appended to the end of the
  buffer, and the initial lines in the buffer will scroll off.
  For queries which return a large amount of data, the cursor will
  become an hourglass, and when the query completes, the last 32K of
  output will be displayed in the Output Area.  To see results that
  exceed 32K, click on "Save Results to File" and view the file.

* Maximum row size (size of each field, plus 1 byte per field) is
  limited to 64K bytes.  On a Windows Client, ISQL requests that
  NULL indicator fields require a smaller maximum row size,
  because each NULL indicator field adds an additional 2 bytes to
  retrieval requirements.

* When selecting data of type FLOAT, the results will be rounded.
  To retrieve the exact precession, use the DOUBLE data type.

___________________
VII. General Issues

* On-Disk Structure:

  The Local InterBase Server and InterBase for NT share the same
  database on-disk structure.  Databases on either of those
  platforms can be copied from one environment to another
  (when no one is accessing the database).  Compatibility with
  NetWare 4.0 is planned for a future release.

* Security:

  Local InterBase Server requires a user name and password.
  User name and password will be validated against the security
  database and access to the database will fail if they are
  not found.

  Every Local InterBase Server has a SYSDBA user, with password
  "masterkey". Initially, SYSDBA is the only authorized user on the
  server. SYSDBA must authorize all other users on the server.

  It is strongly recommended that you change the password for SYSDBA
  as soon as possible. Otherwise, the SYSDBA account will not be
  secure and unauthorized users can access databases on the server.

* Access to Mapped Drives on Remote Machines:

  Local InterBase Server is designed to provide a local database
  application development environment for a single user.  Some users
  might want to store large databases on mapped (remote) drives,
  however, access to mapped remote drives is not supported.

* Dropping Tables:

  Before attempting to DROP a table, first issue an explicit COMMIT;
  statement.  Some operations, such as a SELECT, will set an 'in use'
  flag that will not be cleared until a COMMIT is done.  If you try
  to drop a table and get an 'object <table_name> is in use' error
  message, issue an explicit COMMIT; and try the drop again.

* Decimal Representations:

  Internally, InterBase represents decimal numbers as data type
  SHORT with a scale factor, or as a type LONG with a scale factor,
  if the specified precision is small enough to fit in these
  datatypes.

  Embedded SQL applications need to adjust decimal numbers of 9
  digits or less by taking the scale factor into account (that is,
  divide the number by 10 to the exponent of scale factor).

  For example, for the three following decimal representations:

       a(4,2)          b(9,3)          c(15,2)
       short/100       long/1000       double/100

   select a, b, c into :a, :b, :c
    from tablex
     print (a/10**2, b/10**3, c/10**2)

* Local Variables:

  In DSQL, CHAR and VARCHAR columns fetched from a table are not
  NULL terminated. In C and C++ applications, be sure that local
  variables are declared with an extra byte of storage for a NULL
  terminator, and that the application also inserts a NULL ('\0')
  in the final byte.

* Character Columns:

  In DSQL, CHAR columns are interpreted by PREPARE and DESCRIBE as
  SQL_TEXT + 1.

* Text Representations:

  In DSQL, when casting non-text data into a text representation,
  use the SQL cast operator in the DSQL statements rather than
  setting SQL type in the SQLDA.  For example, rather than using:

     SELECT date . . .

  instead use:

     SELECT cast (date as character(20)) . . . .

* Creating an index with more than sixteen (16) columns
  is not supported and may cause unexpected results.

* Dynamic SQL (DSQL) cannot process calls to obtain information
  (through isc_dsql_sql_info) on requests that exceed 64K. Requests
  that exceed this limitation will cause unexpected results.
  For example, a complex DSQL query that requests information from
  a table with 1500 columns where average column width is >44 bytes
  (1500 x 44 = 66,000) will cause unexpected results.

* This release does not include SPX support for InterBase 4.0
  running on NetWare. To access this InterBase server, use TCP/IP.

* Multi-threaded Programming

  The InterBase client library is thread safe on threaded platforms.
  To access an InterBase server from a multi-threaded client, you
  cannot issue two requests to the same database handle simultaneously
  on two different threads. For most applications, one database
  attachment per thread is recommended.

* If your application traps for invalid transaction handles, you may
  need to change the error code from isc_bad_trans_handle (335544332)
  to isc_dsql_error (335544569).

* If the server fails to start automatically on Windows NT 3.51

  The install program may create a program group called 'STARTUP'. If
  this is incorrect for your version of Windows NT, you will need to
  create a startup group appropriate to your version of Windows NT, and
  add the server icon to that startup group.  This is most likely to
  occur in a non-English version of Windows NT.

  If the name of your personal startup group has been changed, and you
  use the InterBase Configuration Utility (REGCFG.EXE) to have windows
  automatically start the server, a common program group may be created.
  If the server fails to start the next time windows is started, you
  will need to create a startup group appropriate to your version of
  Windows NT, and add the server icon to that startup group.
__________________________
VIII. International Issues

* When accessing InterBase 4.0 servers from InterBase 4.1 clients, you
  should avoid using extended characters in database names.  This is
  because InterBase 4.1 clients use the ANSI code page whereas InterBase
  4.0 servers use the OEM code page.

* A Version 3.3 database which used international subtypes
  must be backed up using the version 3.3 GBAK utility and
  restored using the GBAK supplied with Local InterBase Server.

* If a database is created using CHARACTER SET and COLLATE clauses
  with the NOT NULL attribute, and the schema is then extracted
  using ISQL -a, the extracted schema will contain a syntax error.
  This must be corrected before the schema file can be run using
  ISQL -i to recreate the database.

* An international version of the example employee database has been
  added to the example directory. This example database, named
  'intlemp.gdb', uses the international character set ISO8859_1 to
  define some character and blob fields.  The database also has
  stored procedures which sort data.  There are no associated example
  programs.

* When setting up an alias for the intlemp.gdb database using
  the BDE (SQL Links), set the "Language Driver" on the
  Alias screen to BLLT1FR0.  This informs both the client and
  InterBase to expect data in the Latin 1 character set.
  The driver uses French collation, but any Latin 1 driver
  can be used.

* When viewing international data from the Windows SQL tool or from
  your Borland desktop product, an international language driver
  should be used.  If data display problems occur, check the language
  driver to be sure that the character set for the driver matches the
  character set of the database data.

* SQL II character count semantics for column sizes are not enforced
  for double-byte characters. Defining a field as CHAR(3) CHARACTER
  SET EUCJ_0208 (double-byte) should allow only 3 characters to be
  stored (in 6 bytes of internal storage).  Currently, if the data
  inserted is single-byte, up to 6 single byte characters are
  accepted into the field before an error is produced.

______________
IX. Deployment

For information about deploying applications which use the Local
InterBase Server 4.1 see DEPLOY.TXT located in the root of your
InterBase install directory.

___________
X. Tutorial

If you are using the tutorial on a Windows NT or 95 Local InterBase Server,
the table sales_ext in SALES_XT.SQL should be defined as:

CREATE TABLE sales_ext external
"c:\Program Files\Borland\IntrBase\Examples\Tutorial\sales.dat"
(
    po_number       CHAR(10),
    cust_no         CHAR(12),
    sales_rep       CHAR(10),
    order_status    CHAR(13),
    order_date      CHAR(12),
    ship_date       CHAR(12),
    date_needed     CHAR(12),
    paid            CHAR(7),
    qty_ordered     CHAR(12),
    total_value     CHAR(12),
    discount        CHAR(16),
    item_type       CHAR(8),
    eol             CHAR(2)
);
Notice that eol is 2 characters to account for the End of Line being 2 characters
under Windows. Eol should be 1 if sales.dat resides on a Unix server.

_______________
XI. ODBC Driver

Uninstall is not supported for the InterBase ODBC driver and the
ODBC Driver manager.

On-line help about the InterBase ODBC driver is provided.  To view
the help, start the ODBC administrator and select a data source of type
      InterBase 4.x Driver by Visigenic
from the list of data sources.  Press SETUP | HELP.

* ODBC Conformance Levels

  The InterBase ODBC driver is ODBC 2.5 compliant.  It supports API
  Level 1 and Core SQL Grammar.  For specific ODBC calls that are
  supported, refer to the InterBase ODBC Driver on-line help.

* Limitations and Known Problems

  This version of the InterBase ODBC Driver does not support array
  datatypes.

___________________________________________
XII. Linking and Compiling your application

* The import libraries included with Local InterBase have been tested
  with Borland C++ 5.0, Microsoft Visual C++ 2.0 and Microsoft
  Visual C++ 4.0.

* If you are
    -using a Microsoft Visual C++ 2.0 or Microsoft Visual C++ 4.0
    -compiling and linking separately
  and
    -using the Dynamic Run Time Library (MSVCRT20.DLL or MSVCRT40.DLL)
  you will need  to use /MD compiler flag to compile with the RTL, as well as
  linking with the correct import library.

____________
XIII. Errata

*  Programmer's Guide

   In Chapter 6 Working with Data, in the section Using Inner Joins,
   there are two SQL examples.  The SELECT statements in the examples
   and the accompanying text have some errors.

   The correct syntax for the SELECT statement (in both examples) is:

   SELECT D.DEPARTMENT, D.MNGR_NO, E.SALARY
      FROM DEPARTMENT D INNER JOIN EMPLOYEE E
         ON D.MNGR_NO = E.EMP_NO
            AND E.SALARY*2 > (SELECT SUM(S.SALARY) FROM EMPLOYEE S
            WHERE D.DEPT_NO = S.DEPT_NO)
         ORDER BY D.DEPARTMENT;

   The accompanying text should say that this statement returns the
   department name, manager number, and salary for any manager whose
   salary is equal to or greater than the sum of all the salaries of
   the employees in that department.

*  Language Reference

   The word 'DISPLAY' was omitted from the reserved word list.

   The InterBase Client for Windows User's Guide

   On page 22, Figure 2 1 shows a box with NETAPI.DLL.  The box is
   shaded, indicating that NETAPI.DLL is a component of the InterBase
   Client for Windows.  That is not correct.  The box should be
   unshaded, indicating that NETAPI.DLL is not a component of the
   Client for Windows.  It is supplied by the NetBEUI vendor.

   On Page 35, in the section on Temporary Files, mention is made of
   the TMP environment variable.  These mentions also apply to the
   environment variable TEMP, although that spelling is not mentioned.

### END OF READLIB.TXT ###