BDE/IDAPI, SQL-LINK 
LIVE RESULT SETS

Question:
The Delphi docs state that a live query cannot have an ORDER BY clause.
The readme.txt it says just the opposite!:

"Additional information about updatable SQL queries:
  o The online help on Syntax Requirements for a Live Result Set
    should state that ORDER BY clauses are allowed in updatable
    queries.
  o The online help on Syntax Requirements for a Live Result Set"

Answer:
The restriction on ORDER BY in the documentation/online-help is a mistake.
HAVING is, however, not allowed in a live result set.

For example:

select * from "dbo.customer"
group by Customer_No
having 2135

would not be allowed if RequestLive is set to true ( and if set to false 
the quotes would need to be removed from dbo.customer [SEE BELOW] )

Please note: The following does not work as it *appears* to be documented 
in the Delphi readme.txt.

SELECT * from "customer.db" order by company

Order by is *currently* not supported on local tables. The correction in the
Delphi readme only refers to remote date. The documentation and help files are
correct for local data when they refer to live data requests.


Question:
I cannot set TQuery RequestLive true if i have an order by clause in the 
select statement.
Is it possible to have an updatable query with an order by on pdox tables?

Answer:
In Delphi try this on a TQuery:

Set Active to false,
TStrings to:

SELECT Customer_No
FROM "dbo.customer"
ORDER BY Customer_No

Set RequestLive to false,
On a button or the OnCreate event of the Form
use this:

myTQuery.active:=true;
myDataSource.enabled:=true;

When RequestLive is false the SQL statement is sent right to the server: 
SYBASE does not understand qualified tablenames  so "dbo.customer" would 
generate an error:

Project MYPROJ.EXE raised exception class EDBEngineError with
message ‘General SQL error. Incorrect syntax near ‘dbo.customer’.

Process stopped. Use Step or Run to continue.

If run as an exe and not from Delphi the message:

‘General SQL error. Incorrect syntax near ‘dbo.customer’’.

is generated.

The solution is to remove the quotes.

If RequestLive is set to true then the Interbase SQL parser is used and you 
must qualify the tablename and surround it with quotes. To help explain why the 
quotes are required try browsing for Interbase tables in the Borland Database Desktop, Paradox 
or dBASE for Windows.
You'll notice that table qualifiers (owner names) are not used in the available list
of tables.
Idapi checks for table ownership when a live result is requested hence the owner
requirment. Obviously the  user/login name used to begin the session would require 
adequate rights to the requested table.
When switching back and forth between RequestLive true | false it is easy to bump 
up against errors when trying to run your form.