[Lazarus] PostgreSQL Questions

[Mark Morgan Lloyd]

Marco van de Voort wrote:

>> What if a developer had only access to the db on a server somewhere? 
> 
> That would be the server part of the DB. The library above is the client
> part, and must run always on the system of the client application.

The client app could, of course, be running on the server. In which case 
since the psql program would be installed for maintenance purposes I'd 
expect the libpq client library to be available- somewhere.

>> Would you still need the libpq file just to develop?  And what about
>> distributing your app afterwards, what do you have to supply with it in
>> order for it to actually work?
> 
> Yes. There are some ways to integrate the library into the main program, but
> while that eases installation somewhat, it makes the installation highly
> rigid, and a minor database library update needs a new build.

PostgreSQL is fairly tolerant of mismatch between the server and client, 
but ultimately it's the site administrator's responsibility to ensure 
that if a Postgres server is available then the appropriate libraries 
are available to users.

Once the RTL does accept an explicit location for libpq (and I think 
this is later than 2.4.4), then it should be possible to distribute a 
fallback version of the library which can be installed wherever the user 
has access.

-- 
Mark Morgan Lloyd
markMLl .AT. telemetry.co .DOT. uk

[Opinions above are the author's, not those of his employers or colleagues]