i'm trying to design a class (or classes) to handle remote data access. the final objective is that the application should just read settings from an ini file or the registry and then should know how to access remote data (whether it be on free tables in a LAN directory, dbc/dbf tables in a LAN directory, or a server DBMS)

i'm trying to minimize the use of dbc files to avoid the risk of dbc files being corrupted. acquiring and using a 3rd party tool to address dbc file corruption issues is not an option as of this point, maybe later. however, the only way to be able to access server DBMS data is through views or directly using SPT. so i figure i'll limit myself to 1 dbc.

one design idea i have is to use a dbc that contains all the views i would need to connect to the server dbms. i could create a wrapper class for all the DBGETPROP and DBSETPROP functionality and use this class to change the settings to connect to the remote data. to address the dbc corruption issue, i could include the dbc file itself in the exe to be created. based on the setting read from the ini, i would know the following:

1. if data is setup to use DBF free tables in a LAN directory (which in this case there won't be a dbc at all, the data path in the LAN directory could be read straight from the ini, and the app is just pointed to the directory)

2. if data is setup to use DBC/DBF files in a LAN directory (which in this case the DBC would be included in the exe) i could set the connection properties in the dbc from the information i read in the ini file and the views in that DBC would then be able to use the DBFs in the LAN directory properly

3. if data is setup in a server DBMS (in this case the DBC would still be included in the exe) connection properties in the DBC could be set from information read in the ini so that the remote views in the same DBC could be properly used.


i'm sure that there will be cases wherein using SPT will be better, i could just greate a wrapper class to handle this.

am i making sense here? is there a better design option considering that as of this point, i'm trying to minimize the use of 3rd party tools / utilities? would appreciate your comments.