Restricted DB access (was 'A quick question')

Nigel Brickenden writes: > Can anybody think of a way to enable many users of a 4gl application select > access to a database and its tables BUT disallowing those same users any > kind of access to the same database and tables from sql? > The motivation for this is that the users' actions can be controlled under > the 4gl application but cannot be when using raw sql. I'm currently working on a different scheme for restricted access that might help you. Under version 4.0, views now have the useful property that you can set the permissions on them idependently of the underlying tables. So, if what you need to do is just to restrict these users to seeing a subset of the data, you can do it by defining a view that extracts just that subset, grant them select permission on the view, and revoke all permissions on the underlying tables(s). Then they can only see what you want them to see, whether with 4gl or sql. This technique isn't quite as powerful as what you're asking for, but it's pretty good. I've just started using it, so I can't really report on practical experience with it. -- Harry Bochner -- bochner@das.harvard.edu