In that case, yes, there are such implementations around. Martijn mentioned a few, and I mentioned the Pike one, all of which do indeed bypass libpq and talk directly to the server. It is, as I understand it, an open and stable protocol, so it's no different from writing a program that connects to port 25 and talks SMTP rather than dropping to sendmail. =================== I downloaded PIKE. The "PostgreSQL direct network module for Pike", pgsql.pike (and the other modules), shows how it was done. Many thanks for the tip. I rarely step out of Delphi, so I was unaware of the power and versatility of Pike. The Sql.pmod reveals the other databases to which you can connect. I think any PostGreSQL user or programmer ought to try Pike. jt |