README file for libgda
======================

GNU Data Access (GDA) is an attempt to provide uniform access to 
different kinds
of data sources (databases, information servers, mail spools, etc).
It is a complete architecture that provides all you need to access
your data.
It is defined by a set of plugin APIs as generic as possible
(but very powerful at the same time) so that any kind of data source
can be accessed through them.

libgda is an interface to the GDA architecture, providing a nice
wrapper around the GDA interfaces, for both the client and the server
parts. It also provides a bunch of tools to help you both in the
development and management of your data sources, all done through
the GDA model's interfaces.

libgda was part of the GNOME-DB project (http://www.gnome.org/projects/gnome-db),
but has been separated from it to allow non-GNOME applications to be
developed based on it.

The libgda library is released under the terms of the LGPL license,  which
allows for commercial applications to be developed based on libgda. Its 
command-line tools are under the GPL.

Dependencies
------------
To compile libgda, you must have the following packages installed:
glib 2.0 or newer
gnome-xml
You can get all these packages from ftp.gnome.org.

Subdirectories
--------------
doc: the libgda api documentation
libgda: the actual libgda library
po: translation files for other languages than English
providers: some GDA service providers
tools: useful helper programs
testing: tools for testing and test programs

Checking your Installation
--------------------------
libgda comes with a test program (gda-test, under the testing/ directory)
which can be used to see if libgda and the providers work correctly. It
is going to be a complete test suite for the libgda installation, and a
diagnostic system that even tells you some hints on how to proceed if an
error occurs.
Use it if, after a successful installation, you're having problems making
libgda work.

Further information
-------------------
libgda comes with a automatic installation tool. For a guide on how to
install libgda, see the file named INSTALL.

For errors you find in the code or the documentation, please contact
gnome-db-list@gnome.org or the author of the file.

