At 10:31 07/08/2003 Tuesday, Barbara Passmore wrote:
 >Thanks, Pete.
 >
 >Although a listowner, I am not a trained computer person.  Would you please
 >describe parsing and the OBDC?  I have used the *GUI* search for a long
 >time.
 >That is where I come to a dead end.

If you used the GUI parm, then you've already done parsing (I hope you
enjoyed it).  Basically pasing is jargon for deconstructing a whole into
its component parts.  In geek, it usually has "syntactic" meaning, though
you can hear the expression in politics "I'm not going to parse that
statement" meaning something like "I can't figure it either" or "I'm not
going to second guess ..."

ODBC is an extra cost feature of associated with LISTSERV that allows you
maintain SQL tables for your subscriber records which includes, among
other values, the SETTINGs that can be interrogated and fetch via the
structure query.

Mind you, I've never done such a thing and unless you are going to be
performing sophisticated and LARGE searches, it is probably not the right
path to pursue, since it does have an institutional co$t to provide those
added services.


/Pete