Copyright (C) 2010, 2014 Adrian Oboroc https://github.com/oboroc/bdecli/
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bdecli is a Borland Database command-line interface configuration tool. It can be included in deployment scripts or MSI custom actions to add or overwrite idapi32.cfg configuration settings in unattended mode.
One way to handle idapi32.cfg file updates is to keep a master copy, modify it in bdeadmin tool from Borland when necessary and then push updated file to all workstation. If this is how you handle it, you dont need bdecli.
If, however, you want to have multiple configurations in the field and you don't want to have an MSI overwrite idapi32.cfg file and delete all previous custom settings, you should give bdecli a try. It will allow you to import or update just the settings for the app you deploy and keep all other settings intact.
bdecli is a bugfixed and renamed version of idapi32cfg 1.0.0 project. It was moved from CodePlex to GitHub. Functionally they are identical, but idapi32cfg executable has one serious bug: https://github.com/oboroc/bdecli/commit/75cb74338b90cc907a9d7b81a87f8b5bc95c55c6. If you use idapi32cfg program, it is best to update to the latest 1.0.x version of bdecli.
bdecli is compiled with Visual C++ 6.0 SP6. The advantage of using such an old compiler is that Windows 2000 and up includes full shared run-time. This means that executable could stay small, no need to link run-time statically. Also it means that shared runtime is automatically updated with security fixes as part of Windows Update or WSUS patching. idapi32cfg executable from April 2010 was compiled using Visual C++ 2010 with statically linked run-time and compressed with UPX.
Start with a generic blank idapi32.cfg file. You can create one by deleting your current idapi32.cfg file, opening bdeadmin tool and saving default settings in new idapi32.cfg.
Export default settings to a text file using the following command:
bdecli -e idapi32.cfg default.txt
Now open bdeadmin program again and make necessary configuration changes for your application. Save to idapi32.cfg.
Export updated idapi32.cfg file to another text file:
bdecli -e idapi32.cfg updated.txt
Use your favorite text file comparison tool (fc, windiff, winmerge etc.) to find all lines in updated.txt that are not part of default.txt and put the difference in a new text file. Lets call it cfgdiff.txt.
Add this new text file and bdecli executable to your MSI project or deployment script. Use the following command to import application specific configuration settings:
bdecli -i idapi32.cfg cfgdiff.txt
You can also get and set specific settings for individual keys. This makes it easy to programmatically update configuration settings:
bdecli -g idapi32.cfg "SYSTEM\INIT\SHAREDMEMSIZE"
# SYSTEM\INIT\SHAREDMEMSIZE = "2048"
bdecli -s idapi32.cfg "SYSTEM\INIT\SHAREDMEMSIZE" "8192"
# SYSTEM\INIT\SHAREDMEMSIZE = "8192"
It is quite clear that applications that use BDE are on their last legs. Nevertheless, I like working on this tool and plan to do major changes in future. I want to add more command line settings and make bdecli work a lot like built-in Windows reg.exe tool. This includes both batch and command-line querying, adding, updating, removing and so on.
I will probably also add some test units for manual validation or CI integration.
I consider moving from built-in data structure handling to uthash, but it is a bit tough to learn how to use properly and currently not mainained for Windows and Visual C++.
Finally, I will probably start providing a DLL version that could be called from MSI custom action.