[DERBY-4637] The Developer's Guide implies that, for in-memory database names, Derby does not resolve relative and absolute paths to the same in-memory database

• Type: Bug
• Status: Closed
• Priority: Major
• Resolution: Fixed
• Affects Version/s: 10.6.1.0
• Fix Version/s: 10.8.2.2, 10.9.1.0
• Component/s: Documentation
• Assignee: Camilla Haase
• Reporter: Richard N. Hillegas
• Created: 30/Apr/10 18:41
• Updated: 17/Feb/12 15:28
• Resolved: 06/Sep/11 18:51

Description

The Developer's Guide says in the section titled 'Conventions for specifying the database path':

"When accessing databases from the file system (instead of from memory, the classpath, or a jar file), any path that is not absolute is interpreted as relative to the system directory."

A casual reader might interpret this to mean that the system directory is not used to resolve paths in the names of in-memory databases. But, in fact, Derby does use the system directory to qualify relative paths in the names of in-memory databases.

For instance, if the system directory is /Users/blah/derby/dummy, then Derby treats the following urls as identifiers for the same in-memory database:

jdbc:derby:memory:db
jdbc:derby:memory:/Users/blah/derby/dummy/db

Similarly, Derby treats the following urls as names for the same in-memory database:

jdbc:derby:memory:/foo/bar/db
jdbc:derby:memory:/foo/bar/../bar/db

The Developer's Guide could use a section on how to resolve in-memory database names.