Firebird News

Tuesday, May 31, 2005

INTL branch merged into HEAD (2.0)

After a short freeze

HEAD [Branch] is open for development again. You may notice some
issues trying to deal with the new ICU stuff, but they're
easy to solve. The tree is completely buildable.


Dmitry

..::::..

Stored Procedure Generator Version 1 - open source

TECT Software Ltd announce the immediate availability of Stored Procedure Generator Version 1 an open source (IDPL) application which generates stored procedures for almost any Firebird or Interbase table.

..::::..

Flamerobin - a new blog

Planet firebird is expanding ,now with a new
addition flamerobin blog

..::::..

Monday, May 30, 2005

FreeWPS CMS supports Firebird

The FreeWPS CMS has fixed some bugs and now supports
Firebird as Backend.
Please, download freewps version >= 2.11 for firebird
support

I installed it on Fedora Core 3 with PHP 4.3.11,
FirebirdSS 1.5.2 and Apache 2.0.52, and it's
working OK.

http://www.ytztech.com/freewps/

--
Dimitrios Chr. Ioannidis
.::::.

New Firebird Expert book - IBExpert

The IBExpert Book - Tools for Database Developers by Holger Klemt and Debra Miles is now available. The table of contents and sample chapters are available here. Free CD, including Firebird and IBExpert software, video tutorials and additional information, enclosed with all direct orders (while stocks last)
.::::.

Thursday, May 26, 2005

Second edition of DBFreeMagazine is online

In this number are included articles about Firebird, Mysql and Postgresql
Downloading of second edition is possible by registering and choosing
"download" from left menu .
Registration is free http://www.dbfreemagazine.com.br/
Latest number already passed 1500 downloads in first day!

::::::::

Firebird 2.0 Alpha 2 Released

The Firebird Project is pleased to announce the release today of the second
round of Firebird 2.0 public Alpha kits for immediate download and testing.

This version of Firebird 2 is an alpha version, meant for field testing
only and not for use in production.

All changes and new features are subject to further change and/or
withdrawal in subsequent alpha and beta releases, leading up to final
release. Do not assume that databases created by or upgraded to the on-disk
structure of this alpha will be upwardly compatible with subsequent test
builds/releases.

Bugs, problems, etc. can be posted to the Field Test bug tracker or to the
Firebird Development List.



Firebird 2 release contains a large number of new features. Alpha 2
includes fixes for several problems that showed up in the testing of Alpha
1. Please read the Release Notes for more details.



Downloads of builds for Linux-i686 and Win32 are currently available here:



http://firebird.sourceforge.net/index.php?op=files&id=fb2_alpha02


Feedback, input and comments re this release will be appreciated.

UPDATE: news was sent to this list of sites
::::

Tuesday, May 24, 2005

New Evans database survey

Evans writes: "As a thank you for completing this survey, you may choose to be entered into a drawing to win $1000 (US). Please don't delay, this survey will close soon." The last time Firebird was in a Evans Data survey the results where amazing. All you need to do is to spend 10 minutes on this.

Monday, May 23, 2005

KInterbasDB 3.1.1 released


What is KInterbasDB?
--------------------
KInterbasDB is a Python extension package that implements Python
Database API 2.0-compliant support for the open source relational
database Firebird and some versions of its proprietary cousin Borland
Interbase. In addition to the minimal feature set of the standard
Python DB API, KInterbasDB also exposes nearly the entire native
client API of the database engine.

KInterbasDB is free--covered by a permissive BSD-style license that
both commercial and noncommercial users should find agreeable.


What's new in release 3.1.1?
----------------------------
KInterbasDB 3.1.1 is a maintenance release of the stable 3.1 branch.
A changelog is available here:
http://kinterbasdb.sourceforge.net/dist_docs/changelog.txt


Where can I learn more about and download KinterbasDB?
------------------------------------------------------
http://kinterbasdb.sourceforge.net

Tuesday, May 17, 2005

Review of 'SQuirreL SQL Client'

Mention of Firebird jdbc driver in this review

"Adding a new driver, for Firebird for example, is a simple case of
selecting New Driver from the menu, entering the path of the driver Jar
file, entering a sample URL and it's done. To connect to an actual
database is just as simple. Select 'Add New' from the Alias menu, select
the driver, enter the database URL (including the user name) and that's it."
http://newsvac.newsforge.com/newsvac/05/05/17/216251.shtml

Blob Compress -- Some Numbers

Jim Starkey wrote on firebird-architect (after a long
discussion about advantages of compressing blobs):

I took a "documents" table from one of my production databases and
crunched some numbers. The table had 1,377 blob with summarized as follows:

MIMETYPE COUNT Average Size Average Compressed Size
----------------------------- ----- ------------ -----------------------

application/msword 768 122767 88694
application/octet-stream 420 108876 82103
application/pdf 153 1048402 896624
application/vnd.lotus-wordpro 4 41423 17888
application/vnd.ms-excel 3 79872 20694
application/vnd.rn-realmedia 9 3583755 3272342
application/x-macbinary 1 19968 1702
image/gif 3 37806 37745
image/jpeg 1 133523 124465
image/pjpeg 6 245316 238838
text/html 8 16459 4528
text/plain 1 1 9

The aggregate size of the blobs was 334,948,746. The blobs represent
whatever the government workers in the city of Amesbury, Massachusetts
thought was worth sharing. Normal content is managed in Word, which
explains the heavy skew. The Word documents had a total of about 1200
images, mostly jpegs.

I compressed each block with zlib using default settings, writing both
the original and the compressed versions to a new table. The aggregate
size of the compressed blobs was 271,077,508 bytes.

I started a Netfrastructure server from scratch and fetched all
uncompressed blobs of the new table. I restarted the server and fetch
and decompressed all compressed blobs. The elapsed time for the
uncompressed blobs was about 64 seconds, the elapse times for fetching
and decompressing the compressed blobs was about 58 seconds.

Explain how metadata comments syntax works in 2.0

Claudio Implemented the proposed COMMENT keyword to allow descriptions in database objects. Subject to change or withdrawal.

Monday, May 16, 2005

Firebird 2.0 GC implementation gives 5x boost on AS3AP multiuser benchmark

I have executed AS3AP benchmark suite with Firebird 2.0 Alpha 2 and can report approx. 5x boost for a multiuser tests with 10 OLTP tests in background and one SELECT in foreground (the last phase of AS3AP multiuser benchmark):

- Firebird 1.5 performs ~130 fetches within 30 seconds in embedded mode;

- Firebird 2.0 performs ~630 fetches within 30 seconds using wire protocol, it is slower than embedded, but fbembed.dll throws ACCESS_VIOLATION.

Good job!

Roman

Friday, May 13, 2005

UIB 2 Final Release - Yet another lazarus/firebird kind of components

  • New component TJvUIBConfig.
  • New component TJvUIBRepair.
  • New component TJvUIBSecurity (thanks to Volkan Ceylan).
  • New component TJvUIBEvents.
  • Rewritten TJvUIBScript to handle large script.
  • Corrected dataset and FPC 1.9.6 compatibility.
  • Improved TJvUIBDatabase to retrieve database informations.
  • Corrected "jvuibmetadata" to retrieve array informations.
  • Read/write faster NUMERIC data types. (thanks to Volkan Ceylan).
  • Delphi 2005 for win32 compatibility.
  • new compiler option: "HAVE_SYNEDIT", if you don't want to use synedit, desactivate this option in jvuib.inc.
  • Firebird 2 compatibility.
  • Again faster :)

    Compatibility with previous version

  • In previous version of TJvUIBBackUp & TJvUIBRestore you need to implement the OnVerbose event to wait for the end of the operation. Now you also have to set the new "verbose" property to true.
  • If you use the dataset with persistent BCD fields you have to regenerate them
  • http://www.progdigy.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1

    Thursday, May 12, 2005

    FIBL 0.6 - FreeIBComponents for Lazarus

    Version 0.6 is released to sourceforge area


    FIB for Lazarus (FIBL) is a FreePascal/FCL port of FIB - well known
    components library for access to Interbase/Firebird database server.
    The aim of this project is to provide high quality components library
    to access Firebird server for Lazarus IDE.

    ----------------------------------------------------------------------
    1. Installation
    ----------------------------------------------------------------------

    - Install Firebird client software to your computer.
    - Copy folder with FIBL to your computer, run Lazarus and install
    package fiblaz.lpk.

    Zeos CVS and Lazarus - another method to connect

    antonio moneto wrote on the lazarus site
    "I finished the necessary modifications so that zeoslib 6.1.5 functioned of satisfactory form in lazarus.
    I placed patch with the necessary modifications in http://sourceforge.net/projects/zeoslib in the section patches. I also declared what it is functioning and what still need modifications, but believe that to have zeoslib functioning (exactly that with some errors) it is a great advance and it comes to add a powerful tool of access the data base and wait to count on the aid of all to become it 100% functionary with the Lazarus"

    From the patches comment there are some problems with firebird . Good news is now many firebird database components for lazarus exists.

    Sqlite Versus Firebird

    Sqlite Versus Firebird - Firebird is open source, cross platform, embeddable, has wrappers for many language. Firebird is a full
    featured database and has a footprint of 2-3 MByte. A good choice when SQLite is too lite. Firebird can be used free of charge even
    for closed source projects.

    Paul Beach


    http://www.sqlite.org/cvstrac/wiki?p=SqliteCompetitors

    Friday, May 06, 2005

    FreePascal+Lazarus: Delphi developers you can start migrating to Linux!

    Cabelo writes "Steady, interface of development RAD, visual components of access the data base (Firebird, Interbase and others), components and much more. In this article, we will develop a graphical application as if we were practically using the proper o Delphi.

    Click here

    Excuse-me my Bad English ;-) () Translate in Google.

    [Web Masters note: I would appreciate a more complete translation if someone can provide it. Thanks]"

    FIBL - FreeIBComponents for Lazarus

    ssy writes "I have released the first beta version of FIBL - FreeIBComponents port for Lazarus.
    This version is win32 only and support Firebird 1.5-2.0 servers through fbclient.dll.
    It is not tested very good, so try it and report a bugs please.

    sourceforge.net/projects/fibl"

    Firebird World Conference 2005

    The world-wide Firebird Conference will take place at the
    Hotel Olsanka
    in Prague, Czech Republic, from the evening of Sunday, November 13 (opening session) until the evening of
    Tuesday, November 15 (closing session). There will be a dedicated web-page once we have more details to announce.

    -- Firebird Foundation

    Thursday, May 05, 2005

    The Firebird Book goes electronic!

    The good news for for those who were waiting for a version of "The Firebird Book" to keep online for reference is that Apress has made an e-Book version available at approximately half the price of the real book.

    Wednesday, May 04, 2005

    kinterbasdb (python) on 64bit

    David Rushby responded about 64bit issue

    > Things are indeed very stable now, at least on 32-bit machines. But
    > 64-bit machines are catching on, along with Firebird going to 2.x,
    > both of which will probably entail changes in python and kinterbasdb.

    There was a trivial preprocessor-related problem that prevented
    kinterbasdb 3.1 from compiling out of the box with Firebird 2.0a1, but
    that's fixed in both CVS HEAD and the maint-3-1 branch.

    I tested kinterbasdb on 64-bit Linux (Fedora Core/AMD64) with
    prereleases of Firebird 1.5.1 about a year ago
    (http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/message.php?msg_id=8356329 ), and
    have continued to do so since. There were two or three 64-bit
    cleanness issues in kinterbasdb back then, which I fixed.

    A more likely source of problems (though not on AMD64) is
    big-endianness. I haven't so much as compiled kinterbasdb, or any
    other software, on a big-endian machine. Even though I have an
    adequate understanding of endianness, it'd be easy to let a bug of that
    sort slip by at 02:15 some morning. I suppose I could use the SF
    compile farm for that purpose, but I haven't gotten around to it.

    The intersection of the Firebird and Python

    David Rushby wrote on firebird-python group:

    The intersection of the Firebird and Python communities is small, and I
    make next to no attempt to market kinterbasdb. However, I attribute
    the slowdown of activity on the kinterbasdb SF forum and the lack of it
    here more to the increasing stability of the code and the expansion of
    the documentation than to the atrophy of the user community. SF
    project stats haven't worked for months, so I can't draw conclusions
    from them, but hits to the front page haven't decreased.

    I don't have much time to work on kinterbasdb right now anyway, so the
    lack of activity suits me fine.

    At the top of my kinterbasdb agenda is fixing a bug in the garbage
    collection of event queues that can cause a segfault upon process exit.
    After that's solved, or if I fail to solve it in a timely manner, I
    plan to release 3.1.1, which'll contain a few minor fixes.

    For 3.2, here are some planned features listed in descending order by
    their urgency to me:

    ---

    1) Streaming blob support:
    http://sourceforge.net/forum/forum.php?thread_id=1194897&forum_id=30917

    2) Better support for concurrency, probably not enabled in default
    builds due to the concurrency limitations in the local Windows protocol
    implemented by FB <= 1.5.
    3) Allow the client programmer the option of explicitly controlling statement
    preparation in a manner decoupled from execution. kinterbasdb currently exposes
    no way for the client programmer to control the caching of prepared statements;
    it's performed behind the scenes, and rather simplistically.
    http://sourceforge.net/forum/forum.php?thread_id=1120117&forum_id=30917

    4) More dynamic Unicode support. This one is a low priority for me, so
    even after 3.2 development gets underway, it'll probably take another
    Jacobi-prompt to trigger a detailed discussion and subsequent
    implementation of this particular feature.
    http://sourceforge.net/forum/forum.php?thread_id=1080135&forum_id=30917

    ---

    A few 3.2 features have already been implemented in CVS HEAD:
    - An official implementation of dynamic type translator support for
    Python 2.4's standard library decimal module.
    - A more convenient alternative to Connection.database_info, called
    Connection.db_info, was contributed by Pavel Cisar.

    I don't know when I'll get underway with the implementation of 3.2 in
    earnest, but it'll probably be some months yet (circa October 2005,
    maybe?). I hope to find the time to implement streaming blob support
    sooner, since its absence is a serious problem for some users rather
    than merely an inconvenience.

    Tuesday, May 03, 2005

    Enterprise Library for Firebid moved to GotDotNet

    I finally decided to host my project on GotDotNet.

    I will publish there new releases, news (with RSS feeds!) and so on. Here
    you can find a bug tracker and a message board: please feel free to use them!


    Right now, I've moved here the first two releases (0.6 and 0.7.0). Maybe
    in a few days I will begin using the source control.

    I do believe this will benefit Firebird .NET users!


    PPS: Now that the beta 2 is out, in a few days I'll begin working on a membership
    API provider. Probably I will build it against FirebirdClient 2.0.

    --
    Andrea Sansottera
    Weblog [Italian]: http://blogs.ugidotnet.org/andrew




    lazarus and firebird - mini howto

    The concept is exactly the same as in Delphi: you have a TDataset descendent which
    accesses the database of your choice. Possible are:
    - MySQL (not recommended, MySQL API is unstable: it changes too frequently)
    - PostGreSQL
    - Firebird/Interbase (Recommended)
    - SQLite (not recommended for CGI apps)
    - Simple DBF.

    To start, install the latest lazarus, and install the SQLBDLaz package.
    After that, there should be a TSQLQuery component and some connection
    components (one for each database). Set the SQL property, connect the
    TSQLQuery to the appropriate connection and you should be all set.

    Recently, ZeosLib was ported to Lazarus, so that should be usable as
    well, but I haven't seen an installation package yet.
    Michael Van Canneyt

    Update :

    You can install the SQLDBLaz package in Lazarus by choosing Components
    -> Open package file and choose \components\sqldb\sqldblaz.lpk

    See also: http://lazarus-ccr.sourceforge.net/kb/index.php/Install_Packages
    Feel free to update these documentation, if something is not clear enough.

    Regards,

    Vincent