News of the Libgda front

New jdbc wrapper and updated firebird drivers 
see the article 


.:(firebird):..:(databases):..:(sql):.

convert security.fdb to security2.fdb in firebird

converting sercurity.fdb to security2.fdb (needed during 1.5 to 2.0 migration)
.:(firebird):..:(databases):..:(sql):.

Firebird OdbcJdbc 2.0 driver changes

Interesting changes

• - added Linux x64 support
• - added Windows x64 support, thanks to Alexander Potapchenko.

and others
http://fisheye1.atlassian.com/browse/firebird/OdbcJdbc/changes-v20.log?r=1.1.2.4


.:(firebird):..:(databases):..:(sql):.

why firebird is better than mssql

http://www.sinatica.com/blog/en/index.php/2008/09/know-your-server


Thanks to its multi-generational architecture Firebird does not block readers. So it’s natural that this problem may seem strange to us. But each architecture has its pros and cons. This same multi-generational architecture, if not correctly used, can be a problem. It’s the case of long running transactions or "stuck transactions".
Such transactions cause record versions to accumulate in the database. (These versions can also be called generations. It’s multi-generational architecture, remember?) The more versions accumulate more work Firebird has to do to find the correct version of each record. If stuck for long enough Firebird server can get slow to the point of looking like it’s dead. How much time depends of the database load and the server’s hardware. Could be a month, could be an hour.
I’ve seen it happen many times. In some of those occasions I saw managers argue for hours that MS SQL Server or Oracle don’t have such problem. The fact is that they have other architectural details that you must take into account in your application. For example, some databases block readers. Simply switching databases, as some of those managers suggested, is not a solution.

Although having StackOverflow powered by Firebird would not be a bad idea. ;)

OSCON gets under way - clarion is used with firebird

But this is an open source conference, and Clarion is a closed source product. What exactly is ClarionMag doing here?

In my experience there are are plenty of Clarion developers already using open source products and tools. For the most part that means databases such as MySQL, Firebird, PostgreSQL and Ingres, and web tools, of which there are a great many (Apache and PHP are popular choices).

.:(firebird):..:(databases):..:(sql):.

On MySQL forks and MySQL’s non-Open Source documentation

One of the things that sets MySQL apart (in, IMHO, a very bad way) from other Open Source database projects/products such as PostgreSQL (license) and Firebird (license) is that the MySQL documentation is NOT Open Source. The MySQL documentation is and always has been copyright MySQL AB, and “… use of this documentation, in whole or in part, in another publication, requires the prior written consent from an authorized representative of MySQL AB”.

http://jcole.us/blog/archives/2008/07/23/on-mysql-forks-and-mysqls-non-open-source-documentation/

.:(firebird):..:(databases):..:(sql):.

Zeos is Now Ready for FB 2.1.1

Here is the full blog post

The first FB 2.1 version has a problem when attempt first connect to the database but the version 2.1.1 seem already fix that bug, as in the Zeos forum "Seawolf" analyze that "(CORE-1868) The server could crash in isc_dsql_free_statement(). fixed by A. Peshkof" is the problem that make Zeos crash at first connection to the DB. Here is the link to the discussion about this problem in Zeos forum. So if you want to use the Firebird 2.1 version with Zeos then move to Firebird version 2.1.1

.:(firebird):..:(databases):..:(sql):.

Firebird - Technical Question

Just starting to migrate our application from an Access backend to Firebird. We have created a firebird database and can connect to it through our app however our SQL statements require objects to be quoted, i.e.

.:(firebird):..:(databases):..:(sql):.

Firebird Embedded use on linux

Here is the guide for firebird 1.5.x on linux , I will try to use the guide on ubuntu and
later with firebird 2.x

also i will try to use it with both c++ and mono
http://tirania.org/blog/archive/2005/Sep-30-2.html
http://www.firebirdfaq.org/Firebird-Embedded-Linux-HOWTO.html#Final_directory_structure

To use Firebird on Linux without needing to add users or set permissions, you can use the Classic server and get it down to just a few files. I used FirebirdCS-1.5.x on SuSE 9.2 but it should work for any Linux distribution and any recent Firebird release. What you need is:

1. A directory to setup a mini Firebird environment. I used ~/firebird and you need these files in the directory:

libfbembed.so
firebird.conf
security.fdb
intl/fbintl
bin/fb_lock_mgr

2. You need to link with or dynamically load the libfbembed.so library. It will allow direct connection to the database without needing a server process.

3. The firebird.conf file just needs one line with "RootDirectory=?" where ? is the full path of the mini Firebird environment directory.

4. The security.fdb file will be used to validate the username and password when you connect so you can either setup users in it or just set the sysdba password to a known value and login using sysdba. This security file is really a dummy file and will not provide any real security but its an embedded database so you are not looking for the same type of security a networked server would need.

5. The files all need to be owned by the user who will be opening the database so in my case they were all owned by me. Special care needs to be taken with the fb_lock_mgr since the one in /opt/firebird/bin is setup owned by firebird.firebird and with the setuid bit turned on but you will not need any of this for this configuration. In general if you're application is running as user "foo" then that user needs to have read/write access to the database you are trying to open, to the security.fdb file, and to the directory you installed the Firebird mini environment.

In your code you need to set the environment variable FIREBIRD to the location of the mini Firebird environment and then you should be able to use isc_attach_database and just pass a full pathname to the database file you want to use.

Here is the original article , but the site seems to be missing
http://web.archive.org/web/20070611151645/http://fbtalk.net/viewtopic.php?id=194
.:(firebird):..:(databases):..:(sql):.

Back in from the cold - to firebird

I've been looking at several tools for this venture. Delphi is a requirement as I can deliver a great application to the intended audience using Delphi. I've looked very seriously at both Firebird and ElevateDB as the intended database that I will be using. I still have not made up my mind on these yet as both have their strong points.

If I end up going with Firebird, then I'll most likely be using the IBObjects components. I've used these before at a customer's site and have been impressed at the genuine speed that results.

http://stevepeacocke.blogspot.com/2008/06/back-in-from-cold.html

.:(firebird):..:(databases):..:(sql):.

building minimal php with only firebird/interbase extension

if you want to build minimal an php+firebird extension only setup
here is how to do it without xml/mysql/sqlite and all that stuff that
you might not need it

tar -jxvf php-5.2.6.tar.bz2
cd php-5.2.6/

./configure --disable-all --with-interbase --prefix=/tmp/foo
--with-apxs2=/usr/bin/apxs
make
make install


/tmp/foo/bin/

./php -m
[PHP Modules]
date
interbase
Reflection
standard

[Zend Modules]


and you can test the minimal php and eats less memory in apache/lighttpd/nginix

-- ls -lah php
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 6.5M 2008-06-19 17:35 php





.:(firebird):..:(databases):..:(sql):.

Firebird 2.0.4 is now in ubuntu

Here are the details for package

.:(firebird):..:(databases):..:(sql):.

Firebird builds on both ARM and ARMEL

from this table you can see that firebird builds on both ARM and ARMEL ( ARMEL is just ARM with some hardware extras.)
http://buildd.debian.org/build.cgi?pkg=firebird2.0
and here is the buildlog

http://buildd.debian.org/fetch.cgi?pkg=firebird2.0;ver=2.0.4.13130-1.ds1-2;arch=armel;stamp=1212179688

if you use debian then you can download from here

http://packages.debian.org/sid/armel/firebird2.0-super/download

According to http://eetimes.eu/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=199702110

from linux tiny

Arm shipped the processors in 250 million "smart phones" in 2006 (83%
market share in that niche).

According to ARM Inc. quarterly results for Q1 2007:
http://media.corporate-ir.net/media_files/irol/19/197211/press/Q12007EarningsRelease.pdf

In the first quarter of 2007, the licensees of ARM Inc. shipped 724 million
ARM processors. In one quarter. (ARM Inc. collected $45 million in license
fees, which is an average of 6.2 cents/processor.)

In a May 23 2006 presentation to ARM investors, ARM Inc. estimated its 2006
market share at 80-90% of the cell phone market, but only 21% of the larger
market. (The embedded world is big, folks.)

Drew highlighted five key growth areas for ARM between now and 2010...

[The first four are] set-top-box, high-definition television and DVD systems,
solid-state and hard disk drive storage, automotive electronics and 32-bit
microcontrollers. In these areas in 2006, ARM had market shares of 14, 20,
5 and 13 percent respectively... They are also market sectors that will
represent a total available annual market of nearly a billion cores or more
each in 2010. The biggest annual market opportunities are likely to be
automotive and 32-bit microcontrollers at 2.0 billion and 1.9 billion cores
each.

ARM's fifth key target market is the smart phone, where it is already
enjoying success. In this area the company shipped 250 million units in 2006
and has a market share of 83 percent, according to its own estimates.


.:(firebird):..:(databases):..:(sql):.

debian build log firebird2.0/hurd-i386 failing reason

[Category: none]
> ../src/jrd/gds.cpp:176: error: 'MAXPATHLEN' was not declared in this scope

http://buildd.debian-ports.org/status/package.php?p=firebird2.0#fail-firebird2.0-hurd-i386

.:(firebird):..:(databases):..:(sql):.

changelog for ubuntu

https://edge.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/firebird2.1
https://edge.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/firebird2.0

.:(firebird):..:(databases):..:(sql):.

firebird2.0 (2.0.4.13130-1.ds1-1) experimental; urgency=low

* New upstream bugfix release
+ adapt debian/get-orig-source.sh; remove more generated files
* refresh patches, drop patches present upstream:
cvs-security-remote-crash.patch
cvs_security-long-username_CVE-2008-0467_#463596.patch
* cvs-port-ia64.patch: drop -fno-rtti as RTTI is needed in 2.0. Hopefully
Closes: #460219 for real
* move booting ot autotools from patch to rules; cleanup rules; invoke
debconf-updatepo in clean target
* rules, make_packages.sh
+ determine version from src/jrd/build_no.h
+ unify with 2.1's version
* patches
+ add local-CFLAGS.patch from 2.1
+ merge create-run-dir into lock-file-location
+ terminate-lock-manager (as we supply CXXFLAGS from rules)
* add deprecated-charp-conversion.patch
+ add -Werror=write-string to exterminate that warning
* stop provifing libfbclient2 package, firebird2.1 (in experimental)
provides it. Instead, build-depend on it

.:(firebird):..:(databases):..:(sql):.

firebird2.1 Debian package for itanium

The firebird2.1 Debian package has been successfuly built[1] on IA64

[1] http://experimental.debian.net/fetch.php?&pkg=firebird2.1&ver=2.1.0.17798-0.ds1-4&arch=ia64&stamp=1211549239&file=log&as=raw


.:(firebird):..:(databases):..:(sql):.

geting firebird locks

sudo /usr/lib/firebird/2.1/bin/fb_lock_print
[sudo] password for xxxx:
LOCK_HEADER BLOCK
Version: 244, Active owner: 0, Length: 1048576, Used: 25208
Semmask: 0x0, Flags: 0x0001
Enqs: 1530, Converts: 0, Rejects: 342, Blocks: 42
Deadlock scans: 0, Deadlocks: 0, Scan interval: 0
Acquires: 0, Acquire blocks: 60060822667264, Spin count: 0
Mutex wait: inf%
Hash slots: 1009, Hash lengths (min/avg/max): 0/ 0/ 0
Remove node: 0, Insert queue: 0, Insert prior: 0
Owners: *empty*
Free owners (9): forward: 20848, backward: 21040
Free locks (21): forward: 24384, backward: 21752
Free requests (20): forward: 23872, backward: 21560
Lock Ordering: Enabled

Event log:
DEL_OWNER: owner = 20848, lock = 20848, request = 0
DEL_OWNER: owner = 22200, lock = 22200, request = 0
DEL_OWNER: owner = 21368, lock = 21368, request = 0
DEL_OWNER: owner = 21040, lock = 21040, request = 0


The tool for checking the lock table is fb_lock_print, which is a command line utility in the bin directory of the Firebird installation tree. The full lock print describes the entire state of the lock table and is of limited interest. When your system is under load and behaving badly, invoke the utility with no options or switches, directing the output to a file

Read more on this page
http://ibdeveloper.com/issues/issue-2-oct-17-2005/locking-firebird-and-the-lock-table/

.:(firebird):..:(databases):..:(sql):.

firebird 2.1 for fedora 9 and fedora 8

here is for fedora 9
http://mirror.yandex.ru/fedora/tigro/9/i386/
here is for fedora 8
http://mirror.yandex.ru/fedora/tigro/8/i386/


.:(firebird):..:(databases):..:(sql):..:(fedora):..:(linux):.

firebird 2.0.4 is now in mandriva

http://distrib-coffee.ipsl.jussieu.fr/pub/linux/MandrivaLinux/devel/cooker/SRPMS/contrib/release/

.:(firebird):..:(databases):..:(sql):..:(mandriva):..:(linux):.

maintainer for suse offer

http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.linux.suse.opensuse.packaging/2237

Hi I'm Philippe Makowski
 I'm a member of Firebird Project and will be pleased to help you
 as I did for Mandriva

May I suggest you start from the Mandriva RPM

http://distrib-coffee.ipsl.jussieu.fr/pub/linux/MandrivaLinux/devel/cooker/SRPMS/contrib/release/
 firebird-2.0.4.13130.1-1mdv2009.0.src.rpm

In Mandriva you will find also rpm for Flamerobin,
 PHP driver, Python driver, Java driver

 just let me know what you need or to what or other things
 I have to subscribe

 I would be pleased to setup  an opensuse box to test your future work

.:(firebird):..:(databases):..:(sql):.

Old security bug fixed already in 2.0.4 and 2.1

Security vulnerability in Borland InterBase

A security vulnerability discovered early this year in open source database Firebird also affects Borland's InterBase. The security vulnerability allows ...


.:(firebird):..:(databases):..:(sql):.

Popularity contest statistics for firebird2.1

here are stats for debian firebird2.1 installs
http://qa.debian.org/popcon.php?package=firebird2.1

.:(firebird):..:(databases):..:(sql):.

firebird ports for intanium and hppa

if you watch the debian building logs for different architectures then there are a few ones left to be done , intanium , hppa and alpha (dead one)
http://buildd.debian.org/build.cgi?pkg=firebird2.0

and seem that this will be solved very soon




.:(firebird):..:(databases):..:(sql):.

remember to upgrade to firebird 2.0.4 or firebird2.1

Stack-based buffer overflow in Firebird before 2.0.4, and 2.1.x before 2.1.0 RC1, might allow remote attackers to execute arbitrary code via a long username.

http://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2008-0467

.:(firebird):..:(databases):..:(sql):.

firebird2.0 2.0.3.12981.ds1-14 (source) in Ubuntu

latest package 2.0.3 from debian is now imported in ubuntu intrepid
https://bugs.edge.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/firebird2.0/2.0.3.12981.ds1-14

and here are the successful (power and sparc are new )

Builds

• intrepid sparc Successfully built (DONE)
• intrepid powerpc Successfully built (DONE)
• intrepid lpia Successfully built (DONE)
• intrepid i386 Successfully built (DONE)
• intrepid amd64 Successfully built (DONE)

.:(firebird):..:(databases):..:(sql):.

Firebird downloads for April

there is an high number of downloads for April , traffice is at ~600GB and downloads at 117,467
http://sourceforge.net/project/stats/detail.php?group_id=9028&ugn=firebird&mode=year&&type=prdownload

.:(firebird):..:(databases):..:(sql):.

The ministry's Money Laundering Prevention Directorate (MLPD) uses Firebird

The ministry's Money Laundering Prevention Directorate (MLPD) used Gnu Privacy Guard (GPG) between 2004 and 2007. This is Open Source software for encrypting and electronically signing data, allowing it to be transmitted securely even through public networks. The directorate also uses the Open Source relational database management system Firebird. "Both the banks and the MLPD accepted our solution without any objections, and it did not introduce any costs", comments Jovanovic.

http://ec.europa.eu/idabc/en/document/7370/469

.:(firebird):..:(databases):..:(sql):.

FB 2.1 Week of Year Feature

With new functions in FB 2.1 extracting week of year is supported (based on ISO-8601). So this past article is more simple to do with the new syntax :

extract(week from some_date_field)

.:(firebird):..:(databases):..:(sql):.

wordpress for firebird

i wonder if i can apply pdo patches to the wordpress 2.5
and maybe after that make it work with firebird later
(pdo is suported by other databases too)

ps:why wordpress team ignores the rest of the world ?

.:(firebird):..:(databases):..:(sql):.

firebird + genotoo blog post

One blog post with charset issues on gentoo in Russian language




.:(firebird):..:(databases):..:(sql):.

LINQ To Dataset DBNull problem

I've got a connection to a Firebird Database.
I've linked DataSources in the IDE. I've got all my 8 tables from which I can retrieve data.

http://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=3222905&SiteID=1

.:(firebird):..:(databases):..:(sql):.

someone is using firebird on ubuntu

here is his blog where machines are described

.:(firebird):..:(databases):..:(sql):.

phpBB 3.0.1 released

phpBB 3.0.1 has just been released, this means some small bug fixes, which were of course necessary in order to ensure the continuous stable release rate of phpBB. The official release topic is posted below.

.:(firebird):..:(databases):..:(sql):.

OpenDBX 1.3.7 released

Release focus: Major bugfixes

Changes:
Many improvements and bugfixes are included in this release and it's recommended to all developers to upgrade to the latest version. The existing odbx_result_free() is deprecated in favor of the new odbx_result_finish(). Additionally, the C++ Stmt::bind() method of the API was removed and the Stmt::escape() method was moved to the connection object. It's now also possible to write data into large objects using the Firebird and Oracle backends, but the Oracle LOB implementation doesn't work at the moment.

.:(firebird):..:(databases):..:(sql):.

We went with Firebird 2.0 because

Quote from firebird-general

Yes. We were evaluating various embedded engines a few years ago,
including Firebird, MSSQL XP, Oracle XP, DB2 XP, MySQL, SQL Lite, MS
Access and PostgreSQL. In addition to standard SQL capabilities, our
application required us to be able to mimic the behaviour of other
database engines we support fairly closely.

We went with Firebird 2.0 because:

- Smallest footprint.
- File based databases.
- Lack of size restrictions.
- Friendly license terms.
- Extensive set of data types (with domains to handle anything
funky we run into later)
- Extensive set of collations
- Extensibility
- Active and responsive development community
- Easy installation.
- Easy configuration
- Standards compliance

Limitations we ran into:

- Database files must be local
- Collations are all case sensitive ( we may be able to deal with
this in 2.1, but my 2.0 attempts all failed)
- No built in functions to speak of required a third party UDF
library (this has changed in 2.1)
- No session scoped (i.e. local) temporary tables (global temps are
in 2.1 but not local)
- Different instances of the application cannot both access the
same database file.

The limitations were fairly minor and easy to work around. In
general we are extremely happy with our choice!

Incidentally, our reasons for rejecting MS-SQL XP were:

- Forces our users to install .NET (this was the big show stopper)
- Relatively largish footprint (60Mb if memory serves)
- 2GB database size restriction (this made us nervous as we have no
control over the user's data)
- Missing data types (DATE, TIME)

HTH,
________________________________________________________
Richard Wesley Senior Software Developer Tableau
Software
Visit: http://www.trytableau.com/now.html

.:(firebird):..:(databases):..:(sql):..:(mssql):..:(mysql):..:(postgresql):..:(oracle):.

Firebird Project Releases Firebird 2.1 Zeta 2

The Firebird Project today officially releases
the much-anticipated version 2.1 Zeta 2 of its
open source Firebird relational database software
The 2.1 release has many interesting new features that you can play
with, like database triggers, temporary and monitoring tables, common
table expressions, recursive queries and dozens of new inbuilt
functions. We encourage you to see what you can achieve with these new
features and let us know about any deficiency.

Windows ,MacOSX ,Linux kits fir 32-bit and 64-bit
platforms are ready to download now
You are invited to test it furiously
and report your experiences (good or bad) back to the firebird-devel list.
It brings with it a large collection of long-awaited enhancements that significantly improve performance, security and support for international languages and realise some desirable new SQL language features. Under the surface, it also provides a much more robust code platform from which the re-architecting planned for Firebird 2.5/3.0 is proceeding.
The Firebird project roadmap for 2008 is now available.

.:(firebird):..:(databases):..:(sql):.

the most stupid standard i have ever seen

The standard says that a BOOLEAN may be one of the following literals:

• TRUE
• FALSE
• UNKNOWN or NULL (unless prohibited by a NOT NULL constraint)

the boolean values in any sane boleean system are True or false , noooh sql should have other values so you should check them for the not NULL values , more work for nothing

http://troels.arvin.dk/db/rdbms/#data_types-boolean


.:(firebird):..:(databases):..:(sql):.

berlios page for firebird is updated

here is the page updated

.:(firebird):..:(databases):..:(sql):.

icewalkers page is now updated

it should be on main page soon
http://www.icewalkers.com/Linux/Software/524660/Firebird.html

i have updated firebird page on freshmeat

i have added new firebird 2.1 rc2 links and the changelog

http://freshmeat.net/projects/firebird/

.:(firebird):..:(databases):..:(sql):.

Firebird hosting

Today i saw this nice firebird hosting company and i want to share it (it's an very good idea to follow and to create an Firebird+LAP hosting company)

There are many Linux hosting companies, many LAMP (Linux/Apache/MySQL/PHP) environments. But we offer MORE! We offer the Firebird SQL database, Perl and Python scriping languages, FTP and direct shell access, and now Mono, a free implementation of Microsoft's .NET framework! Now you can put put your sites together with VB.NET and C#, but still run on the most popular web server platform.

.:(firebird):..:(databases):..:(sql):.

building firebird 2.1.x super from source on ubuntu

$sudo apt-get install automake libtool libreadline5-dev make btyacc bison gawk g++



$wget http://garr.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/firebird/Firebird-2.1.0.17755-ReleaseCandidate2.tar.bz2

$tar -jxvf Firebird-2.1.0.17755-ReleaseCandidate2.tar.bz2

$cd Firebird-2.1.0.17755-ReleaseCandidate2

$./configure --enable-super-server --prefix=/opt/firebird2.1

$make

$sudo make install

.:(firebird):..:(databases):..:(sql):.

Choice between MySQL and Firebird?

Which one of the two would you choose and why?

.:(firebird):..:(databases):..:(sql):.

Debian Bug report logs for firebird project

some bugs are solved like mips, mipsel firebird port and also the security related
Here is the full report
.:(firebird):..:(databases):..:(sql):..:(debian):..:(bugs):.

debian romanian translations

Eddy Petrisor made an good translation for the debian package
Here are the details with the new translation
.:(firebird):..:(databases):..:(sql):.

building firebird 2.1 from debian git repository

apt-get install libicu-dev libedit-dev git-core

you need to check out the firebird 2.1 repository from debian git

http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/pkg-firebird-general/2007q3/001125.html

git-clone git://git.debian.org/git/pkg-firebird/2.1
cd 2.1
debuild -i
and wait for it to build it for you

.:(firebird):..:(databases):..:(sql):.

lulu pr list

I will work to add them to my pr list and use them for spreading the F word

We recommend these free services – www.pr.com and www.prleap.com and two fee-based services: www.prweb.com and www.prnewswire.com.

Instalando o FirebirdSQL 2 « Hamacker’s Palace

Atualmente o FirebirdSQL encontra-se na versão 2.0 e com a versão 2.1 em fase beta, mas há um problema : para sistemas baseados no debian (ubuntu incluso), o Firebird encontra-se nos repositórios como versão 1.5.3, que possui menos recursos do que a versão 2.0.

[Installing Firebird 2.0 on ubuntu , an very long and a good guide for installing firebird/flamerobin]

Instalando o FirebirdSQL 2 « Hamacker’s Palace

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