Fyracle OCI Connector

In the Fyracle newsgroup several requests have been
made for support for applications that use Oracle's
native API, called "OCI".

Users can help with adding support for the OCI API.
Please see: http://www.fyracle.org/oci

The files in this directory contain a stub for
the most common functions in Oracle's oci.dll
By taking these stubes and adding code to translate
the calls to the OCI functions to the equivalent
Firebird API functions an "OCI Connector" for
Fyracle can be created.

All and any community support with this task is
much appreciated.

Questions? Please ask them in the Fyracle forum.

..::firebird::..

Fyracle Delphi Connector

In the Fyracle newsgroup several requests have been
made for support for Delphi/Kylix/FreePascal.

The Fyracle connector has been designed with just
enough of the Firebird API implemented to support the
ODBC and JDBC drivers. Users can help by adding support
for the full API.

Have a look at: http://www.fyracle.org/delphi

The files in this directory generate an 'empty' connector
library, named "delphi_conn.dll". This DLL exposes (part
of) the Firebird API -- i.e. the isc_* functions -- and
dynamically loads the "fbclient.dll" library to handle
the calls to those functions.

In order to help with adding Delphi support to Fyracle,
please help with adding the missing API functions to this
connector library. We will add these to the Fyracle
library in turn. If your Delphi application works with
the 'empty' connector, it will work with Fyracle as well.

Questions? Please ask them in the Fyracle forum.
..::firebird::..

The list and details of all the speaker papers for the Firebird Conference

The Firebird conference will take place at the Hotel Olsanka in Prague, Czech Republic from the evening of Sunday the 13th of November (opening session) until the evening of Tuesday the 15th of November (closing session).

The list and details of all the speaker papers is now available. There is a great selection of speakers and topics. A conference schedule should follow shortly.

Note: If you want early bird registration, you will need to register before the end of September.

..::firebird::..

Firebird Surgeon Released

Alexey Kovyazin announced Version 1.1 of IBBackupSurgeon, a tool that can read and save data from corrupted Firebird or InterBase backup files. The Basic version can save data from most corrupted backups. Pro version can use the structure of intact backup in order to read heavily corrupted backups.

..::firebird::..

Firebird Global Usage Survey

Carlos Cantu announced the opening of the Firebird Global Usage Survey to determine how and where Firebird is being used all around the world. The survey ends in 10 days.

..::firebird::..

Multi-core licensing and virtualization promote open source databases

Multi-core licensing and virtualization promote open source databases .
" More flexible licensing is one of the biggest draws open source software has for enterprise users, and the current shift toward dual-core and multi-core processors and use of virtualization technologies may give Linux and open source software even more of an advantage, say analysts and open source project leaders."

http://business.newsforge.com/business/05/09/12/1515200.shtml?tid=37

..::firebird::..

Human Profile announces DWebPro Version 6.0 with Firebird support

With DWebPro 6.0 you can distribute on CD/DVD your PHP, Perl, ASP 3.0, ASP.Net, JSP/Servlet, ColdFusion, Python, Ruby, Rebol, Delphi Web Script II, EXEs, CGIs and ISAPIs dynamic websites without any change.

Human Profile announces DWebPro version 6.0, a stand alone web server created to run directly from CD/DVD. This software is available for any Windows 32-bit platform including 95/98/98SE/NT4/ME/2000/2003 and XP.

DWebPro is designed to support the standard CGI and ISAPI interfaces so it can work with PHP, Perl and a lot of other server side scripting engines. It supports also MySQL, PostgreSQL and Firebird (also embedded) database servers in addition to SQLite and Ms Access database file. Both server side scripting languages and databases support are provided by our unique "ready to run" preconfigured packages.

Source for news http://www.irishdev.com

..::firebird::..

Firebird Embedded use on Linux

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-1.5.2 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.
Source for article : bpepers on fbtalk.net

..::firebird::..

Phoenix PHPServer - PHP5 and firebird in same package (Easy LAMP)

Paul Ruizendahl releases an easy-install "LAMP"-style stack for webserver development. Currently named "Phoenix PHPServer", it wraps a webserver, PHP 5 and Firebird. Version 0.9 is available for download.

..:: Firebird ::..::PHP::..

Firebird (and IBExpert) on German Magazine CD

we just wanted to let everybody know that the german magazine ct
(www.heise.de/ct, i would say the most important serious computer
magazine in german language, about 500000 times printed each issue)
will have a major topic regarding free Database Systems in
their next issue 20/2005 (coming on 19th Sept 2005).

The major players there are mysql, postgresql and firebird.

We were asked for a special IBExpert Version for the magazine cd
and we created a special Version for it. On the CD will also be
the firebird server.

There will be a kind of a programming Championship in the magazine
regarding a portable webshop system, that should work on all three
database systems. Since there is a large community of mysql users
and also postgresql users, we should also have a look what we can
do to support the firebird database solution in this championship.

I will inform everybody here when we have seen the final
printed version of the article in the magazine and the
stuff on the cd.

Best Regards

Holger Klemt

The Worldwide Firebird Conference, November 13th - 15th,
Prague, Czech Republic

The most Expert for InterBase and Firebird --- www.ibexpert.com
HK Software - Gerhard Stalling Str 47A - 26135 Oldenburg - Germany
Phone/Fax +49 700 IBEXPERT (42397378) www.h-k.de
Training and Support for Delphi, InterBase, Firebird, AS/400
..::firebird::..

Mono 1.1.9 Releasead - firebird provider mentioned

Firebird provider

>From Carlos: Support for the new INSERT ... RETURNING statement of Firebird v2.0

Added support to the new CREATE SEQUENCE and SET GENERATOR statements to the FbBatchExecution class.

Add parameter information for DML statements and allow the configuration of quoted identifiers usage to the DataAdapter Configuration Wizard.

Mono full release notes http://www.go-mono.com/archive/1.1.9/

..::firebird::....::mono::....::.net::..

Firebird in ArkLinux

For ArkLinux.org users or those seeking one of the best user-friendly Linux distros. They are adding FirebirdSQL to their repository...
http://www.arklinux.org/forum/viewtopic.php?showtopic=1327
http://www.arklinux.org/

Ark Linux 2005.2 RC1 has received a SoftPedia pick award.
According to SoftPedia's awards page, these awards are given to "products that we think are excellent and above average in their category. Awards are given based on our experience and judgement, and only to products which the majority of our reviewers agree deserve it."

ps: source fyracle.org

..::firebird::..

FBLib Firebird Library 0.81 released

Source : fyracle.org

FBLib Firebird Library 0.81 is released , Open Source Library No Data Aware for direct access to Firebird Relational Database from Borland Delphi / Kylix , Freepascal and Lazarus Read more

..::firebird::..

KInterbasDB 3.1.2 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 3.1.2?
----------------------------
KInterbasDB 3.1.2, a maintenance release of the stable 3.1 branch,
fixes a handful of bugs, most fairly obscure. 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

..::firebird::..::python::..

The Firebird ADO.NET Data Provider 1.7.1 Release Candidate 1 for Microsoft.NET 1.1 and Mono 1.1.x

Carlos Guzmán Álvarez announced that The Firebird ADO.NET Data Provider 1.7.1 Release Candidate 1 for Microsoft.NET 1.1 and Mono 1.1.x is available for download.

..::firebird::..::mono::.#.::.net::..

dbdesc 1.0 added firebird support

dbdesc is a powerful command-line tool to help you document your databases. It can produce detailed documents describing your databases.

Here is described how it was created

..::firebird::..

The Firebird Conference 2005 details

..::firebird::..

Open Source Database Conference 2005

Spoted on blogosphere
The Open Source Database Conference 2005 deserves some coverage as it is the only forum in recent years that focuses on all of the major Free Software and Open Source DBMS, and includes business sessions that focus on how Free/Open databases fit into the business world, along with solid technical sessions (usually from core developers of the DBMS in question) on:
* Apache Derby
* Berkeley DB
* Firebird
* HSQLDB
* Ingres
* MaxDB
* MySQL
* PostgreSQL
* SQLite

Additionally, conference organizer Software and Support Verlag has graciously made exhibition space available for the Free/Open DBMS projects that are not supported by a company. (Contact me for details)

So, if you can, please attend - you won't find a better event for Free/Open databases anywhere else this year. See http://www.opendbcon.net/ for more details on sessions, speakers, travel and rates.

..::firebird::....::mysql::....::postgresql::..

Daffodil Replicator v2.0 released with support for Firebird data replication

Daffodil Software today released Replicator v2.0 ( beta ) with support for Firebird to Firebird data replication, in addition to significant performance enhancements. With v2.0, all replication operations can be performed faster, when compared to earlier Replicator versions.

The new features introduced in Replicator v2.0 are:
Support for Firebird: Replicator v2.0 can be used with Firebird database. It supports bi-directional data synchronization between Firebird ( Server ) database to multiple Firebird ( Client ) databases. The version does not provide the functionality of Firebird data replication to heterogeneous database servers. This functionality will be introduced in future Replicator versions.

Partial Tables Replication: Partial Table Replication allows a user to ignore specific columns in a publisher database table. It provides the flexibility to disregard data ( residing in publisher database columns ) that is not required on the client side, hence making the replication operation more efficient.

Cyclic Tables Replication: Replicator v2.0 can be used with complex database structures where tables have cyclical dependencies. The previous replication versions could not replicate the tables that hold references to each other.

In regards to performance, with Replicator v2.0, the XML file creation process has been reviewed and optimized. The new process drastically reduces the time taken in capturing the insertion, deletion and updation of records from Replicator Shadow tables and transmitting the same to the target database server. Major bug fixing related to tags issues in XML file, appending the foreign key constraint and creation of transaction log file during Real time Replication has also been done.

For more information on Daffodil Replicator v2.0, drop us a line at info@daffodildb.com. Users can download the new version and revised documents from: http://www.daffodildb.com/replicator/index.html

About Daffodil Software
Daffodil Software develops and markets a lineage of high-performance, affordable database servers and tools. Their mission is 'to offer cost-effective, high-quality, customizable data management tools and solutions that evolve with corresponding technology trends'. The company also deals in open source CRM, open source database and offshore software development.
..::firebird::..

Firebird Conference - Call For Speaker Papers deadline

Just to remind everybody, the Firebird Conference - Call For Speaker Papers
deadline is meant to be tommorrow....

Current Proposals can be found at:
http://www.ibphoenix.com/main.nfs?a=ibphoenix&page=fb_conf_proposals

If you would like to submit a proposal, and speak at the conference,
can you submit your proposals to me very soon.

Call for Papers:

http://www.ibphoenix.com/main.nfs?a=ibphoenix&page=fb_conf_call_papers


Regards
Paul Beach


"I'm looking for opinions. The talks I'm considering for me and Jim include:

Firebird ODS and V2 ODS changes
Detecting, correcting, and preventing database corruption
Concurrency control and garbage collection
Vulcan status, features, & goals
Configuring Firebird and Vulcan for your application
First steps in performance tuning

Any suggestions, additions, deletions ... we won't do all the ones
listed but before I commit to specific topics I thought I'd ask."


Regards,
Ann W. Harrison [aharrison at ibphoenix.com]





..::firebird::..

ibWebAdmin 1.0 released after 3 years

This [news/] email is to inform you about the release of version '1.0' of
'ibWebAdmin' through freshmeat.net. All URLs and other useful information
can be found at

  http://freshmeat.net/projects/ibwebadmin/

The changes in this release are as follows:
This maintenance release fixes all bugs reported over the last months,
including enhanced error handling and fixes for the references
warnings with PHP 4.4 and 5.1. A Hungarian translation was added.

Release focus:
7 - Major bugfixes

Project added:
Thu, May 23rd 2002 15:02 (3 years, 3 months ago)

Project description:
ibWebAdmin is a web based admin tool for the InterBase and Firebird
database servers. Beside creating, modifying, and deleting of
databases, tables, domains, generators, triggers, indices, and users,
it supports import and export of data in CSV file format. It features
browsing through tables and entering/editing of data, including
BLOBs. 

..::firebird::..

Firebird 2 Alpha 3 Linux Builds are now available for download and testing.

I saw this on fbtalk

Linux

* 4th Aug 2005 Classic for Linux 2.0 Alpha (.rpm) (3.9mb)
* 4th Aug 2005 Classic for Linux 2.0 Alpha (.tar.gz) (3.9mb)
* 4th Aug 2005 Classic Debug Build for Linux 2.0 Alpha (.tar.gz) (20.6mb)

Linux NPTL

* 4th Aug 2005 SuperServer for Linux NPTL 2.0 Alpha (.rpm) (4.0mb)
* 4th Aug 2005 SuperServer for Linux NPTL 2.0 Alpha (.tar.gz) (3.9mb)
* 4th Aug 2005 SuperServer Debug Build for Linux NPTL 2.0 Alpha (.tar.gz) (20mb)

..::firebird::..

Configuring Firebird for Your Application - OSCON session

Ann Harrison, IBPhoenix

Track: Databases
Date: Thursday, August 4th, 2005
Time: 11:35am - 12:20pm
Location: D136

Not all database applications consist of a single database running on a dedicated machine, accessed by remote clients. Some require the throughput of an application linked directly to the database handling code. Others are self-contained and should not affect any system-wide settings. The Firebird database engine has three configurations: a shared server, an embedded server, and a library of access routines. The API is the same, so you can offer different models for ‘personal’ and ‘corporate’ versions of your application.

The traditional model for databases is a single server running on a dedicated system. In Firebird, this model is SuperServer. The server process listens for connection requests, maps transactions to threads, and maintains shared caches of metadata and database pages. In Firebird 2, you can configure a system to support several instances of the SuperServer to manage individual databases, or groups of databases, separately.

The SuperServer code that handles database operations can be built as a library and linked directly to applications. This model is “Classic” Firebird. A shared memory lock table coordinates the activity of separate applications.

Data management is also important for personal applications – applications designed to run on PC’s – not dedicated database servers. For these applications, Firebird has embedded mode. The server and all its configuration information is bound to an application that has exclusive access to the databases it uses.

Firebird’s API is consistent across all models – this talk explains how to choose the model – or models – that fit your application.

Download presentation file

..::firebird::..

Report from OSCON by Ann W. Harrison

I'm returning from two days a O'Reilly's Open Source Conference in
Portland Oregon  - lovely city.  I met Rob Schuff (sp?) again - after
five years I think - and David Jenks.  Interest in Firebird was moderate
(at best) but even the other database sessions were lightly attended and
mostly full of current users.  The high points of the conference for me
were the new features talks by Postgres and MySQL.  The flagship
features for the new Postgres due out this year are Stored Procedures
(less capable than ours) and Views.  Postgres has added an intermediate
bitmap in index retrievals (like ours) and two-phase commit.

Almost made up for the half an hour I spent talking to a potential user
who had been told that he could use Firebird for his application because
he didn't need much of "that relational stuff."

Cheers,

..::firebird::..

Grid-powered network thin clients run embedded Linux and ... Firebird database

"ThinLinx has launched a line of Linux-based thin-clients that access
Ubuntu Linux desktops and commercial Linux applications hosted on
ThinLinx's grid network. The Hot-E initially offers Firebird database,
Compiere and OpenCRX ERP/CRM"

http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS4609128375.html

..::firebird::..

99 Bottles of Beer in Firebird relational database SQL

/*
 * beer_song.sql - 99 Bottles of Beer in Firebird relational database SQL
 * Firebird is at firebird.sourceforge.net
 * Author: Jim Dunleavy 
 * 2003-11-27
 */

..::firebird::..

Newest Concern on Sun's Open Source Strategy - Firebird/Interbase mentioned

Firebird/Interbase license is mentioned on theserverside.com

"Several years ago, Borland released the Interbase Database source
code as an Open Source project. They then, quickly, turned around and
brought it back in house. Obviously, it was immediately forked and
today we have Firebird, which as far as I can tell is on a divergent
course from Interbase.

Interbase wasn't free long enough for any community work to have been
done on it before it was taken back, and I'm not familiar with their
license. But it is an example of a company "changing its mind"
regarding an open source project."

http://www.theserverside.com/news/thread.tss?thread_id=35242

..::firebird::..

Firebird switch - dot net provieder story

And MySQL is not being entirely upfront either. What is also interesting is that the new database connectors are being released under GPL only. For example if you were doing .NET development you have to release all of your software under GPL. This switch by MySQL stems from the fact that a court in the US deemed connecting to a database using a standard API is not an infraction of the GPL. As MySQL is trying to squeeze developers and admins to buy commercial licenses I switched to Firebird.

Found it on this blog

..::firebird::..

libgda/libgnomedb 1.3.4 released

libgda/libgnomedb are a complete framewok for developing
database-oriented applications, and currently allow access to PostgreSQL,
MySQL, Oracle, Sybase, SQLite, FireBird/Interbase, IBM DB2, mSQL and MS
SQL server, as well as MS Access and xBase files and ODBC data sources.

libgda/libgnomedb are the base of the database support in the GNOME
Office application suite, providing database access for many features in
both Gnumeric and Abiword.

1.3.4 is another step in the road to 2.0, which will be out with GNOME 2.12

You can find more information at the projects' homepage: http://www.gnome-db.org

..::firebird::..

Firebird Internals: OAT, OIT, and Sweep in Episode 4 (A New Hope)

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away...

Firebird for the Database Expert: Episode 4 - OAT, OIT, and Sweep by Ann Harrison.

..::firebird::..

New Norwegian Search Vendor using Firebird

It seems like we now have an other Scandinavian contender in the Search Engine space.
They base their technology around SQL and native integration (porting) into each supported database. For the moment they support Microsoft SQL, Oracle, Interbase and Firebird , DB2 later this year or on customer request.

Source of news is unstruct.org

..::firebird::..

Bugtracking With Track+Firebird

Arno from australia wrote this

I have been looking for some decent, easy-to-use bugtracking software lately for one of our projects. My first recommondations were Bugzilla and Mantis, simply because I knew them from the past and they were freely available. But their installation procedures (e.g. Perl, MySQL as prerequisites for Bugzilla) overstrained the sysadmin responsible for setting up and maintaining the server (external staff - to his defense, he had no experience in these areas). Plus I never liked Bugzilla's nor Mantis' user interface.

So I continued searching, and finally found Track+. Originally a Sourceforge project, the licensing model was very attractive (free license for up to ten users), the featureset looked good, it supported all kinds of operating systems and databases, and it came with a complete Windows installer. I did a test installation and had it up and running in ten minutes.

The only prerequisite is an existing JDK1.4.2. The setup package also provides Tomcat 5 as web/application container and the free Firebird database. I only had to add tools.jar to Tomcat's classpath (seems as if the installer forgot about that - otherwise Tomcat's JSP engine Jasper would not be able to compile JSP pages)

..::firebird::..

Firebird Internals Episode 3 - On Disk Consistency (Revenge of the crash)

Ann Harrison published her 3rd expert whitepaper, this time on disk consistency.

Read more

..::firebird::..

Firebird Client 2.0 Alpha 1 for .NET 2.0 Beta 2 - released

Carlos announced the availability of Firebird Client 2.0 Alpha 1 for .NET 2.0 Beta 2, with the following notes: "For now only source and installation packages (for .NET 2.0 Beta 2) are available. Remember that it's an alpha version and it should be used only for testing. Release notes are here.
..::firebird::....::dotnet::....::mono::..

Europe Parliament Nixes Software Patent Law

The European Parliament overwhelmingly rejected a proposed law Wednesday
to create a single way of patenting software across the European Union,
calling instead for comprehensive rules for granting patents to inventions
in all fields.

..::firebird::..

Open Source is the Future. Open Source is Now.

Open source databases white paper (firebird,ibphoenix,fyracle mentioned):
pdf download

More papers on the same site http://virtuas.com/opensource.html

..::firebird::..::databases::..::postgresql::..::mysql::..

firebird on SCO Openserver 5.0.7 ! doh

> I have attempted to build firebird (1.0 and 1.5) on SCO Openserver 5.0.7

I don't think is worth the time to port on it , you can get a
free/open/gnu linux
very easy ;) and firebird is compiling well on recent distro's (minus
ones with gcc 4)

..::firebird::..::linux::..::unix::..

STOP Software Patents in Europe - last day call

How you can help

• Join the web demo
  
• Join the economic-majority.com
  
• Join the demonstration in Strasbourg
  

If you cannot attend the demonstation in Strasbourg in person please phone or fax your member of the European Parliament (MEP). Or better yet discuss the situation with others you work with and send a company FAX to show them how this new legislation will hurt your business if the Buzek-Rocard-Duff amendments are not adopted by parlement on Wednesday. If you don't inform your parliament, mega-corporations are doing the job for you: "The European Parliament is filled with lobbyists of Microsoft, Eicta, CompTIA and so on. There are 30 to 40 lobbyists permanently roaming the halls."

Join us now...

..::firebird::..
..::postgresql::..
..::databases::..
..::debian::..

Firebird SQL Service monitor and Server Config - screenshots

DISCLAIMER:

Software downloadable here is distributed on an "AS IS" basis, WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. If you live or are intended to use this software in countries where this is not applicable ("AS IS" basis), DO NOT USE IT

FBMonitor

Firebird SQL Service monitor

Application Tray can Monitoring, Start, Stop, Restart Firebird SQL 1.5 Services over network.
Like as apache monitor

Download it from, EXE file included

http://www.parmaja.com/downloads/fbMonitor-1.0.0.zip

Forum Page

Screenshots



fbConfig 1.0.0

Firebird SQL 1.5 Config tools
It is a simple tools for edit "firebid.conf" and "aliases.conf" as easy without define the path of server (taked from registry),
- Easy Hash Unhash line (comment it),
- Recognize hashed value for Unhasing it,
- Description for every values.

Download it from, EXE file included

http://www.parmaja.com/downloads/fbConfig-1.0.0.zip

Forum Page

Screenshots




..::firebird::..

what is new in Firebird Alpha3

raw changelog is updated on sf.net

Added some Alpha 3 changes

  **************
 * v2.0 Alpha 3
 **************

   * DDL improvement
       Allow to create foreign key constraints without need to get exclusive lock
       on whole database
     Contributor(s):
       Vlad Horsun 

   * Fixed unregistered bug
       Fix 'partner index not found' error when one classic process
       dropped FK and another process trying to delete master record
     Contributor(s):
       Vlad Horsun 

   * ISQL improvement
       Make SQLDA_DISPLAY display input SQLDA parameters of INSERTs, UPDATEs and DELETEs
     Contributor(s):
       Adriano dos Santos Fernandes 

   * Fixed unregistered bug
       Server crashed when PLAN for VIEW is specified but no table alias was given
     Contributor(s):
       Vlad Horsun 

   * Fixed Alpha 2 bug (SF #1184591)
       Invalid ROW_COUNT variable value after DELETE
     Contributor(s):
       Dmitry Yemanov 

   * Fixed unregistered bugs
       1) redundant attempts to get an exclusive database lock during shutdown
       2) inaccurate timeout counting
       3) database lock is not released after bringing database online in the exclusive mode
       4) removed a 5 sec timeout when bringing database online in the shared mode
     Contributor(s):
       Dmitry Yemanov 

   * Fixed bug SF #1016040
       Missing external libraries causes engine exception
     Contributor(s):
       Adriano dos Santos Fernandes 

   * DML enhancement
       Implemented RETURNING clause for the INSERT statement
     See also:
       /doc/sql.extentions/README.returning
     Contributor(s):
       Dmitry Yemanov 

   * Fixed bug SF #1186607
       Foreign key relation VARCHAR <-> INT
     Contributor(s):
       Vlad Horsun 

   * Fixed bug SF #1211325
       BLOBs in external tables
     Contributor(s):
       Vlad Horsun 

   * New charsets/collations
       1) KOI8-R (Russian language) and KOI8-U (Ukrainian language) charsets and dictionary collations
       2) WIN1257_LV (Latvian), WIN1257_LT (Lithuanian), WIN1257_EE (Estonian) collations
     Contributor(s):
      Oleg Loa 
       Aleksey Karyakin 

   * Parser improvement
       Try report the line/column of an incomplete statement.
     Contributor(s):
       Claudio Valderrama 

   * Fixed unregistered bugs
       1) Charset/collation issues for expression-based view columns
       2) Lost charset/collation for local PSQL variables
     Contributor(s):
       Dmitry Yemanov 

   * Fixed Alpha 2 bug (SF #1171256)
       Local Protocol (XNET) isn't using aliases
     Contributor(s):
       Dmitry Yemanov 

   * Fixed unregistered bug
       Database alises didn't work in WNET
     Contributor(s):
       Dmitry Yemanov 

   * Fixed bug SF #1211354
       Redundant evaluations in COALESCE
     Contributor(s):
       Arno Brinkman 

   * Fixed unregistered bug
       Client crashed while disconnecting with active event listener
     Contributor(s):
       Dmitry Yemanov 

   * Fixed SF bug #1208932
       SHOW GRANT does not distinguish object types
     Contributor(s):
       Claudio Valderrama 

   * Optimizer improvement
       Use more realistic cost value for unique retrieval
     Contributor(s):
       Arno Brinkman 

   * Fixed SF bug #494981
       Bad exception report
     Contributor(s):
       Claudio Valderrama 

   * DDL enhancement
       Implemented ALTER EXTERNAL FUNCTION to change the entry_point or the module_name when the UDF cannot be dropped due to existing dependecies
     Contributor(s):
       Claudio Valderrama 

   * Fixed Alpha 2 bugs
       1) bug with selectivity of non-equality comparisons
       2) changed the invertions selection code to help in both MERGE and JOIN paths
       3) implemented metadata extract for expression indices
       4) the threading issues in fbembed
     Contributor(s):
       Dmitry Yemanov 

   * DDL enhancement
       Implemented the COMMENT statement to set the metadata descriptions
     See also:
       /doc/sql.extentions/README.ddl.txt
     Contributor(s):
       Claudio Valderrama 

   * Fixed bug SF #908319
       1.5 wrong err msg using gbak with service_mgr
     Contributor(s):
       Vlad Horsun 

   * Fixed unregistered bug
       A few internal buffer overflows are fixed
     Contributor(s):
       Alex Peshkov 

   * Fixed unregistered bug
       After an attempt to "create view v(c1) as select 1 from v" all clones of system request remained active forever
     Contributor(s):
       Alex Peshkov 

   * Fixed Alpha 2 bug
       Server crashed in incorrect written EXECUTE BLOCK statement
     Example(s):
       EXECUTE BLOCK AS BEGIN
         INSERT INTO DUMMY (ID) VALUES(?);
       END
     Contributor(s):
       Vlad Horsun 

   * Fixed unregistered bug
       ISQL_disconnect_database overwriting the Quiet flag permanently
     Contributor(s):
       Miroslav Penchev 
       Claudio Valderrama 

   * Fixed unregistered bug
       Server crashed during the table metadata scan in some cases
     Contributor(s):
       Dmitry Yemanov 

   * Fixed unregistered bug
       Error "index key too big" when creating a descending index
     Contributor(s):
       Vlad Horsun 

   * Fixed SF bug #1191006
       Using where params in SUM return incorrect results
     Contributor(s):
       Arno Brinkman 

   * Fixed Alpha 2 bug
       Problem with distributing sort to deeper RSE
     Example(s):
     SELECT RDB$RELATION_NAME FROM (SELECT FIRST 10 * FROM RDB$RELATIONS ORDER BY RDB$RELATION_NAME DESC) ORDER BY RDB$RELATION_NAME
     Contributor(s):
       Arno Brinkman 

   * Fixed SF bug #1122344
       gbak -kill option drops existing shadow
     Contributor(s):
       Dmitry Yemanov 

   * Fixed SF bug #750662
       Multiple declaration of blob filters
     Contributor(s):
       Dmitry Yemanov 

   * Parser improvement
       UNIONs are allowed in ANY/ALL/IN subqueries
     Contributor(s):
       Dmitry Yemanov 

   * Fixed SF bug #743679
       FIRST / SKIP not well implemented
     Contributor(s):
       Dmitry Yemanov 

   * Optimizer improvement
       NOT conditions are simplified and optimized via index when possible
     Example(s):
       (NOT NOT A = 0) -> (A = 0)
       (NOT A > 0) -> (A <= 0)
     Contributor(s):
       Dmitry Yemanov 

   * Fixed SF bug #450404
       ISQL uppercases role in the command line
     Contributor(s):
       Claudio Valderrama 

   * Fixed unregistered bug
       100% CPU load when an I/O error causes a rollover to non-existing shadow
     Contributor(s):
       Dmitry Yemanov 

   * Fixed Alpha 2 bug (SF #1173988)
       Minor glitches in GBAK output
     Contributor(s):
       Claudio Valderrama 

   * Fixed unregistered bug
       Fix for the -b (Bail On Error) option when SQL commands are issued and no db connection exists yet.
       Apply Miroslav Penchev's patch for bug with -Q always returning 1 to the operating system, discovered by Ivan Prenosil.
     Contributor(s):
       Claudio Valderrama 

   * New INTL interface
       A new interface allowing the following enhancements and features
     Contributor(s):
       Nickolay Samofatov 

   * INTL enhancements
       1) Well-formedness checks of string constants and parameters
       2) Uppercase and lowercase all possible (and not only ASCII) characters in default collation orders
       3) Check length of characters (and not bytes) for new MBCS (including UTF8)
       4) Inform original character set in sqlsubtype of XSQLVAR when connecting with NONE
     Contributor(s):
       Adriano dos Santos Fernandes 

   * BLOB enhancements
       1) Allow usage of collations
       2) Perform comparison using entire content
       3) Convert between character sets when assigning from string or BLOB
     Contributor(s):
       Adriano dos Santos Fernandes 

   * Unicode 4.0 support
       UTF8 character set with collations UCS_BASIC and UNICODE
     Contributor(s):
       Adriano dos Santos Fernandes 

   * Brazilian collations
       1) Collation PT_BR for ISO8859_1 and WIN1252 character sets
       2) Collation WIN_PTBR for WIN1252 character set
     Contributor(s):
       Adriano dos Santos Fernandes 
       Paulo Henrique Albanez 

   * New string functions
       LOWER, BIT_LENGTH, CHAR_LENGTH/CHARACTER_LENGTH, OCTET_LENGTH, TRIM.
     See also:
       /doc/sql.extentions/README.length
       /doc/sql.extentions/README.trim
     Contributor(s):
       Adriano dos Santos Fernandes 

   * INTL plugins
       Character sets and collations are installed using a manifest file. Server write to the log when conflicts exist.
     Contributor(s):
       Adriano dos Santos Fernandes 

   * Fixed SF #1073212
       Order by big columns (collate) terminates server
     Contributor(s):
       Adriano dos Santos Fernandes 

   * Fixed SF #939844
       Queries > 263 chars with UNICODE DB throws GDS Exception
     Contributor(s):
       Adriano dos Santos Fernandes 

   * Fixed SF #977785
       Wrong character lengths MBCS (UTF-8, East-Asian charsets)
     Contributor(s):
       Adriano dos Santos Fernandes 

   * Fixed SF #536243
       UNICODE_FSS charset and UPPER function
     Contributor(s):
       Adriano dos Santos Fernandes 

   * Fixed SF #942726
       UPPER does not convert aacute to Aacute for ISO8859_1
     Contributor(s):
       Adriano dos Santos Fernandes 

   * Fixed SF #544630
       Problems when connecting using UNICODE
     Contributor(s):
       Adriano dos Santos Fernandes 

   * Fixed SF #540547
       Concatenation, numeric fields & charset
     Contributor(s):
       Adriano dos Santos Fernandes 

   * Fixed unregistered bug
       Query produce different result depending on index presence when the last character of the string is the first character of a compression pair
     Contributor(s):
       Adriano dos Santos Fernandes 

   * Fixed unregistered bug
       SUBSTRING and multi-byte BLOB don't work correctly
     Contributor(s):
       Adriano dos Santos Fernandes 

   * Fixed unregistered bug
       Pattern matching with multi-byte BLOB is performed in binary mode
     Contributor(s):
       Adriano dos Santos Fernandes 

   * Fixed unregistered bug
       It's not safe to connect with MBCS if database has columns using different character set
     Contributor(s):
       Adriano dos Santos Fernandes 

..::firebird::..

bitweaver released

It's been a while coming, but the Firebird powered wiki site is running
and stable
http://home.lsces.co.uk/tikifirebird
Not much in the way of content yet, apart from the words list, which has
been split down into single letter pages, and just a few logos to start
the gallery. It is powered by bitweaver which is the new name for tikipro. 
There has been a major re-write of the code, much like Firebird, but now 
there is a clean modular shell onto which other packages can be grafted.
http://www.bitweaver.org/
 
It runs on Apache/PHP which means any OS you like, and your favourite
installation of Firebird. I'm running the demo sites split across two
machines, Firebird on one and Apache2/PHP5 on the second, and all
running 'as installed'.
The magic bit is that bitweaver will install 
using Firebird as the database 'out of the box'. Just tell the installer 
where your copy of isql is located (the default location is provided) and 
the bitweaver installer will do the rest. Add an alias before you start 
and you can use that in the install. Now we just need a few more users to 
iron out any remaining bugs and
start to build Firebird pages. 
--
Lester Caine
-----------------------------
L.S.Caine Electronic Services 

source for news : firebird-php

..::firebird::....::apache::....::php::..

New database discussion forum

Martijn Tonies and Arno Brinkman have created a new database-development forum website. It's a single website for discussing all kinds of different database engines.

::databases::firebird::mysql::postgresql::

Fyracle 0.8.8 released

Fyracle is the nick-name for Oracle-mode Firebird. By using Oracle-mode Firebird, you can bring the cost of porting major Oracle based enterprise application down to manageable levels. Fyracle does this by matching Oracle syntax idiosyncrasies and by providing the ability to compile and execute PL/SQL procedures unchanged.

Continued

..::firebird::..::databases::..::oracle::..

Third edition of DBFreeMagazine is online

In this number are included articles about Firebird, Postgresql and Mysql
Download of this edition is possible by registering and choosing
"download" from left menu.
Registration is free http://www.dbfreemagazine.com.br/


::databases::firebird::mysql::postgresql::

Firebird Worldwide Conference - changes

I have had to adjust the USD cost upwards I'm afraid, because of
the continuing slippage of the $ against the euro. So Conference
prices are:

Early Bird: €399.00 (Euros), $479.00 (USD), £279.00 (UKP) until 30th Sept 2005

Normal: €500.00 (Euros), $600.00 (USD), £335.00 (UKP) after 30th Sept 2005.


Regards
Paul Beach
Main Tel (UK):+44 (0) 1844 354357
Mobile: (UK): +44 (0) 7837 898072

..::firebird::..

Does Oracle have a demographics problem?

Article does mention several open source databases (firebird included) vs Oracle

Does Oracle have a demographics problem? by ZDNet's Paul Murphy -- Oracle likes to hire people in their late twenties or early thirties who combine attitude with some sales skills, but do you know anyone in that age bracket who doesn't work for Oracle and nevertheless favors the company's database products? I don't.

..::firebird::..::oracle::..::postgresql::..::mysql::..

Two new areas have been created within FBTalk

they are:

Show Room - An area for members to showcase their products or websites that rely on (or use) a Firebird database.

ISP Forum - Private area for ISP's who support Firebird and wish to discuss best practices. Email admin @ fbtalk.net with user name and home page for inclusion in this private group. Only ISP's will be allowed access.

..::firebird::..

JayBird 2.0.0 Beta released

On behalf of the JayBird team I am pleased to anounce the release of JayBird 2.0.0 Beta. Distributions for JDK 1.3.x, 1.4.x and 5.0.x can be downloaded from the SourceForge.net release area.Continued

..::firebird::..

ibWebAdmin 0.99.3 released

The changes in this release are as follows:
This release fixes all bugs reported over the last months. The main
issue has been that role privileges were not respected when a role
was used for login. 

Release focus:
7 - Major bugfixes 

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

Firebird for the Database Expert: Episode 2 [Attack of the clones]- Page Types

is an colored episode - enjoy

"A Firebird database is a sequence of fixed length pages normally all contained in a single file.
Different pages have different functions - in this case the yellow page is the database header, followed by a PIP" ....

http://www.ibphoenix.com/main.nfs?a=ibphoenix&page=ibp_expert2
..::firebird::..

"prices" for the firebird conference

I have posted the "prices" of the conference and how to register on

http://www.ibphoenix.com/main.nfs?a=ibphoenix&page=fb_conf_attend

the "prices" are:

The conference will cost

Early Bird: 399.00 Euros, $399.00, £279.00 until 30th Sept 2005
Normal: 500.00 Euros, $500.00, £335.00 after 30th Sept 2005.

Pricing includes attendance at the conference, lunch (Monday and Tuesday) plus morning and afternoon coffee etc. It does not include
the cost of your Hotel Room, but we will make a reservation for you at the Hotel Olanksa for the Sunday, Monday and Tuesday night if
you request it. This reservation will be made at a special conference preferential rate of about 40.00 Euros per night.

They are not yet cast in stone, so feel free to comment.

Regards
Paul Beach
..::firebird::..

Firebird Send Email Solution - Request for Testers

I have developed a solution for sending mail directly from a FB Database, primarily this solution is aimed at ISP's but it will work for any computer connected to the internet (with email access).

The solution has been written using PHP so is available on any platform supported by Firebird 1.5 and PHP. It will be available under the IDPL open source license. I am only able to test using SuperServer on Windows XP/2003 with PHP 4.3.9 and 5.0.4, but would appreciate if any one uses other platform/OS's who have a few mins to spare to help test, I would also appreciate a code review from a PHP expert as this is my first app written in PHP.

The solution is very simple and there are script's to add and remove all objects to/from a database. If you can help test please send an email to me (simon.carter @ tectsoft.com) and I will give you a link for a download. It is currently beta but initial tests have been positive :-)

Rgds

Si Carter

..::firebird::..

FIBS 1.1.0 Beta-3 is ready for testing

This release seems to be stable as production releases. Having below given new features make FIBS the best backup tool to be distrubuted with database applications.
Please download and try it. Any bug report will be greatly appreciated.

Here are new features/improvements respect to version 1.0.5.
New Features
- Remote backup feature added.
- "Auto Run" feature added.
- "Silence Start" feature added.
- "Smooth Shutdown" feature added.
- "Auto Task Activation" feature added.
- Revised so as to appear on only primary monitor in Multi-Monitored system.
Improvements
- Tray Icon's "Show FIBS" routine improved.
- Tray Icon's "Exit" routine improved.
- Some code cleaning and improvements.

Regards,

..::firebird::..

How to setup the Compiere opensource ERP with fyracle (oracle mode firebird)

And that in 5minutes (compare that with oracle)
Video is included

..::firebird::..

Firebird for the Database Expert: Episode 1 [ed: phantom menace]- Indexes by Ann Harrison.

Firebird differs in significant ways from other relational database management systems. Understanding the differences will allow you to create better performing Firebird applications.

Audience: Experienced database application developers
http://xrl.us/gefh (Link to ibphoenix.com)

..::firebird::..

How do I install Firebird 1.52 on Ubuntu? mini-guide

How do I install Firebird 1.52 on Ubuntu?
Classic or Super?

I found this about Firebird on
http://ubuntuforums.org/archive/index.php/t-21618.html

Firebird 1.5.1 can be installed by following these steps:

1. Enable universe repository (see http://www.ubuntuguide.org/#extrarepositories )

2. $ apt-get install firebird2-classic-server (or firebird2-super-server,
according to your needs, see Firebird web)
3. $ apt-get install firebird2-utils-classic

Then you can use the isql-fb app to create/connect to a database and execute
SQL queries.

If you need php4 support, execute
4. $ apt-get install php4-interbase

See www.firebirdsql.org for tutorials and documentation.

alternative to debian way firebird 1.5.2 can be installed from tar.gz

http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/...1-0.i686.tar.gz
extract it, run installer

ps:
found another Debian guide http://jclement.ca/docs/firebird_de...irebird-debian/
also firebird 1.5.2 will be packaged as deb

http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipe...rch/000391.html

..::firebird::...::debian.::.ubuntu::..

Firebird ADO.NET Data Provider 1.7a Released

The Firebird ADO.NET Data Provider 1.7a is available for download.

* Download information can be found here:

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

* Release notes can be found here:

http://sourceforge.net/project/shownotes.php?release_id=332260




--
Best regards

Carlos Guzmán Álvarez
Vigo-Spain
..::firebird::..

firebird included in debian sarge (3.1)

Great news for firebird to be in latest debian release

http://packages.debian.org/stable/misc/firebird2-classic-server

so if counting linux distro's where firebird is included
we have
1.mandriva
2.debian
3.ubuntu
4.gentoo
5.freebsd

to do: push firebird to other distro's from distrowatch.com
and i will ask so firebird to be included in the list of open source
packages (watch the table)

http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=debian


..::firebird::...::debian.::.ubuntu::..

Knoda Now Supports Firebird and Paradox

Knoda is a database frontend for KDE. With its latest release, Knoda introduces support for Firebird and Paradox databases, now supporting all open source SQL servers. Besides managing tables and queries, Knoda also lets you create forms and reports, scriptable via Python.

Supported database formats are:

• DBase,
• Firebird,
• MS Access,
• MySQL,
• ODBC,
• Paradox,
• Postgres,
• SQLite

Source for news dot.kde.org
by yahoo news

..::firebird::.::kde::..::linux::..

libgda/libgnomedb 1.3.2 released with Firebird support

Rodrigo Moya from gnome-db.org wrote:

libgda/libgnomedb are a complete framewok for developing
database-oriented applications, and currently allow access to PostgreSQL,
MySQL, Oracle, Sybase, SQLite, FireBird/Interbase, IBM DB2, mSQL and MS
SQL server, as well as MS Access and xBase files and ODBC data sources.

libgda/libgnomedb are the base of the database support in the GNOME
Office application suite, providing database access for many features in
both Gnumeric and Abiword.

Tarballs are available at
http://download.gnome.org/pub/GNOME/sources/libgda/1.3/
http://download.gnome.org/pub/GNOME/sources/libgnomedb/1.3/

To install this new version, you'll need:
* libgda: glib, libxml2, libxslt
* libgnomedb: libgda and dependencies, libgnome/ui, libglade,
libbonoboui and, optionally, gtksourceview

You can find more information at the projects' homepage
(http://www.gnome-db.org), or you can ask any question/propose anything
you want in the GNOME-DB mailing list, which is available at
http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-db-list.

..::firebird::..linux::..gnome::..

Firebird ADO.NET Data Provider 1.7 Released

The Firebird ADO.NET Data Provider 1.7 is available for download.

* Download information can be found here:

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

* Release notes can be found here:

http://sourceforge.net/project/shownotes.php?release_id=332260



Note: I hope to release .NET 1.0 setup as soon as possible.




--
Best regards

Carlos Guzmán Álvarez

..::firebird::..::dotnet::..::asp.net::mono::dotnet

Firebird is Top 4 on SourceForge stats!

We are now on Top 4 on SourceForge stats.
This will bring us more visibility for a week or two.
Watch left box on Top Downloads http://sourceforge.net/



..::firebird::..

FIBS 1.0.5 Immediate Release is ready

5th maintenance release of FIBS 1.0 is ready to download. I have noticed that version 1.0.4 (also 1.1.0 Beta-1) can create backup file for compressed task as expected even if current task name includes space chars, but cannot create uncompressed backups if current task name includes spaces.
Tray Icon's "Show FIBS" routine also improved again with this release.

Source fbtalk forum

..::firebird::..

FlameRobin V0.2.5 Alpha is available for download

FlameRobin V0.2.5 Alpha is available for download. For more details, read the release notes. FlameRobin is an open source, lightweight and cross-platform GUI administration and management tool for Firebird.

..::firebird::..

Firebird in Mandriva LE 2005

Firebird official rpm in Madriva LE 2005 distribution can be downloaded from
contrib section

Source for news firebird-fr.eu

..::firebird::..::linux::..

Firebird Conference: Call For Papers

The Third Firebird Worldwide Conference will take place at the 
Hotel Olsanka in Prague, Czech Republic.

The opening session will be on Sunday evening, 13th November 2005.  
Sessions will run through to the evening of Tuesday 15th November 2005 
(closing session)

Call for Speaker Papers

Are you, or is anyone you know, interested in being a speaker at the 
conference?

Ideally, each speaker should offer to do at least two sessions, although 
it isn't an absolute requirement.  We would accept a single session if the 
topic is considered interesting enough. 

A session will last for 50 minutes plus 10 minutes for turnaround amd questions. 
If your talk takes more than a single session, then it should span multiple sessions. 
If your session is especially popular you may be asked to repeat it.

The opening session on Sunday evening will take place in a large lecture hall.  
Four smaller rooms are available all day for for Monday and Tuesday and a 
lecture hall is available for afternoon sessions that are likely to have larger 
audiences. The closing session will be in the lecture hall on Tuesday evening.

It is expected that conference tracks will cover the following issues

Migrating to Firebird from other databases, why you chose Firebird and 
how you are using it, installation and configuration.

Understanding, developing with and using Firebird
Firebird engine development, Firebird internals (including Vulcan), 
QA, Documentation, Firebird Project

Connectivity and application development with Firebird (e.g. Delphi, 
Java, C++, .NET, ODBC, ADO, BDE, JDBC, IBO, PHP)

Firebird third party tools and applications

Local language topics (e.g. German, French, Czech etc)

Each topic description should indicate the possible track, a title and at 
least 200 words outlining the main points of your talk. Once we have received 
the outline we will let you know whether you have been accepted as a speaker. 

Prospective speakers, please send your outlines to pbeach@ibphoenix.com, by 
August 31st 2005.

Compensation

Speakers who are resident in Europe will be reimbursed 800.00 Euros.  Those from 
other countries will be reimbursed $1400.00 USD.  Hotel accommodation will be 
provided for the three conference nights, from the Sunday night until checkout 
on the Wednesday morning. 


Publication of Papers

Each selected speaker will be expected to turn in a technical paper in electronic 
(HTML - Hypertext markup language) form for each abstract topic originally approved. 
All illustrations and graphics pertaining to each paper must also be submitted.  
The papers should contain enough detail to enable a reader to fully understand the 
topic without benefit of a physical presentation. Speakers may also submit samples 
of code and/or presentation slides. 

All accepted papers will be published electronically on a conference CD for the 
attendees after the conference.  We may choose to sell the conference proceedings 
CD outside of the conference, or publish items separately. By submitting materials 
to the Firebird conference, you grant the Firebird Foundation permission to use, 
reproduce, audio/video record amd distribute your materials.

Paul Beach
Main Tel (UK):+44 (0) 1844 354357
Mobile: (UK): +44 (0) 7837 898072

..::firebird::.::Open Source::.::linux::..

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

..::firebird::..

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.

..::firebird::..

Flamerobin - a new blog

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

..::firebird::..

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
.::firebird::.

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)
.::firebird::.

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::mysql::postgresql::

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
::firebird::

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.

firebird

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

firebird

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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