IBUndelete V2.0 for Firebird and InterBase

IBUndelete V2.0 for Firebird and InterBase is available. This version now supports Firebird 2.0.x and InterBase 2007 database structures and improved undelete algorithms.

Delphi For PHP Released

From Slashdot: http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/03/28/0314222

Codegear (now a subsidiary of Borland) has just released version 1.0 of Delphi for PHP, a RAD development environment (running on Windows) that produces standard PHP code. It features a large set of built-in components, including ones that use AJAX for database access; and Codegear is encouraging users to develop their own components. The framework, VCL for PHP, is open source, and documentation follows the PHP model. Initial database connectivity is for MySQL and Interbase (Codegear’s commercial database that spawned the open-source Firebird), but more are promised.

Firebird 2.1 Alpha 1 Ready for Field Testing

The Firebird team is pleased to announce that the first Alpha builds of Firebird V.2.1 are ready for testing. Binary and source kits for Linux and and some Win64 and Win32 kits should start appearing at the Sourceforge mirrors today. For a summary of new features and bug fixes, see HERE.

Delphi for PHP - First impressions

Myles Wakeham wrote about Delphi for PHP and firebird issues:

Well I received my downloadable Delphi for PHP today. I haven’t had a huge amount of time to play with it, but there are some very impressive features, but a couple of ‘critical’ missing features for me.

Delphi on Rails?

The developers who brought us Delphi, that Ferrari of Integrated Development Environments, are entering the dynamic language tools race, and this time they are sporting Ruby red.

Firebird 2.0.1 Accepted in Debian unstable

Firebird 2.0.1 package is accepted in Debian unstable

Morfik 07 released

Morfik 07 was released a few days ago.
It uses Firebird as the default database.
Check it out, it is a great tool for generating AJAX web applications.

Optimization of network traffic

Devrace have published a new article “Devrace FIBPlus: Optimization of network traffic in Delphi and C++ Builder applications”. From it you will get to know:
Caching metadata.
Using poRefreshAfterPost option in TpFIBDataSet Options.
Recurrent use of queries.
Client BLOB-filters. «Transparent» packing of BLOB-fields, etc.

Firebird point-release 2.0.1

This is the first sub-release since the 2.0 release in November, 2006. It adds no new features (those are coming in v.2.1) but provides a large number of bug-fixes and a few improvements. It is highly recommended that v.2.0 installations be upgraded to get the benefits of these.

Important Change
In Firebird 2.0, a deliberate restriction was imposed to prevent anyone from dropping, altering or recreating a PSQL module if it had been used since the database was opened. An attempt to prepare the DDL statement would result in an "Object in Use" exception.
Many people complained that the restriction was unacceptable because they depended on performing these metadata changes "on the fly". The restriction has therefore been removed. However, the reversion in no way implies that performing DDL on active PSQL modules is "safer" in Firebird 2.0.1 than it was in V.1.5.

Read/download release notes (789 Kb, right-click to save to disk)
Go to the Firebird 2.0.1 Downloads page

Delphi 2007 for Win32 is GOLD!

There are several reports that Delphi 2007 for Win32 gone RTM, and in some countries you can already download it. For more information check http://blogs.codegear.com/.
First impressions are that this easily can be THE best Delphi release to date!

Backup remote DB locally

By default, Firebird stores backup files on local disk, but using GBak you can use something like the following to backup a remote database, locally.

gbak -b -z 192.168.0.1:MyDBAlias "C:\DatabasesBackup\localbackup.fbk" -verbose -user SYSDBA -password masterkey

Approximate Record Count in Firebird

The following solution was originally posted to the Firebird Support Mail List by Ivan Prenosil.This solution only returns an approximate record count*, and will include records that have been deleted (and not yet garbage collected) as well as records that have been inserted but not yet committed.

Code:
/* first update the statistics */
UPDATE RDB$INDICES SET RDB$STATISTICS = -1;
COMMIT;

/* Display table names and record counts */
SELECT RDB$RELATIONS.RDB$RELATION_NAME,CASE WHEN RDB$INDICES.RDB$STATISTICS = 0 THEN 0 ELSE CAST(1 / RDB$INDICES.RDB$STATISTICS AS INTEGER) END FROM RDB$RELATIONS LEFT JOIN RDB$RELATION_CONSTRAINTS ON RDB$RELATIONS.RDB$RELATION_NAME = RDB$RELATION_CONSTRAINTS.RDB$RELATION_NAME AND RDB$CONSTRAINT_TYPE = 'PRIMARY KEY'LEFT JOIN RDB$INDICES ONRDB$RELATION_CONSTRAINTS.RDB$INDEX_NAME = RDB$INDICES.RDB$INDEX_NAME WHERE RDB$VIEW_BLR IS NULL ANDRDB$RELATION_ID >= 128 ORDER BY 1;


* This will only work on tables that have a primary key.

The Firebird 2.0 Book Supplement is available.

If you bought an original copy of The Firebird Book: A Reference for Database Developers directly from IBPhoenix you should have already received an email giving you instructions on how to download your free copy of the Firebird 2.0 Supplement to the book.

Otherwise you might want consider buying the supplement
directly from the IBPhoenix shop.

The Supplement follows the format and layout of the original book,
to make it easy to print out sections and insert them into your
hard copy of the main book. Where applicable, the Errata for the
main book are appended to the respective Supplement chapter.
They can be printed out as lone pages if you wish to tape the
Errata to the applicable pages.

Icons are used throughout to draw your attention to Firebird 2
changes and features that might affect your legacy databases
and applications when migrating. In appropriate places, page
references to the main book are given as a reference to
background information.

Appendix X (Error Codes) and Appendix XI (Reserved Words)
have both been completely updated so that you have an
complete on-hand reference to these sets. New character
sets and collations appear in Appendix VIII.

More details on the supplement can be found at:
http://www.ibphoenix.com/main.nfs?a=ibphoenix&page=ibp_firebird_book

Firebird support in Django

Django is a high-level Python Web framework that encourages rapid development and clean, pragmatic design.
David Elias has updated his patch for Firebird support in Django. All tests are passed with the current version of this patch and author consider it in production-ready quality.

Firebird V2.01 Release Candidate 2 is available

Firebird V2.01 Release Candidate 2 is available for download.

This sub-release introduces a number of bug fixes done since the v.2.0 release in November. It does not add any new functionality to the database engine. A minor improvement is detection of Gentoo or FreeBSD during configuration.

An important reversion to 1.5 behaviour has occurred in this sub-release, as follows:

In Firebird 2.0, a deliberate restriction was imposed to prevent anyone from dropping, altering or recreating a PSQL module if it had been used since the database was opened. An attempt to prepare the DDL statement would result in an "Object in Use" exception.

Many people complained that the restriction was unacceptable because they depended on performing these metadata changes "on the fly". The restriction has therefore been removed. However, the reversion in no way implies that performing DDL on active PSQL modules is "safer" in Firebird 2.0.1 than it was in V.1.5.x.