Category: Tools & Products releases

Announcements of new Firebird related products, or new releases.

Firebird Performance Comparer (FBPC)

Leave a comment

In my two presentations at the 20th Firebird Developers Day, I introduced firsthand the tool I created to help compare the performance between two Firebird servers (>= 2.5) in an easy and visual way.

This tool actually helped to detect a performance regression in Firebird 5 beta, which was resolved after I reported it to the core developers. The intention is to identify optimizer regressions or low performance issues in Firebird itself, or even the breaking of SQL commands due to new reserved words or syntax restrictions.

I’m making version 1.0 beta available for anyone interested. It’s a version that so far has been tested only by me, so it may and probably does have some bugs.

The FBPC runs on Windows and internally uses Firebird 5 RC1 embedded to store the tests and their results. When you run the application for the first time, it will display instructions on how to use it.

In summary, it helps you create a trace.conf to capture SQL commands executed on a Firebird server 2.5 or higher in a production environment. Then, the tool parses the file and collect the statements, allowing you to run them in a controlled environment of servers, specifying test rounds where the execution time between server1 and server2 is compared and displayed in an intuitive and visual way, enabling you to detect regressions or even commands that could not be executed due to new reserved words or syntax restrictions imposed in new versions of the DBMS.

RedExpert 2023.10.1 has been released

Leave a comment

You can join to the Telegram chat for discussion.

New version of RedExpert 2023.10.1 is available.

Added:

  1. “Properties” tab on the database table editing panel.
  2. Configuring SQL templates from the Menu -> Tools.
  3. Checkbox “Automatic text wrapping” in the text browser of data with the BLOB type.
  4. Ability to specify a relative path to the log file in the settings.
  5. View blobs of PDF type.
  6. Autocomplete when editing table triggers for <new.> and <old.>.
  7. Ability to change column position.
  8. Ability to (not)check changes in column positions during DB comparison.
  9. Changing a cursor in the Query Editor while holding down the CTRL button when hovering over an object that can be opened.
  10. Restart the application only after saving several settings
  11. Target and source database exchange button on the comparison panel.

Fixed:

  1. ODBC driver support has been terminated.
  2. Recreation a role when adding a comment  for it.
  3. Errors of editing table foreign keys.
  4. Inability to add a comment to the index through the editing window.
  5. Adding extra versions of Red Expert to the list of Windows applications when installing a new version of the application over the old one.
  6. Action taken when clicking the Select Displayed Dataset Columns button when the Results Pane is closed.
  7. Selecting  table rows to be deleted after closing the “Data” tab and canceling the deletion.
  8. An error when the “Close all tabs” button did not close all tabs.
  9. Incorrect error handling during update.
  10. Syntax highlighting for multi-line identifiers.
  11. Application crash if user settings are broken.
  12. DDL generation for ARRAY, NUMERIC and DECIMAL columns.
  13. Improved autocomplete support for Firebird aliases and keywords.
  14. Working with tables with name length more than31
  15. Updated links for automatic Java downloads.
  16. Unreasonable memory consumption.
  17. Incorrect display of the red_expert.ico file.
  18. Functioning of such application settings as:
    1. highlighting the current line;
    2. number of saved log files;
    3. selected text color;
    4. alternative editor background;
    5. editor font color;
    6. alternative highlight color.

Download and install the new version.

Final release of «Native OLE DB Provider for Firebird v4»

Leave a comment

Hello Everyone!

We are very pleased to announce the release of final IBProvider v5.32 with support for Firebird v4.

Some of our users have already appreciated our work and started using IBProvider with FB4, including as a linked MSSQL server.

We are grateful to everyone who helped us.

Special thanks to Marek D., who initiated this process.

General overview of FB4 support in IBProvider

  • The direct connection and connection through fbclient.dll are supported
  • The 63-symbols object names are supported
  • Provider supports the following new datatypes (including arrays):
    • INT128
    • NUMERIC on INT128 base
    • DECFLOAT(16)
    • DECFLOAT(34)
    • TIMESTAMP WITH TIME ZONE
    • TIME WITH TIME ZONE
  • Provider supports two mode for processing time zones:
    • Through own algorithms
    • Through external library (ICU)
  • The support of the following queries was implemented:
    • SET DECFLOAT ROUND
    • SET DECFLOAT TRAPS
    • SET BIND
  • Provider executes ALTER SESSION RESET before reusing of the connection. Example
  • The new connection initialization properties were added.

In addition to the above, we have significantly improved the existing functionality.

Therefore, it makes sense to upgrade even if you are not yet planning to move to FB4 or are working with InterBase.

https://www.ibprovider.com/eng/news/n_230919__native_oledb_provider_for_fb4.html

With Best Regards, IBProvider Team.

Database .NET v35.5 released

Leave a comment

Database .NET v35.5 is an innovative, powerful and intuitive multiple database management tool.
With it you can easily and intuitive manage all database versions of Firebird (1.5~4.0)
(Free for non-commercial and a single executable file without installation)
Major New features and improvements from 35.1 to 35.5:

  • Added updatable query results
  • Added support for editing and updating of uuid data type of Firebird
  • The content of blob sub_type 1 of Firebird can be edited directly
  • Improved Form Editor
  • Improved Generating Scripts
  • Improved Database Diagram
  • Updated FirebirdSql.Data.FirebirdClient to 9.1.1.0
  • …and more

https://fishcodelib.com/Database.htm

Database Workbench 6.3.0 released

Leave a comment

Upscene Productions is proud to announce the availability of the next release of the popular multi-DBMS development tool:

” Database Workbench 6.3.0″

This version includes full support for the latest versions of Microsoft SQL Server and MariaDB.

    One of the major changes in the previous release was the new object selection box in the Object Editors: much faster on a large number of objects and it now includes a filter for easier usage.

    Database Workbench 6 comes in 3 different editions with different pricing models, there’s always a version that suits you!

    Release of IBProvider v5.31

    Leave a comment

    Hello Everyone!

    We have completed the third step in the process of implementing FB4 support in our OLE DB provider.

    This release adds support for TIMESTAMP WITH TIME ZONE, improves support for INT128 and improves support for NUMERIC data types.

    Please review the changes carefully.

    At the end of the news we have prepared a special offer for you.

    https://www.ibprovider.com/eng/news/n_230817__fb4_step3.html

    Kind Regards, IBProvider Team.

    Firebird to CSV

    Leave a comment

    Firebird to CSV converter is a free program to export Firebird or Interbase databases into comma separated values (CSV) files. The program has high performance due to direct reading of the source database and writing into CSV files. Firebird to CSV converter does not use ODBC or any other middleware. Command line support allows to script, automate and schedule the conversion process.

    Features:

    • All versions of Firebird and Interbase are supported
    • Fast conversion engine (100MB database – in less than 5 minutes on average modern system)
    • Option to convert individual tables
    • Option to select separator: tab, comma or semicolon
    • Option to store conversion settings into profile
    • Command line support
    • Easy-to-use wizard-style interface
    • Full install/uninstall support
    • Unlimited 24/7 support service
    • Freeware

    Firebird External Table Generator (ext-table-gen) 1.0 released

    Leave a comment

    I am happy to announce the release of “Firebird External Table Generator” (ext-table-gen for short).

    “Firebird External Table Generator” is a commandline tool to transform RFC 4180 CSV files to Firebird external table files (a binary format for external table data).

    External tables are a good way for bulk-loading data into Firebird. Unfortunately, external tables use a fixed-width binary format, and not (more) standard formats like CSV. It is not always easy to create an appropriate external table file, and this is where ext-table-gen can be used.

    At a high level, ext-table-gen provides the following features:

    • Derive a CHAR-based external table definition (i.e. a CREATE TABLE statement and a configuration for ext-table-gen) from a CSV file
    • Transform a CSV file to an external table file (either based on the CSV file itself, or based on a configuration file)

    The current version only supports CHAR columns, which makes the generated file essentially a fixed-width text format. Future versions may introduce support for additional column types.

    You can find the 1.0 release at ext-table-gen v1.0.

    Documentation and release notes can be found on https://mrotteveel.github.io/ext-table-gen/.

    The project itself is hosted on https://github.com/mrotteveel/ext-table-gen.

    IBProvider v5.30. DECFLOAT and improved connection pool [FB4]

    Leave a comment

    Hello Everyone.

    In the current release, we have continued expanding the support of Firebird v4.

    https://www.ibprovider.com/eng/news/n_230620__fb4_step2.html

    New features

    • The full support of DECFLOAT(16) and DECFLOAT(34) has been implemented
    • The new version of IBProvider supports the ICU v63 from FB4 kit
    • Using «ALTER SESSION RESET» for resetting a connection before reusing (see this new example)

    Kind Regards and Good Luck! IBProvider Team.

    1 2 3 4 5 … 146