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Firebird 1.0

When Borland published the InterBase 6.0 source code in 2000, the Firebird project was founded. A new branch on SourceForge was opened, and the Firebird Foundation was founded to fund the project.

Firebird 1.0 is a bug-fixed and slightly enhanced variant of InterBase 6.0. The freely available InterBase 6.0 documentation can be used for Firebird. However, there are a few additions.

The current (and last) version of Firebird 1 is version 1.0.3. It can not be run together with InterBase, because it uses the same port (3050/tcp), service name (gds_db), Registry entries and client library name (GDS32.DLL) as InterBase. You can, however, use InterBase 6.0 database files (or better do a backup+restore, using the GBAK tool of both databases).

What was new in Firebird 1.0

Language enhancements

• CURRENT_USER and CURRENT_ROLE context variables
• DROP GENERATOR <name>
• GROUP BY UDF
• RECREATE PROCEDURE lets you create a new stored procedure with the same name as an existing procedure, replacing the old procedure, without needing to drop the old procedure first. The syntax is identical to CREATE PROCEDURE.
• RECREATE TABLE lets you create a new structure for an existing table without needing to drop the old table first. The syntax is identical to CREATE TABLE.
• SELECT [FIRST n][SKIP m]
• SUBSTRING (<string expr> FROM <pos> [FOR <length>])
  will return a stream consisting of the byte at <pos> and all subsequent bytes up to the end of the string. If the option FOR <length> is specified, it will return the lesser of <length> bytes or the number of bytes up to the end of the input stream.
• New PLANONLY option for statements allows for a statement/query to be submitted to the engine and the plan retrieved, without executing the statement/query.
• It is now possible to set FOREIGN KEY indexes inactive using ALTER INDEX. This should resolve some performance issues related to maintaining indexes with low selectivity.
• Case insensitive Hungarian Collation set
• New "--" comment marker for scripts

Enhancements

• Enhanced dependency checking
• Large database file support
• Engine support for 64-bit file I/O
• Support for 16 KB pages
• Expressly define external file location(s)
• Win32 Forced Writes default=ON
• Limit raised on External Table handles (NT)
• External files now closed when external table is dropped
• CPU_AFFINITY configuration parameter
• Connection now defaults to port 3050
• Connection to server listening on a specific port
• Added -NONAGLE switch for Linux ports
• Enhancements to isc_database_info

For a complete list of all new features, enhancements and bugfixes refer to the files stored in the "doc" subdirectory of your Firebird 1.0 installation.