Author: mariuz

New feature preview feature in LibreOffice 4.2  : Firebird SQL connector for LibreOffice Base ( contributed by Andrzej Hunt). When creating a new Database, select Firebird Embedded in the drop down menu (you have to first enable the Experimental features in Tools ▸Options ▸ LibreOffice ▸ Advanced).

This allows creation of databases that perform many times faster than the previous built-in HSQLDB 1.8, avoiding the C++-to-Java overhead inherent in using HSQLDB. We plan to phase HSQLDB out over the next few releases, and provide a smooth migration path to Firebird.

Here is the history of Firebird -> Libo GSOC integration (idea ,code ,bugs, blog posts)

http://en.libreofficeforum.org/node/6062

Firebird ActiveRecord gem is updated to version 0.8.4 with a few fixes:

• Standardize on “gem build activerecord-fb-adapter.gemspec” rather than Rakefile to build new gems.
• Allow for the presence of both binds and encoded values within the SQL statement. Credit to Ray Zane.

New version 0.1.6 is released in the unstable area and here is the ChangeLog:

• Push down bitwise operators << and >> (FB 2.1 and later)
• Push down two-argument form of SUBSTRING()
• Push down CONCAT()
• Push down POSITION() / STRPOS()
• Don’t check for mutable functions – we are explicitly whitelisting functions which can be pushed down (need to double-check if that’s a valid approach)

Vote for Firebird as Database of the Year 2013 at LinuxQuestions (must be registered user with at least one Linux related post)

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/2013-linuxquestions-org-members-choice-awards-109/database-of-the-year-4175488206/

Spread the word on all forums and Firebird communities

New version 0.1.5 is released in the unstable area and here is the ChangeLog:

• Add basic Firebird version detection to ensure that only functions available on the remote Firebird server are actually pushed down
• Push down functions COALESCE(), NULLIF()
• Only push down SUBSTRING() if 2nd and 3rd arguments are INTs

Also fbsql is progressing (a command-line client for Firebird inspired by PostgreSQL’s psql)

DWScript now has database support classes built-in, these are based on a thin, interface-based layer, and can be used Delphi-side as well to get automatic memory management for simple DB access.

Here is a simple example for webservice

Here is a demo program that shows how to generate PDF output from a Firebird database, using xtopdf PDF creation toolkit and the fbd Python driver for Firebird.