Firebird to CSV

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

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.

A new tool to import data into Firebird

Guacosoft.com has released XMLWizard, a new tool used to import data into Firebird databases. It supports XML, CSV and fixed-width textual files. XML import has some unique features like support for nested XML files and loading data from XML properties.

Beside importing, the tool can be used to compare the data from file against the database and cherry-pick the changes manually. More info, and a demo video can be found at XMLWizard website.