Firebird-5-Release-Notes | Compatibility Issues

This section lists features and modifications that might affect the way you have installed and used Firebird in earlier releases.

Migrating the security database from Firebird 4.0 to 5.0

To migrate the security database from Firebird 4.0 to 5.0, backup security4.fdb with gbak of Firebird 4.0 and restore it as security5.fdb with gbak of Firebird 5.0.Use gbak locally (using an embedded connection) while Firebird Server is not running.

Note	Copying `security4.fdb` and renaming it to `security5.fdb` and upgrading the ODS with gfix option `-UPGRADE` will work as well, but we recommend backing up and restoring.

SQL

Changes that may affect existing SQL code:

Multi-row RETURNING behaviour

Client-side INSERT … SELECT, UPDATE, DELETE, MERGE and UPDATE OR INSERT queries containing the RETURNING clause may now return multiple records instead of raising error “multiple rows in singleton select” as it happened before.

These queries are now described as isc_info_sql_stmt_select during preparation, while in previous versions they were described as isc_info_sql_stmt_exec_procedure.

Singleton INSERT … VALUES statements, as well as positioned UPDATE and DELETE statements (i.e. the ones containing the WHERE CURRENT OF clause) preserve the existing behaviour, being described as isc_info_sql_stmt_exec_procedure.They also preserve the ability of being executed within a single protocol roundtrip to the server.

However, all these queries, if used in PSQL and the RETURNING clause is applied, are still treated as singleton.

Removal of WNET protocol

Network protocol WNET (a.k.a. Named Pipes, a.k.a. NetBEUI) previously supported on Windows platform is removed in Firebird 5.0.Those Windows users who operated with any WNET connection string (\\server\dbname or wnet://server/dbname) should switch to INET (TCP) protocol instead (connection string server:dbname, server/port:dbname, inet://server/dbname, or inet://server:port/dbname).

Removal of QLI

Command-line utility QLI is removed in Firebird 5.0, in accordance with its deprecation announcement published in the Firebird 4.0 release notes.

Removal of fbclient_bor.lib

API import library for Embarcadero (former Borland) compilers fbclient_bor.lib is no longer distributed in Firebird 5.0 packages for Windows x86 platform. Anyone affected by this change may generate it using the implib.exe utility supplied with Embarcadero (former Borland) development tools as documented here.

Compatibility Issues