Firebird-5-Release-Notes | Changes To The Firebird API And ODS

since Firebird 4.0 release

ODS (On-Disk Structure) Changes

New Minor ODS Number

Firebird 5.0 creates databases with an ODS (On-Disk Structure) version of 13.1.It can also work with databases created in ODS 13.0 (by Firebird 4.0), but some new features will be unavailable.

See [rnfb50-engine-inline-upgrade] for a new method of upgrading an ODS 13.0 database to 13.1.

New System Tables

System tables added in ODS 13.1:

`RDB$KEYWORDS`	Virtual table that enumerates keywords used by the SQL parser
`MON$COMPILED_STATEMENTS`	Virtual table that reports compiled statements

New Columns in System Tables

RDB$CONDITION_SOURCE and RDB$CONDITION_BLR were added to the system table RDB$INDICES, they belong to the partial indices feature
MON$SESSION_TIMEZONE was added to virtual table MON$ATTACHMENTS
MON$COMPILED_STATEMENT_ID was added to the virtual tables MON$STATEMENTS and MON$CALL_STACK
SEC$DESCRIPTION was added to virtual table SEC$GLOBAL_AUTH_MAPPING

Application Programming Interfaces

The wire protocol version for the Firebird 5.0 API is 18.Additions and changes are described in the sections below.

Main API Extensions

A number of new methods have been added to the following interfaces.

`ResultSet`

void getInfo(Status status,
             uint itemsLength, const uchar* items,
             uint bufferLength, uchar* buffer);

Used to query cursor information.Currently, only one information item is supported, INF_RECORD_COUNT.INF_RECORD_COUNT returns the number of records cached by the scrollable cursor, or -1 for a uni-directional (forward-only) cursor.

Extensions to various getInfo() Methods

`Statement::getInfo()`

The following actions were added:

`isc_info_sql_exec_path_blr_bytes`	Execution path as BLR (binary format)
`isc_info_sql_exec_path_blr_text`	Execution path as BLR (textual format)

Services API Extensions

Support for parallel operations

Added support for parallel operations.

The following options were added:

`isc_spb_bkp_parallel_workers`	number of parallel workers for backup
`isc_spb_res_parallel_workers`	number of parallel workers for restore
`isc_spb_rpr_par_workers`	number of parallel workers for sweep

Examples of use of new parameters in fbsvcmgr utility (login and password were left out for brevity):

fbsvcmgr -action_backup -bkp_parallel_workers 4 <dbname> <backupname>
fbsvcmgr -action_restore -res_parallel_workers 4 <backupname> <dbname>
fbsvcmgr -action_repair -rpr_sweep_db -rpr_par_workers 4 <dbname>

Support for gfix -upgrade

Added support for minor ODS upgrade.

The following option was added:

isc_spb_rpr_upgrade_db

upgrade database

Example of use of new parameter in fbsvcmgr utility (login and password were left out for brevity):

fbsvcmgr -action_repair -rpr_upgrade_db <dbname>

Changes To The Firebird API And ODS

Changes to the Firebird API and ODS