Firebird Relational Database

Firebird is an open source relational database that includes lots of ANSI SQL-99 features that runs on Linux and other UNIX platforms.

Firebird is free like a bird, free like free beer, and it provides excellent concurrency, powerful language support, and high performance.

What is new in this release:

• This Alpha release arrives with an early preview of the features and improvements currently under development, as well as with countless bugfixes.

What is new in version 2.5.2 Security Update 1:

• This update addresses a remote stack buffer overflow discovered in Firebird Server. This vulnerability allowed an unauthenticated user to crash the server, and opened a gate for remote code execution, so it's highly recommended to upgrade your server installations.

What is new in version 2.5.2 RC1:

• Numerous issues were fixed and a few minor improvements were made.

What is new in version 2.5.0 Final:

• The primary goal for Firebird 2.5 was to establish the basics for a new threading architecture that is almost entirely common to the Superserver, Classic, and Embedded models, taking in lower level synchronization and thread safety generally.
• User management is accessible through SQL CREATE/ALTER/DROP USER statements, and syntaxes for ALTER VIEW and CREATE OR ALTER VIEW are implemented.
• PSQL improvements include the introduction of autonomous transactions and the ability to query another database via EXECUTE STATEMENT.

What is new in version 2.5 RC1:

• The primary goal for Firebird 2.5 was to establish the basics for a new threading architecture that is almost entirely common to the Superserver, Classic and Embedded models, taking in lower level synchronization and thread safety generally.
• Although SQL enhancements are not a primary objective of this release, for the first time, user management becomes accessible through SQL CREATE/ALTER/DROP USER statements and syntaxes for ALTER VIEW and CREATE OR ALTER VIEW are implemented. PSQL improvements include the introduction of autonomous transactions and ability to query another database via EXECUTE STATEMENT.
• Administrative Enhancements:
• System audit tracing and user trace sessions via the Services API, making it possible to monitor and analyse everything going on in a database in real time
• New system role RDB$ADMIN in the ODS 11.2 database allows SYSDBA to transfer its privileges to another user on a per-database basis
• More information in the monitoring tables
• Asynchronous cancellation of connections
• Capability for ordinary users to monitor any of their own attachments as well as CURRENT_CONNECTION
• Other SQL Language Additions and Enhancements:
• Regular expression support using the SIMILAR TO predicate
• ALTER COLUMN for computed columns
• Autonomous transactions within a PSQL module (stored procedure, trigger or dynamically executable PSQL block)
• Enhanced access to stored procedures in view definitions
• Optional GRANTED BY or GRANTED AS for GRANT and REVOKE statements, enabling the grantor to be a user other than the CURRENT_USER (the default).
• REVOKE ALL syntax to dispose of all privileges for a user or role at once
• Support for WHERE SOME_COL = ? OR ? IS NULL predications
• Removal of "reserved" status for all but a handful of keywords that are not reserved in the SQL standard
• Data-handling Enhancements:
• New built-in functions for converting UUID CHAR(16) OCTETS strings to RFC4122-compliant format and vice versa
• Ability to pass 32-bit and 64-bit integers as hexadecimal in numeric literal and X-prefixed binary string literal formats
• API Additions:
• Statements now return an SQL-2003 standard 5-alphanumeric SQLSTATE completion code
• New constant DSQL_unprepare available for use with isc_dsql_free_statement for efficient unpreparing of statements
• International Language Support:
• Default COLLATE clause for CREATE DATABASE
• Ability to change the default COLLATE for a used character set
• GBAK restore switches FIX_FSS_DATA and FIX_FSS_METADATA to restore legacy databases with UNICODE_FSS data and/or metadata correctly without resorting to scripts and manual techniques
• Accent-insensitive collation for Unicode

What is new in version 2.5 Beta 2:

• Bus errors would be thrown when working with the monitoring tables on RISC machines.
• The server could be shut down without regard to connections to services.
• Built-in trigonometric functions could produce NaN and Infinity.
• The Firebird.log file would grow too fast and by too much. These issues have been fixed.