Firebird SQL Features

Firebird SQL provides full set of DB features:

SQL Standard Support

Firebird fully supports SQL 92 Entry Level 1 standard and most of the SQL-99 standard.

Transactions

All database operations are executed inside transactions. The multi-generation architecture of Firebird allows high transaction concurrency. Transaction savepoints (nested transactions) are also supported. 

• Transaction isolation levels

Stored Procedures

Firebird uses a powerful stored procedure language. Selectable procedures (behaving like a SELECT query from a client point of view) are also supported. 

• Stored procedure call example
• Filling a DataSet using a stored procedure

Views

You can use views to save custom SELECT queries directly in the database. 

Triggers

Firebird supports triggers (stored procedures automatically executed upon a data manipulation event). Triggers can be set for insert/update/delete operations and can be executed before or after the operation.

Custom Data Types

Custom data types (called "domains") are supported. 

BLOB Fields

Large binary data objects can be stored in the database in BLOB fields. Firebird has two BLOB subtypes - for text and binary data.  

• Example: Reading binary BLOB (C#)
• Example: Reading text BLOB (C#)

Character sets

Firebird supports UNICODE as well as many national character sets (BIG_5, DOS437, DOS850, DOS860, DOS861, DOS863, DOS865, EUCJ_0208, GB_2312, ISO8859_1, ISO8859_2, KSC_5601, ISO2022-JP, SJIS_0208, WIN1250, WIN1251, WIN1252, WIN1253, WIN1254, WIN1254, Arabic, WIN1257). 

• Working with character sets

Auto increment fields

Auto increment fields are supported using a powerful concept of generators.

• Auto increment fields