Compatibility with Older Versions

Table of Contents

On-disk Structure (ODS)
File-names and Locations
Concurrently-running Servers
Reverting to Firebird 1.0.x
Linux Compatibilities

This chapter describes compatibility issues for migrating existing databases to Firebird 1.5.

On-disk Structure (ODS)

Firebird 1.0.n
InterBase® databases

The On-Disk Structure of Firebird 1.5 is designated ODS 10.1. This minor ODS upgrade was required because of three changes:

three new indices for system tables
minor changes in the BLR of two system triggers
enhanced encoding of RDB$TRIGGER_TYPE

Firebird 1.0.n

Certain enhancements requiring changes to the ODS have been deferred to the version 2 release. Meanwhile, you should be able to transport your Firebird 1.0.x databases directly. Take tested backups of your Firebird 1.0.x databases before porting them to 1.5.

InterBase® databases

If you are planning to “play” with Firebird using an existing InterBase database, with the intention of reverting to InterBase later, please take all precautions to back up your current version using the appropriate InterBase version of gbak. For beginning to work with your database in Firebird 1.5, use the Firebird 1.5 version of gbak to restore your backup.

Note

The Operations Guide (OpGuide.pdf) from the InterBase® 6.0 beta documentation set contains the command syntax for the gbak backup and restore program.

IB 7.x and probably IB 6.5 databases may work incorrectly after migration to FB 1.5 via backup/restore, if new IB-specific features were used in those databases.