Download Firebird v2.12

Firebird 2.1 creates databases with an ODS of 11.1. It can read databases of lower ODS but most of its new features will be unavailable to such databases.Firebird 2.1.2 is a patch release addressing a large collection of bugs that have surfaced since the original v.2.1 a year ago and the v.2.1.1 sub-release of Summer 2008. This release contains no new functionality but particular attention should be paid to a change in the availability of several parameters in the database parameter buffer (DPB) to ordinary users. It will cause authority errors in applications where, in the past, ordinary users were wrongly given access to operations that must be restricted to SYSDBA and the database owner.

For Windows users, another important change helps to reduce the hassles involved in making access to the Microsoft C and C++ runtimes available to servers and clients. Documentation of the Windows installation (in the Installation and Migration document) has been updated and reorganised in an attempt to make it better applicable to later versions of Vista, XP and Server2003 with SP3 installed, and Server2008.

Download from here
Official download:
32bit: http://downloads.sourceforge.net/fir...18_0_Win32.exe
64bit:http://downloads.sourceforge.net/fir...8118_0_x64.exe
Other platforms: http://www.firebirdsql.org/index.php...;id=engine_212

New in V.2.1

• Database Triggers
  User-defined PSQL modules that can be designed to fire in various connection-level and transaction-level events.
  
• Global Temporary Tables
  SQL standards-compliant global temporary tables have been implemented. These pre-defined tables are instantiated on request for connection-specific or transaction-specific use with non-persistent data, which the Firebird engine stores in temporary files.
  
• Common Table Expressions (CTEs)
  Standards-compliant common table expressions, which make dynamic recursive queries possible.
  
• RETURNING Clause
  Optional RETURNING clause for all singleton operations, update, insert and delete operations.
  
• UPDATE OR INSERT Statement
  New UPDATE OR INSERT for MERGE functionality: now you can write a statement that is capable of performing either an update to an existing record or an insert, depending on whether the targeted record exists.
  
• LIST() function
  A new aggregate function LIST() retrieves all of the SOMETHINGs in a group and aggregates them into a comma-separated list.
  
• New Built-in Functions Dozens of built-in functions replacing many of the UDFs from the Firebird-distributed UDF libraries.
  
• Text BLOBs Can Masquerade as Long VARCHARs At various levels of evaluation, the engine now treats text BLOBs that are within the 32,765-byte size limit as though they were varchars. String functions like cast, lower, upper, trim and substring will work with these BLOBs, as well as concatenation and assignment to string types.
  
• Define PSQL Variables and Arguments using Domains
  PSQL local variables and input and output arguments for stored procedures can now be declared using domains in lieu of canonical data types.
  
• COLLATE in PSQL
  Collations can now be applied to PSQL variables and arguments.
  
• Windows Security to Authenticate Users
  Windows "Trusted User" security can be applied for authenticating Firebird users on a Windows server platform host.
  
• CREATE COLLATION Command
  The DDL command CREATE COLLATION has been introduced for implementing a collation, obviating the need to use the script for it.
  
• Unicode Collations Anywhere
  Two new Unicode collations can be applied to any character set using a new mechanism.
  
• New Platform Ports
  Ports to Windows 2003 64-bit (AMD64 and Intel EM64T) Classic, Superserver and Embedded models; PowerPC, 32-bit and 64-bit Intel Classic and SS ports for MacOSX.
  
• Database Monitoring via SQL
  
  Run-time database snapshot monitoring (transactions, tables, etc.) via SQL over some new virtualized system tables. Included in the set of tables is one named MON$DATABASE that provides a lot of the database header information that could not be obtained previously via SQL: such details as the on-disk structure (ODS) version, SQL dialect, sweep interval, OIT and OAT and so on. It is possible to use the information from the monitoring tables to cancel a rogue query.
  
• Remote Interface
  
  The remote protocol has been slightly improved to perform better in slow networks once drivers are updated to utilise the changes. Testing showed that API round trips were reduced by about 50 percent, resulting in about 40 per cent fewer TCP round trips.

Before upgrading please pay attention to the files in the /misc/upgrade/metadata directory of your Firebird 2.1 installation as an essential step for preparing your databases for use under Firebird 2.1. If your databases contain metadata fields (like object names, comments/descriptions, computed field definitions, PSQL, view or constraint sources) storing non-ASCII data then the backup/restore upgrade cycle may not be enough to make them usable.