Introduction

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Introduction

  1. Subject matter
  2. Versions covered
  3. Authorship
  4. Acknowledgments

Introduction

Subject matter

What's this book about?

This guide documents the changes made in the Firebird SQL language between InterBase 6 and Firebird 2.5.1.

It covers the following areas:

  • Reserved words
  • Data types and subtypes
  • DDL statements (Data Definition Language)
  • DML statements (Data Manipulation Language)
  • Transaction control statements
  • PSQL statements (Procedural SQL, used in stored procedures and triggers)
  • Security and access control statements
  • Context variables
  • Operators and predicates
  • Aggregate functions
  • Internal functions
  • UDFs (User Defined Functions, also known as external functions)

To have a complete Firebird 2.5 SQL reference, you need:

  • The InterBase 6.0 beta SQL Reference (LangRef.pdf and/or SQLRef.html)
  • This document

Non-SQL topics are not discussed in this document. These include:

  • ODS versions
  • Bug listings
  • Installation and configuration
  • Upgrade, migration and compatibility
  • Server architectures
  • API functions
  • Connection protocols
  • Tools and utilities

Consult the Release Notes for information on these subjects. You can find the Release Notes and other documentation via the Firebird Documentation Index at https://www.firebirdsql.org/en/documentation/.

Versions covered

This document covers all Firebird versions up to and including 2.5.

Authorship

Most of this document was written by the main author. The remainder (2–3%) was lifted from various Firebird Release Notes editions, which in turn contain material from preceding sources like the Whatsnew documents.

Authors and editors of the included material are:

  • J. Beesley
  • Helen Borrie
  • Arno Brinkman
  • Frank Ingermann
  • Vlad Khorsun
  • Alex Peshkov
  • Nickolay Samofatov
  • Adriano dos Santos Fernandes
  • Dmitry Yemanov

Acknowledgments

Vlad Khorsun, Adriano dos Santos Fernandes and Dmitry Yemanov have been very helpful and patient whenever I had questions about the details of various new Firebird features. The email conversations I had with them have made this a better work of reference. Thank you, guys!

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