I've agreed with Helen Borrie from Firebird Foundation that DotNetFirebird documentation will be donated to FF.

So on 1 May 2007, dotnetfirebird.org and firebirdtutorial.net will be closed and the content will be moved to www.firebirdsql.org (to be integrated into the project documentation).

Check the recent topics on DotNetFirebird forums (with sample code):

• How to set transaction isolation level?
• How to use Firebird ADO.NET provider without DDEX (especially with Visual Studio Express editions)?

Latest topics from DotNetFirebird forums:

• Why don't my data get written to the database until I call FbConnection.Close()?
• How to use Firebird Embedded database on a CD-ROM (read-only)?

Sean Riley shares his experience with getting the embedded Firebird to work with FirebirdClient 2.0 in our forums. If you have anything to add, you can join the discussion.

I've updated the downloads page on DotNetFirebird:

• Firebird Server for Windows 1.5.4
• Firebird Server for Windows 2.0.0
• Embedded Firebird for Windows 1.5.4
• Embedded Firebird for Windows 2.0.0
• FirebirdClient 2.1.0 beta 2 for .NET Framework 2.0

Because I'm not able to reply to all the questions about Firebird and .NET I'm getting, I've set up a new place to ask these questions: http://forums.dotnetfirebird.org. I'll try to answer the questions if I know the answer. You might also get an answer from someone else if I'm too busy ;-).

If you need to check whether certain record exists the usual way is to execute the following command and then check if the :idexists variable is greater than zero (this is an example from a stored procedure:

SELECT count(*) FROM company WHERE companyid = :id INTO :idexists;

But the right way to do this is to use EXISTS() function. If you use COUNT(*) Firebird will be looking for all item that fit the condition (i.e. companyid = :id).

If you use EXISTS() it will stop when it finds the first one - so it's much faster!

idexists = 0;
SELECT 1 FROM rdb$database WHERE EXISTS(SELECT * FROM company WHERE companyid = :id) INTO :idexists;

Carlos Guzmán Álvarez announced new FirebirdClient release.

There are now four packages:

• FirebirdClient 2.0.1 for .NET Framework 2.0
• FirebirdClient 2.0.1 for .NET Compact Framework 2.0
• FirebirdClient 2.0.1 for Mono 1.1.18+
• FirebirdClient DDEX Provider 2.0.1 (Visual Studio 2005 design-time support)

Finally there is an official build for .NET Compact Framework 2.0. The DDEX Provider (that provides Visual Studio 2005 design-time support) is now in a separate package.

Links:

• Downloads
• FirebirdClient 2.0.1 Release Notes
• FirebirdClient DDEX Provider 2.0.1 Release Notes
• Firebird Tutorial for .NET 2.0