On Wed, Jul 20, 2011 at 5:53 PM, plinehan <plinehan@...> wrote:

>
>
> > Expanding a bit on Dmitry's message. Firebird 32 and
> > 64 bit databases are bit for bit identical on disk.
>
>
> Even for 64 bit integers? Does this mean that I could
> take a database from a 64 bit system and plonk it
> down on a 32 bit file system and it would work
> (assuming I knew the password)?
>

Yes.

>
>
> > The network protocol and API's are also identical.
> > The processes are different, allowing for much more
> > memory use in 64 bit applications, but all communication,
> > including communication by writing and reading disk blocks
> > was designed to be common to the two architectures.
>
>
> I still don't exactly get how it works, but I'm reassured
> that you think that it's perfectly normal - I don't
> have to worry about corrupting things by accident or
> the like.
>

You are free to worry about anything you want and bugs happen. But the ODS
(On Disk Structure) and protocols are well tested and they appear to meet
the design goal of compatibility between word sizes between Intel 64 and 32
bit architectures. Meeting that goal requires a lot of discipline - which
has been provided to date.

>
>
> Thanks to you both - rgs,
>

No thanks are due to me - some to Dmitri, but most to the architects and
developer who have followed a very hard path to provide compatibility.

Best wishes,

ann


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