Hi Jules,

> I'm a fluent SQL Server user and am investigating Firebird and was
> wondering if someone could help me with a couple of issues.
>
> 1) I'm trying to create a stored procedure as follows but it always
> errors and won't compile. Any idea what is wrong?
>
> create procedure testproc as
> begin
> select * from testtable;
> end

With Firebird, you cannot just create procedures that return
a resultset.

If you want to create a SELECT-able procedure, that can be
used like this:

select * from testproc [(optional variables)]

Then use something like:

create procedure testproc returns (output1 integer, output2 integer)
as begin
for select column1, column2
from testtable
into :output1, :output2
do suspend;
end

The "suspend" signals Firebird that it should wait with outputting rows
of the cursor (FOR SELECT ... DO) until the client/caller fetches
more rows.

> 2) In Firebird what is the concept of "Domains"?

Pretty much the same as "User Defined Types" in MSSQL Server.
You can add a check constraint to Domains as well.

> 3) What does the $ symbol mean in various table names? Is this just a
> naming convention or does it have a specific function in firebird?

The RDB$... are system tables.

With regards,

Martijn Tonies
Database Workbench - developer tool for InterBase, Firebird, MySQL & MS SQL
Server.
Upscene Productions
http://www.upscene.com