Helen Borrie wrote:

> True, it is invalid. You can (but shouldn't) copy a database file

across

> OS's if they have the same chip architecture; but a Mac is in a

world of

> its own!!
>
>>What could be wrong? Please don't tell me that the internal database
>>format is different on the Mac vs. the PC (I can't imagine it is).
>
> The internal database format is the same at a higher level but, at the
> level of CPU architecture, the database has to be reconstructed with

the

> correct endianness and other attributes that are not portable between
> incompatible CPU architectures.

Hmmm, that's interesting... I can't see why the CPU and/or achitecture
and/or OS would matter (I thought you'd only ask it to serve you up
the data file), and it's really up to Firebird to decide how it wants
to structure and use the database inside the file.
So what you're saying is that the way Firebird processes its own
internal data relies on how the platform that you're running on
manages endianness. This need not be the way, i.e you can build an
application that _internally_ processes stuff specifically as big or
little endian, regardless of what is normal on that platform.
Just interested, that's all... as a comparison, from what I recall
about one of the original goals of developing Valentina DB is that the
DB file is entirely portable and is specifically big endian for _all_
platforms (or was it little endian ;-) )

> RTFM!! Never file-copy across platforms, not even across matching
> platforms. Use gbak -b with the -transportable switch to make a backup
> file on the source system and then use gbak -c to recreate the

database on

> the foreign target.

Thanks for that, I should have searched for this when we had problems
with a different platform...

>>... and if anyone can tell me what the obscure error "found 2560,
>>support 10" is, please let me know...
>
> It's just Firebird's way of telling you to RTFM.

... however that's a bit harsh since searching google and specifically
the FB website for "found 2560, support 10" didn't get me anywhere,
therefore how would this point me in the direction of any particular
topic in the docs??

Thanks once again
P.