--- In firebird-support@yahoogroups.com, Todd Brasseur <todd@c...> wrote:

> Milan Babuskov wrote:
>
> >Larry Hengen wrote:
> >
> >
> >>I am attempting to recreate our Firebird database in SQL Server
> >>including all data. I have contemplated using external tables to
> >>export from FB and then BULK INSERT into SQL Server.. Any

suggestions?

> >>
> >>Anyone tried this? What are the limitations? Is this the fastest
> >>technique?
> >>
> >>
> >
> >External tables will lose all NULLs you may have in tables. It

should be the

> >fastest way, but surely not the most reliable.
> >
> >Next fastest (which I would recommend too) is that you use some

data-pump

> >that knows about Firebird and MSSQL server. There is freeware

Interbase

> >DataPump by CleverComponents, but the last version I tried could

only copy

> >from MSSQL to Firebird, and not the other way. If you have a few

hours you

> >could write a simple PHP script to do it for you.
> >
> >Slowest, but simplest would be to dump data as INSERT statements

and just

> >execute that inserts on target. There are many tools which can do

this, almost

> >every Firebird administration tool can. In case you go down this

road and wish

> >to automate the process, you could use FBExport:
> >
> >http://fbexport.sourceforge.net
> >
> >HTH
> >
> >
> >
> I don't know much about SQL Server but I have done it many times

between

> FIREBIRD and Microsoft ACCESS.
>
> I link to the Firebird Tables Using ODBC. I write an Update Query in
> Access that queries on the Firebird table and updates the ACCESS

Table.

> This is very fast. I have also used ACCESS to do this between two
> different Firebird Databases. This is also very fast and works with
> Blob fields containing text as well.
>
> Todd
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Thanks all for your responses. I have not been able to determine the
syntax for the ExternalFileAccess setting, and due to the dropping of
NULL values and the need to support BLOB column types I have chosen to
author a custom conversion program.