Hi Helen,

Thanks for the clear info.

> >My requirement for "easily perform cross platforms operation" is that
> >the file can be transport across platform without changes (as it is
> >from original platform).
>
> No changes are required. Gbak lays down metadata definitions

followed by

> data in a standard platform-neutral text data format. Gbak backup

from the

> old platform and restore on the new is all that is required. It's just
> important for some people to understand that you can't "downgrade" a
> database by backing it up in a higher version and restoring it into

a lower

> one.
>

Does this approach similar to Oracle10g (or the other way around?).

The objective say, if database is transported between dev, staging,
uat, and production env. In most cases, dev and staging are in either
Linux or Windows. UAT and Production can be different OS+HW.

In my approach to Oracle, normally create separate export files. Later
on import the files as seed data. Only Oracle10g provides similar
transportable with portable file format across platforms. But it seems
using metadata approach as in Firebird.

Cheers,
BAM