> Hi everybody,
>
> I'm working on a Firebird application where the user can perform a
> backup (gbak) through our user interface. We'd like to save time by
> skipping the backup if the user hasn't made any changes to the
> database since the last backup.
>
> We're looking into ways of doing this in the application code, but I'm
> wondering if Firebird has anything built in to help us.
>
> For example, is there some sort of sequence number that gets
> incremented after each transaction?

Yes.

You can get it by reading the database header page ( a piece in
your database file that holds information on what "on disk structure"
it uses, transaction counters etc).

You can do this via the Services API if you like.

With regards,

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