> IB Expert is brilliant

:-)

> ... Database Workbench .... I don't even know if
> there exist a user manual beyond the help file, I just try to do
> things the intuitive way, and it works! A workmate of mine wondered
> how to do something in IB Expert

did she had a look at www.ibexpert.info/documentation or pressed the
F1 key in IBExpert (about 1000 pages of documentation regarding
IBExpert and Firebird)?

> I've never heard that IB Expert can be used with non-IB/Fb
> databases

in ibeblock scripts, we have support for connecting any odbc
datasource. it can be compared with writing a stored procedure, but
having much more possibilities, such as connecting to more than one
database, connecting to any odbc as source or destination, ....

example for mdb access:

execute ibeblock
returns (CustNo integer, Company varchar(100), Addr1 varchar(100))
as
begin
InCust = 3000;
OdbcCon = ibec_CreateConnection(__ctODBC,
'DBQ=D:\Delphi5\CMP\mODBC\DB\demo.mdb;DRIVER=Microsoft Access Driver
(*.mdb)');
ibec_UseConnection(OdbcCon);

execute statement 'select Company from customer where CustNo =
4312' into :MyCust;

for select CustNo, Company, Addr1 from customer
where CustNo > :InCust
order by company
into :CustNo, :Company, :Addr1
do
begin
suspend;
end
ibec_CloseConnection(OdbcCon);
end


or one more example to compare the metadata from two different
databases in a script:

execute ibeblock
as
begin
create connection RefDB dbname 'localhost:c:\RefDB.fdb'
password 'masterkey' user 'SYSDBA'
clientlib 'C:\Program Files\Firebird\bin\fbclient.dll';

create connection CustDB dbname 'localhost:c:\CustDB.fdb'
password 'masterkey' user 'SYSDBA' sql_dialect 3
clientlib 'C:\Program files\Firebird\bin\fbclient.dll';

cbb = 'execute ibeblock (LogMessage variant)
as
begin
ibec_progress(LogMessage);
end';

ibec_CompareMetadata(RefDB, CustDB, 'E:\CompRes.sql',
'OmitDescriptions; OmitGrants', cbb);

close connection RefDB;
close connection CustDB;
end


more examples here: http://www.ibexpert.info/documentation/20297.html

i just posted this because we know that a lot of people always need to
write their own tools for importing/exporting data, when there is a
more complex import/export process than just copying the data. Or they
spend a lot of time on implementing functionality, that can be user
inside IBExpert IDE, via ibescript.exe in commandline mode or via
ibescript.dll inside your own application.

I would say that Martijn has a more general implementation of a
database admin tool, which has the focus not only on interbase and
firebird, so there is more development time spent on implementing
functionality usable on different Database Servers.

I do not know if martijn has added any scripting functionality that
gives the user more functionality than available inside the database
server.

We spend a lot of work in the background functionality in IBExpert to
give the user the possibilities to automate their work in scripts,
especially for Software Developers, who have to create solutions for
distributing their software and database structures.

I would not say that IBExpert is generally the better software
compared to dbwb, but there are some jobs that can only be done in
IBExpert. there are perhaps some jobs that can be understand easier
and work better in DBWorkbench (such as Testdatagenerator, but in next
IBExpert Customer Version, we have a very nice Example Database for
creating Testdata from a stored procedure, which is much faster :-), but

isn´t a nice position for a firebird user, that he can choose between
professional tools for making his work easier compared to a daily work
based on isql?

Holger
www.ibexpert.com