At 06:27 PM 13/04/2007, you wrote:

>Where can I find documentation about:
>
>SQL statements
>==============
>Each db engine have their own additions, where can I find information about
>firebirds.
>* How do create table/altert able/drop table look like in firebird.

http://www.ibphoenix.com/main.nfs?a=ibphoenix&page=ibp_60_sqlref

>* How should sp's look like?

See CREATE PROCEDURE for the syntax.
Refer to DevGuide.pdf and LangRef.pdf for guidance on writing and using SPs.

>* triggers

CREATE TRIGGER

Same story.

In both cases, consult the release notes of v.1.5.4 and v.2.0.1 for
new extensions added to procedural SQL (PSQL) in the Firebird
era. Also search at the www.ibphoenix.com website for several papers
about PSQL.

>Column types
>============
>Same with column types. Which of the SQL92 column types do firebird
>implement, and do fb add any own additions?

Forget about "additions". Every DB vendor over the years has done
its own thing with SQL language. InterBase used to be the most
conformant to standards; now, Firebird is. PostGreSQL is fairly
non-conformant, but is improving; MySQL is quite arcane. If you own
a book on standard SQL, it will be a good resource for Firebird. Just
keep the IB6 and Firebird resources around for references and
(sometimes) better examples than you find in standard books.

For data type info, see DataDef.pdf.

>Usermanagement
>==============
>I know about the gsec utility. Are there any corresponding SQL statements?

No.
Firebird doesn't do user management at database level. You will need
gsec, or another utility that implements the Services API.

>What roles are there?

Whatever roles you create, using CREATE ROLE. LangRef.pdf,
mainly. There is a sort of generic "role" named ALL that can be used
to grant I/U/D and REFERENCES privileges to a user or a role.

>is the GRANT/REVOKE statement supported?

Yes.

>General
>=======
>Are there a search function for the doc? There are quite a lot of
>documentation, but in lot's of different files/sections which makes
>it hard to find specific topics.

The IB6 docs come with an overall index named FT3INDEX.PDX which you
can open and search using Acrobat's search machine. The IBPhoenix
site has full fuzzy search on everything there (which is a lot!)

>The most useful (imho) documentation is the mssql migration guide, but why
>not make it more general?

MSSQL isn't standard SQL by any means, so the MSSQL Migration Guide
isn't much use if you're not migrating from MSSQL. In any case, like
all of our docs, that guide was written by a volunteer based on his
own experiences. So - if you like the idea of some kind of universal
migration guide, it could be a good time for you to start thinking
about writing one

>I've used a lot of different db engines, and a general guide with the same
>info would be proven useful for everyone that is coming from another db.

Sure, there are lots of useful ideas, and none of them bad
ones. Writing manuals takes a lot of time...as I'm in a fairly good
position to know. The Firebird Book, which I wrote in 2003-4, took
more than a year to write, doing nothing else. A Firebird 2
supplement is available. If you can read Russian or Portuguese, you
can also buy translations of the original book in those languages.

./heLen