On Mon, Jun 6, 2011 at 9:12 AM, pcmilhouse <pcmilhouse@...> wrote:

> I would like to limit the size of my firebird db. Is it possible?

Not gracefully. When Firebird tries to allocate a page and fails, all
connections
will get a fatal error. Not only that, but you can get into a
situation where you
don't have enough space to delete records. In MVCC, a delete is actually
a special case of an update, where the new record is just a header with a
flag saying the record was deleted. When you don't have room for those
deleted "stubs", you're really stuck. Maybe you could drop an index and
reuse that space.

>
> The system is installed in a PC with limit size for HD (for example I can allocate only 5 GB for Database). How can I limit the file to not encrease more than 5 GB?
> Obviuosly I periodically delete record in table to save space, but the only way I found to decrease db size is to export and import it through gbak. I would like to do it without disconnect my application to db?
>

Don't worry about the backup/restore. Firebird will reuse the space that
had been occupied by deleted records automatically. The backup/restore
will reduce the number of transaction inventory pages, but they're rarely
an issue.

I guess I've got to ask "why?" A quick search turned up a 2Tb external
hard drive for $100. Slower than an internal drive, I guess, but with lots
of room for expansion. Or you could get a 16Gb thumb drive for $25.