Hi Poul

Remember that when You do a backup/restore. You will check more things than a simple copy. Also a restore procedure can fix some troubles in the existing db.

But a simple copy is faster then a Bk/rst. That could be the only valid reason to do a simple copy of a db to move it between servers.

Rgds
Diego

--- In firebird-support@yahoogroups.com, Poul Dige <pd@...> wrote:
>
> Thanks, Ann, for your explanation!
>
> Personally I feel better when doing backup/restore but our supporters find it easier to work with a database locally on their Win32/64 machines and then via e.g. WinSCP to upload the database to a Ubuntu 64 bit server.
>
> When I first heard it I told them that it was not be allowed to do so, but I had to admit that it worked. Now I understand that I should thank the FB-developers for that :) and continue to point them towards the correctness of doing backup/restore rather than file copy!
>
> Kind regards
> Poul
>
> Fra: firebird-support@yahoogroups.com [mailto:firebird-support@yahoogroups.com] På vegne af Ann Harrison
> Sendt: 15. juni 2011 18:18
> Til: firebird-support@yahoogroups.com
> Emne: Re: [firebird-support] Common file structure in Linux/Windows/32/64?
>
>
>
> On Wed, Jun 15, 2011 at 9:29 AM, Poul Dige <pd@...<mailto:pd%40tabulex.dk>> wrote:
> > Could anybody tell wheter or not it is legal to move a .FDB file between 32 and 64 bit server versions, and different Linux and Windows distributions? I.e. can I move a .FDB file from a win32 server to a Ubuntu 64 bit server with 64 bit Firebird server running on it? (Tests indicate that it is possible...).
> >
>
> Fortunately, very little in database management has the power of law,
> except natural laws that some things work and some things don't, and
> some things appear to work in limited testing and blow up all over
> when you release them to customers.
>
> Firebird uses native "endian" and alignment characteristics both in
> memory and on disk. That used to be a big deal when there were dozens
> of processor families and operating systems that did things
> differently. (I once worked on a COBOL compiler that had two
> different integer types, one big-endian, one little endian because the
> developers guessed wrong about the native behavior of a PDP_11.)
>
> The Firebird developers when to some trouble to insure that 64 and 32
> bit servers stored bits on disk exactly the same way, starting with
> the first official 64 bit releases. So your problem is not with Linux
> or Windows or 32 or 64 bit architectures, but with endianness and
> alignment. A 32-bit SPARC running Linux or a 64 bit CRAY running
> anything is going to require a backup/restore. An Intel almost
> anything is safe.
>
> But Helen will tell you, and she's right, that back/restore is a
> better way to move databases than copying them.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Ann
>
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>