At 07:41 AM 24/05/2008, Lester Caine wrote:

>--- In firebird-tools@yahoogroups.com, Niben M Singh <niben_s@...> wrote:
>>
>> Hello All -
>>
>> I am just curious if there is any document about the binary file
>structure of fdb files.
>
>Odd choice of group to ask that question.

Not so odd. Some tools, e.g., IBSurgeon, are helpful in identifying pages and page types within a database.

>The structure is all documented in the files of the source code.
>http://sourceforge.net/cvs/?group_id=9028

In a way...but the key thing to understand is that a Firebird database is comprised of *pages*, which are requested from the filesystem when needed and acquire a "page type" character when the decision is made to write something on them. User data and metadata go onto data pages, indexes go onto index pages, and so on and so on. Indirection records are kept on pages of their own to provide a "chain of association" between pages pertaining to a particular table (for example) but there is no "structure" that represents (for example) all of the records for table X.

Read up on this and the other "Expert" topics at the IBPhoenix website:
http://www.ibphoenix.com/main.nfs?a=ibphoenix&page=ibp_expert2

(substitute the number at the end to reach the others, 1 to 6)

>The documentation group would be a more appropriate venue for
>additional documentation outside the code base?
>https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/firebird-docs

No it would NOT, so please don't take this advice. Firebird-docs is *strictly* a workers' forum and we do not do user support there.

Helen