[DUG] Firebird V2 BDE Windows 7

Thu Jun 14 15:24:51 NZST 2012

John the article you use is from 2002, the BDE was shelved and not touched
by Borland/CodeGear/Embarcadero since 2000 (?).

This in itself is not reason to drop it. There are other reasons. 

I used it in a client-server application because it was free. It might have
performed better as a desktop-only solution.

The main problem I had when using it was installing it. I made a product for
Avon Publishing (for legal forms) and it needed installing on many PCs in a
firm. Each desktop typically required tweaking  . but when it was installed
it ran OK. This was a significant overhead for the persons doing customer
service. By contrast the installation of Firebird is easy on a server and on
each client PC using the server I need one line in an ini-like file. 

Another problem was occasional corruption on some files .. the many files
making up a BDE database were together susceptible to corruption. Not often
but enough to cause a day's effort in say 5-person-years access to the DB.
When 10 persons at a professional firm had to stop work because a BDE file
was broken was not good for a products reputation.

The BDE drivers for other DBs are for pre-2000 versions. FB 2.x had
significant changes from FB 1.x. FB 3.x will have changes above 2.x.

By contrast I have FB installed in say 20 sites and have not had one case of
the FB engine breaking over 10 years. The IBObjects site has a page about
converting from the BDE to FB. 

R

From: delphi-bounces at listserver.123.net.nz
[mailto:delphi-bounces at listserver.123.net.nz] On Behalf Of John Bird
Sent: Thursday, 14 June 2012 2:18 p.m.
To: NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi List
Subject: Re: [DUG] Firebird V2 BDE Windows 7

I followed the link and comments on the article, and one of them

http://threads.embarcadero.com/threads/threads.exe/view?commentid=32620

from a Borland ex employee implies that the BDE is a more robust
implementation than what followed it (as Borlands own products depended on
it) - its main disadvantage being tied to DBase and Paradox architecture.

Any other opinions?  How many out there use the BDE, or what works best for
them with Firebird (I have heard much good about IBObjects)

John Bird

From: Alister Christie <mailto:alister at salespartner.co.nz>  

Sent: Thursday, June 14, 2012 1:08 PM

To: NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi List
<mailto:delphi at listserver.123.net.nz>  

Subject: Re: [DUG] Firebird V2 BDE Windows 7

I believe that the SQL Links in the BDE have been deprecated 

http://edn.embarcadero.com/article/28688 

On Thu, Jun 14, 2012 at 10:41 AM, John Bird <johnkbird at paradise.net.nz>
wrote:

I got a solution for this problem after much experimentation:

I checked carefully the BDE setup as from Delphi 5, and the BDE as installed
by Delphi 2007/XE2. The later install was missing the Firebird/interbase
driver, so I downloaded the ODBC driver (its readily available) and
installed it.  However it does not work, so I compared with the older BDE
which has the same version number but is not exactly the same - it has a
native Interbase driver built in (INTRBASE) so I installed the older BDE and
hey presto that was the final missing link.

Under Windows 7 the Setup has to run as Administrator as well.

Maybe under XE2 Professional the native Interbase/Firebird driver is omitted
from the BDE?   That may be the case because I see its present in the XE2
Enterprise BDE.   Seems a bit scummy and petty to take it out of a component
that hasn't otherwise been modified for 12 years!

The reason for sticking with BDE is that yes its a bother to set up on the
client PCs but thats a once off pain and OK if you have a good install.  The
program uses the TQuery component very widely,  which has the nice feature
of being able to do updates as well with specified fields - the effort to
change to other update mechanisms right though the code is more than the
bother of using the BDE.

Personally I rather like the BDE type of operation,  simple and reliable and
compares well to ADOQuery and IBQuery.   What do others think?

John Bird

Hi John

At  http://www.firebirdsql.org/manual/ufb-cs-appdev.html I read 

The Borland Database Engine (BDE) 

Borland markets "enterprise versions" of a number of integrated development
tools - Delphi, Kylix, C++Builder, JBuilder and some older products - which
can use the proprietary Borland Database Engine and native SQL Links
InterBase drivers as a "black box" middleware layer to make InterBase and,
latterly, Firebird databases behave like desktop databases. BDE version 5.2
and its associated InterBase driver, which first shipped with Delphi 6E,
supports both Firebird and InterBase version 6, although it has known bugs
affecting the Dialect 3 date and time data types. 

I used the BDE extensively once and would run a long way to avoid it now. I
converted one largish BDE app to FB2.5 +IBObjects. No significant problems.
So much for a grizzle. You may have compelling reasons to hang with the BDE.
Perhaps a replacement from 5.01 to 5.2 would help? 

There is a download link here for BDE 5.2.
http://www.stockblocks.com/support/bde/ (I have not tried the link).

Best regards,

Russell

From: delphi-bounces at listserver.123.net.nz
[mailto:delphi-bounces at listserver.123.net.nz] On Behalf Of John Bird
Sent: Wednesday, 13 June 2012 9:59 p.m.
To: NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi List
Subject: [DUG] Firebird V2 BDE Windows 7

I am getting a legacy program that uses both BDE and TIB connections to a
Firebird V2 database working on Windows 7.

Have installed BDE (the old version - V5.01) OK - the trick is to install as
Administrator

Have installed Firebird server and the database.

Can connect to it using EMS SQL Manager and Flamerobin just fine and browse
the tables and run SQL etc. - ie the Database file and server all look fine.

the programs TIBQuery connection also seems to be working OK.

However I cannot connect to it using BDE - it looks like the problem is the
driver.   I installed the Firebird/Interbase ODBC driver, but it may be that
the original XP PCs  using an Intersolv native INTRBASE driver, for which I
don't have an install, or an install of the BDE that once included an
INTRBASE driver that I don't have in my fresh BDE install.

Anyone have suggestions how to get the BDE connection working?

John Bird

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Computers for People
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