[GLLUG] Interbase/Firebird .GDB file

[DL Neil]

Do you know how to strip legacy data from an old .GDB (database archive) 
file?


Need to access data stored inside an old .GDB database.

That file format was established something like two decades back by 
Borland for their Interbase product (now proprietary to Embarcadero?) - 
remember the fiasco of Borland's failure to decently migrate their 
Paradox desktop DB from DOS to Windows?

Started by installing its F/LOSS fork, Firebird. Unfortunately, 
file-formats have been further-developed and no longer reads data from 
so many versions ago.

Similar experience with various tools, eg FlameRobin, fbexport.

Hacked .so file-versions, etc, and eventually managed to utilise the 
isql-fb utility to be able to 'see' the data, table schema, etc. 
However, it does not have a backup facility (except to "binary"), and 
its "copy" will only reproduce table meta-data. (unless there's a 
command to output a .SQL file I've failed to find?)


Worst case scenario: I can go through and (likely, manually) reproduce 
the ~300 tables by SHOW-ing table schema and SELECT *-ing their data to 
output .txt files. Ugh!

Ideally, I'd like to reproduce the old tables into a MySQL DB, so that 
we could both migrate anything useful, and/or refer to historic data 
if/when such a need arises.


Any advice, suggestions, solutions... please?

-- 
Regards,
=dn
(Fedora 25, Maria 10.1 (MySQL), Python 2 or 3, etc. Even wondered about 
reviving an old WinXP machine (or similar-era Linux) and building on 
that (age of) platform???)