[GLLUG] Interbase/Firebird .GDB file

[DL Neil]

James,


>     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 ...
> 
> If you have a .so file, you should also have access to a programming api.
> You could write a C program to use the API.
> The purpose of databases is for them to be used by programs. So you 
> should be able to find an api doc somewhere. You can use tools like nm 
> and objdump to find out what the api function names are. You can then 
> google them to see if any docs exist describing how to use them.
> You have already discovered the schema, so you are almost there.
> Dumping the tables to .csv is all you need next.


Sadly, until the DBMS (or similar) will give access to the file, its API 
is just a pipe-dream...

-- 
Regards,
=dn