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copied!<p>I need to extract data from some old interbase databasefiles created with InterBase 4.2.1. I'm using the embedded version of Firebird (version 2.5.1) and the .NetProvider (version 2.7.0). I never worked with interbase of firebird before (but i have some experience with SQL SERVER and SQLite) and after cruising the web and experimenting for 2 days, I have yet to find a solution.</p> <p>The tables in the database contain data in English, but also data in Hebrew. Optimistic as I was, I started by creating my connection string using UTF8:</p> <pre><code>FbConnectionStringBuilder builder = new FbConnectionStringBuilder(); builder.Database = m_DatabaseName; builder.ServerType = FbServerType.Embedded; builder.Charset = FbCharset.Utf8.ToString(); </code></pre> <p>But that gave me the following exception:</p> <pre><code>bad parameters on attach or create database CHARACTER SET Utf8 is not defined </code></pre> <p>I correctly used the fbintl.dll. (see the files in my application directory and subdirectories below). I even used ProcessMonitor to check if the fbintl.dll was loaded.</p> <pre><code>fbembed.dll firebird.log firebird.msg FirebirdSql.Data.FirebirdClient.dll ib_util.dll icudt30.dll icuin30.dll icuuc30.dll MyApplication.exe Microsoft.VC80.CRT.manifest msvcp80.dll msvcr80.dll intl\fbintl.conf intl\fbintl.dll udf\fbudf.dll udf\ib_udf.dll </code></pre> <p>So I tried enumerating <code>FbCharset</code> and trying to connect with each character set, more than half of them threw the same exception, and when I connected with the others and queried one of the Hebrew fields (by using <code>IDataReader.GetString()</code>), I always got the same garbage as result. It doesn't seem to matter what character set I specify in the connection string, the result are always the same, even if I don't specify any character set at all.</p> <p>Next I queried the character sets defined in the database <code>SELECT RDB$CHARACTER_SET_NAME FROM RDB$CHARACTER_SETS</code> and I enumrated those, trying to connect with each one of them, some threw an exception, the others gave the same result as before.</p> <p>I have no clue with what character set the database was created, but I checked the character sets of each field in the database and all text fields have their character sets set to 'NONE'.</p> <pre><code>SELECT r.RDB$RELATION_NAME, r.RDB$FIELD_NAME, f.RDB$FIELD_NAME, cset.RDB$CHARACTER_SET_NAME FROM RDB$RELATION_FIELDS r LEFT JOIN RDB$FIELDS f ON r.RDB$FIELD_SOURCE = f.RDB$FIELD_NAME LEFT JOIN RDB$CHARACTER_SETS cset ON f.RDB$CHARACTER_SET_ID = cset.RDB$CHARACTER_SET_ID ORDER BY r.RDB$RELATION_NAME ASC, r.RDB$FIELD_POSITION ASC </code></pre> <p>But I noticed some of the system tables' text fields have UNICODE_FSS as character set. I already tried that character set in the connection string, but I still get garbadge for the requested text fields.</p> <p>My last try was to retrieve the bytes (by using <code>IDataReader.GetBytes()</code>) and encode the string myself, but this gives me a cast exception (<code>Unable to cast object of type 'System.String' to type 'System.Byte[]'.</code>)</p> <p>Does anyone have any ideas on how to read this data ? I don't need to convert the databases permanently, as they won't be used anymore once i have extracted the data.</p> <p>EDIT: btw, are there any free lightweight interbase/firebird database viewers, I can't seem to find any good ones (comparable to <a href="http://www.yunqa.de/delphi/doku.php/products/sqlitespy/index" rel="nofollow">SQLiteSpy</a>) ?</p> <p>Marc</p>

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