Firebird 2.5 Language Reference Update

Table of Contents

1. Introduction

Subject matter

Versions covered

Authorship

Acknowledgments

2. New in Firebird 2.5

Reserved words and keywords

Miscellany

Data types and subtypes

Data Definition Language (DDL)

Data Manipulation Language (DML)

PSQL statements

Security and access control

Context variables

Operators and predicates

Aggregate functions

Internal functions

3. Reserved words and keywords

Added since InterBase 6

Dropped since InterBase 6

Possibly reserved in future versions

4. Miscellaneous language elements

-- (single-line comment)

Hexadecimal notation for numerals

Hexadecimal notation for “binary” strings

Shorthand datetime casts

CASE construct

5. Data types and subtypes

BIGINT data type

BLOB data type

SQL_NULL data type

New character sets

Character set NONE handling changed

New collations

6. DDL statements

CHARACTER SET

COLLATION

COMMENT

DATABASE

DOMAIN

EXCEPTION

EXTERNAL FUNCTION

FILTER

INDEX

PROCEDURE

SEQUENCE or GENERATOR

TABLE

TRIGGER

VIEW

7. DML statements

DELETE

EXECUTE BLOCK

EXECUTE PROCEDURE

INSERT

MERGE

SELECT

UPDATE

UPDATE OR INSERT

8. Transaction control statements

RELEASE SAVEPOINT

ROLLBACK

SAVEPOINT

SET TRANSACTION

9. PSQL statements

BEGIN ... END blocks may be empty

BREAK

CLOSE cursor

DECLARE

EXCEPTION

EXECUTE PROCEDURE

EXECUTE STATEMENT

EXIT

FETCH cursor

FOR EXECUTE STATEMENT ... DO

FOR SELECT ... INTO ... DO

IN AUTONOMOUS TRANSACTION

LEAVE

OPEN cursor

PLAN allowed in trigger code

Subqueries as PSQL expressions

UDFs callable as void functions

WHERE CURRENT OF valid again for view cursors

10. Security and access control

ALTER ROLE

GRANT and REVOKE

The RDB$ADMIN role

AUTO ADMIN MAPPING

SQL user management commands

11. Context variables

CURRENT_CONNECTION

CURRENT_ROLE

CURRENT_TIME

CURRENT_TIMESTAMP

CURRENT_TRANSACTION

CURRENT_USER

DELETING

GDSCODE

INSERTING

NEW

'NOW'

OLD

ROW_COUNT

SQLCODE

SQLSTATE

UPDATING

12. Operators and predicates

NULL literals allowed as operands

|| (string concatenator)

ALL

ANY / SOME

IN

IS [NOT] DISTINCT FROM

NEXT VALUE FOR

SIMILAR TO

SOME

13. Aggregate functions

LIST()

MAX()

MIN()

14. Internal functions

ABS()

ACOS()

ASCII_CHAR()

ASCII_VAL()

ASIN()

ATAN()

ATAN2()

BIN_AND()

BIN_OR()

BIN_SHL()

BIN_SHR()

BIN_XOR()

BIT_LENGTH()

CAST()

CEIL(), CEILING()

CHAR_LENGTH(), CHARACTER_LENGTH()

CHAR_TO_UUID()

COALESCE()

COS()

COSH()

COT()

DATEADD()

DATEDIFF()

DECODE()

EXP()

EXTRACT()

FLOOR()

GEN_ID()

GEN_UUID()

HASH()

IIF()

LEFT()

LN()

LOG()

LOG10()

LOWER()

LPAD()

MAXVALUE()

MINVALUE()

MOD()

NULLIF()

OCTET_LENGTH()

OVERLAY()

PI()

POSITION()

POWER()

RAND()

RDB$GET_CONTEXT()

RDB$SET_CONTEXT()

REPLACE()

REVERSE()

RIGHT()

ROUND()

RPAD()

SIGN()

SIN()

SINH()

SQRT()

SUBSTRING()

TAN()

TANH()

TRIM()

TRUNC()

UPPER()

UUID_TO_CHAR()

15. External functions (UDFs)

abs

acos

addDay

addHour

addMilliSecond

addMinute

addMonth

addSecond

addWeek

addYear

ascii_char

ascii_val

asin

atan

atan2

bin_and

bin_or

bin_xor

ceiling

cos

cosh

cot

dow

dpower

floor

getExactTimestamp

i64round

i64truncate

ln

log

log10

lower

lpad

ltrim

mod

*nullif

*nvl

pi

rand

right

round, i64round

rpad

rtrim

sdow

sign

sin

sinh

sqrt

srand

sright

string2blob

strlen

substr

substrlen

tan

tanh

truncate, i64truncate

A. Notes

Character set NONE data accepted “as is”

Understanding the WITH LOCK clause

A note on CSTRING parameters

Passing NULL to UDFs in Firebird 2

Maximum number of indices in different Firebird versions

The RDB$VALID_BLR field

B. Reserved words and keywords – full lists

Reserved words

Keywords

C. Document History

D. License notice