HOW-TO look at Firebird localdatastore with DBVisualizer

Introduction

Delft-FEWS has currently three flavours of local datastores all of which can be inspected with DBVisualizer.

MS-Access (32-bit, Windows only)
Firebird (32-bit)
Derby

For inspecting a Delft-FEWS local datastore it is recommended to install DBVisualizer and the appropriate Jdbc driver that matches the local datastore format.

Note that only one program can access the local datastore simultaneously. The Delft-FEWS client has to be disconnected first before DBVisualizer can open it, and vice versa, otherwise exceptions will occur.

Installation of DBVisualizer

Download the latest 32-bit DBVisualizer from the download section of http://www.dbvis.com/. For Windows it is recommended to download the DBVisualizer 32-bit with embedded JRE. This way it is guaranteed that the firebird driver is always started with 32-bit java. Install DBVisualizer in a directory that preferrably does not contain any spaces. For Windows and Linux it is required to use a 32-bit JRE.

On this page from now we will refer from now on to $DBVIS_DIR as the DBVisualizer installation directory.

Also the following settings in the Windows Environment variables are required.

DBVIS_DIR=$DBVIS_DIR
PATH=.;%DBVIS_DIR%;%PATH%

For linux the following settings are recommended.

#!/bin/bash

# Point $DBVIS_DIR to the directory where DBVisualizer has been installed
DBVIS_DIR=/opt/DBVisualizer


# Start the application
$DBVIS_DIR/dbvis $*

Installation of the MS Access driver

Select the Jdbc/ODBC bridge and specify the windows jdbc:odbc:DRIVER={Microsoft Access Driver (*.mdb)};DBQ=d:\datastores\region_home\localDataStore\local.mdb

where d:\datastores\local.mdb is where the MSAccess file is located.

Installation of the Derby Jdbc Driver

If needed copy the latest derby driver from the Delft-FEWS bin dir, e.g. derby-10.8.1.2.jar to the $DBVIS_DIR/jdbc/derby directory.

Specify the database url as where the derby local datastore is located, e.g. jdbc:derby:D:/datastores/region_home/localDataStore/local.derby

Installation of the Firebird Jdbc Driver

For using DBVisualizer with Firebird under Windows specify following environment variable.

LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$DBVIS_DIR/jdbc/firebird

For using DBVisualizer with Firebird under Linux include the following in the shell profile.

# Setting the variables
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$LD_LIBRARY_PATH:$DBVIS_DIR/jdbc/firebird

Copy java libraries (Windows and Linux)

create the directory $DBVIS_DIR/jdbc/firebird
copy connector.jar from the FEWS bin dir to $DBVIS_DIR/jdbc/firebird (can also be put globally in $DBVIS_DIR/lib done in see above)
copy jaybird-2.1.6p.jar from the FEWS bin dir to $DBVIS_DIR/jdbc/firebird

In the driver manager create a firebird driver with the two firebird jars.

and the URL format jdbc:firebirdsql:embedded:

The following Firebird connection properties are required:

jdbc:firebirdsql:embedded:d:\datastores\region_home\localDataStore\local.fdb
username: sysdba
password: masterkey

Copy native libraries (Windows)

Copy the following files to the $DBVIS_DIR directory:
fbembed.dll
icudt30.dll
icuin30.dll
icuuc30.dll
ib_util.dll
jaybird21.dll
(NB fbembed.dll depends on MSVCR80.dll }}while {{jaybird21.dll depends on MSVCR71.dll. On some computers you must need to include those also when not available. See the Fews binary or the attachments)

All in one zip file firebird_jdbc_win.zip for Windows.

Copy native libraries and additional files (Linux)

Copy the following files to the $DBVIS_DIR/jdbc/firebird directory:
firebird.conf
firebird.msg
libfbdrop.so
libfbembed.so
libib_util.so
libicudata.so.30
libicui18n.so.30
libicuuc.so.30
libjaybird21.so
security2.fdb

All in one tgz file firebird_jdbc_linux.tgz for Linux.

Note: For this to work, any user wanting to access a firebird localdatastore needs to have write access to the directory where these files are located. Alternatively, the user can create symbolic links to or copies of there files in another directory and set the environment variables below accordingly to point to these "writeable" directories.

Tips and tricks

The wildcard for texts when using the LIKE statement is % (e.g. SELECT * FROM TimeSeries WHERE moduleInstanceId LIKE '%Import%')
When looking for a date in an SQL string - use CAST('yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss' as TIMESTAMP)
(this is equivalent to the ORACLE to_Date command)

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