FlameRobin Files

🚀 FlameRobin v26.5.2 Release Notes

We are thrilled to announce FlameRobin v26.5.2! This release marks a massive architectural milestone in our journey to modernize FlameRobin. We have successfully completed Phases 2 and 3 of our migration to fb-cpp, bringing robust support for modern Firebird features while maintaining legacy compatibility.

✨ What's New

🏗️ Major Architecture Shift: The new Database Abstraction Layer (DAL) The core of FlameRobin has been heavily refactored to decouple it from the legacy, unmaintained IBPP library.

• Dual Backends: We have introduced a new Database Abstraction Layer (DAL) that allows FlameRobin to run on both the legacy IBPP backend and the modern fb-cpp (C++20) backend.
• Core Refactoring: Database, Server, and all MetadataItem classes have been systematically ported to use the new DAL interfaces.
• SQL Editor & UI Integration: The SQL execution engine, asynchronous services (Backup/Restore), and DataGrid UI components have all been ported to consume DAL result sets.

🆕 Modern Firebird Features Support Thanks to the DAL and fb-cpp integration, FlameRobin now natively supports modern Firebird data types and features:

• DECFLOAT and INT128: Full support implemented across both the abstraction layer and the DataGrid UI.
• Timezone Improvements: Better and more robust timezone handling using the modern Firebird API.

🖥️ UI & Usability Enhancements

• Backend Selector: You can now easily switch between the legacy IBPP and modern fb-cpp backend via a dedicated "Backends" node in the Preferences menu.
• DataGrid Robustness: Enhanced the DataGrid with better debug logging, robust data fetching loops, and extensive try-catch safety checks to prevent crashes.
• Locale Fix: Fixed a UI annoyance where a "Failed to initialize locale" warning incorrectly popped up for English users on Linux.

🛠️ Stability & Bug Fixes

• Added comprehensive new DAL tests ensuring robust DECFLOAT, INT128 formatting, and timezone support.
• Addressed memory corruption issues (e.g., fb-cpp Client singletons) and added extensive safety checks to prevent crashes in both backends.
• Fixed Windows fbclient.dll loading issues and registry path construction.
• Resolved various crashes identified during Phase 3 of the SQL editor porting.

🗺️ Roadmap Update: The Path to Firebird 5.0

Our primary goal remains to fully replace the legacy IBPP library with fb-cpp, a modern C++20 wrapper for the Firebird database API. This will unlock full support for Firebird 3.0, 4.0, and 5.0 features.

With this release, we have officially completed Phase 2 (Metadata & Core Refactoring) and Phase 3 (SQL Editor & UI Integration).

Next Steps (Phase 4: Finalization):

• [ ] Full validation of all FlameRobin features using the fb-cpp backend.
• [ ] Eventually remove the legacy IBPP library from the source tree.
• [ ] Enhance overall performance by leveraging fb-cpp's modern, lightweight architecture.

For more details on the architectural changes, see our Migration to fb-cpp documentation (https://github.com/mariuz/flamerobin/blob/master/docs/migration-to-fb-cpp.md).

What's Changed

• Phase 2: Metadata & Core Refactoring - Step 1: DAL Migration by @mariuz in https://github.com/mariuz/flamerobin/pull/556
• Feature/dal decfloat int128 support by @mariuz in https://github.com/mariuz/flamerobin/pull/560
• Fix FbCppStatement::getColumnSubtype() returning 0 for string character set columns by @Copilot in https://github.com/mariuz/flamerobin/pull/562
• Fix fbclient.dll not found on Windows (regression in v26.4.4) by @Copilot in https://github.com/mariuz/flamerobin/pull/564
• Feature/dal timezone handling by @mariuz in https://github.com/mariuz/flamerobin/pull/565
• Refactor Database and Server classes to decouple from IBPP using DAL by @mariuz in https://github.com/mariuz/flamerobin/pull/566
• Phase 3: Port SQL execution engine and UI components to DAL by @mariuz in https://github.com/mariuz/flamerobin/pull/569
• Fix code review issues and refactor Backup/Restore to DAL by @mariuz in https://github.com/mariuz/flamerobin/pull/570
• Implement backend configuration: add settings option and initialize DatabaseFactory from config by @mariuz in https://github.com/mariuz/flamerobin/pull/571

Full Changelog: v26.4.4...v26.5.2 (https://github.com/mariuz/flamerobin/compare/v26.4.4...v26.5.2)

A huge thank you to all contributors who made this massive update possible! ❤️