Firebird-export

Export a Firebird database to CSV, JSON or other pandas format

Import a Firebird¹ database to pandas dataframes, show a summary of the database table names, field names, field data types, and index columns, optionally extract and save table data to a directory, in CSV/JSON (or potentially in any other pandas format), and also extract any other binary files from the database blobs and save. A subset of the tables and fields can be specified (in python) and the number of records returned can be limited for testing purposes. Output data can be combined or into one or saved in individual files named after the tables.

---

Quick start

You will need a python 3 installation with virtualenv and pip and a Firebird (Interbase compatible) .fdb database file (or a working Firebird server).

virtualenv .VENV311
. .VENV311/bin/activate
pip install -r requirements.txt
pytest
src/fb_export.py test/employee.fdb

Alternatively, the package can be built and installed, preferably in a virtual environment, to make the fb_export command available in the path.

Run:

View database table and field names and datatypes, from Firebird database file

./fb_export test/employee.fdb

View database table and field names and datatypes, from database alias name, assumes there is a Firebird installation on the local machine with example data.

src/fb_export.py  employee

View brief information, table and field only, no data types

src/fb_export.py -b test/employee.fdb

Export from database file to directory "Export" as CSV in separate files, one per table

src/fb_export.py test/employee.fdb -e -o Export

Test export of only the tables and fields listed in src/limit_sql.py, to a maximum of 10 records

src/fb_export.py test/employee.fdb -l -m 10

Test export, and also view a number (5) of sample records from the employee database (without saving)

src/fb_export.py -s -n 5 test/employee.fdb

Create a combined JSON export file

src/fb_export.py test/employee.fdb  -F json -e -o test/json -c 

Capture the database summary info to file (bash)

src/fb_export.py test/employee.fdb  -b &>  tmp/fdb_info.txt
src/fb_export.py  test/employee.fdb   &>  tmp/fdb_more_info.txt

Usage

src/fb_export.py -h
usage: fb_export.py [-h] [--version] [-e] [-b] [-l] [-m MAXROWS] [-s] [-n NUMSAMPLES] [-j] [-F {csv,json}] [-o OUTDIR] [-u USER] [-p PASSWORD] path_to_db

Firebird export

positional arguments:
  path_to_db            Firebird server alias or database name (eg. employee) or path to database file, eg ./employee.fdb

options:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  --version             show program's version number and exit
  -e, --export          Export data
  -b, --brief           Shorter info
  -l, --limit           Limit tables and fields to those in limit_sql.py
  -m MAXROWS, --maxrows MAXROWS
                        Max number of rows to export
  -s, --sampledata      Also show sample data records
  -n NUMSAMPLES, --numsamples NUMSAMPLES
                        number of sample rows
  -j, --join            Join output files
  -F {csv,json}, --format {csv,json}
                        Export output format, default .CSV
  -o OUTDIR, --outdir OUTDIR
                        Output directory
  -u USER, --user USER  Firebird DB username
  -p PASSWORD, --password PASSWORD
                        Firebird DB password

Build a distribution tar.gz:

  pip install build
  python -m build

The .whl file in the dist directory can then be installed with pip, the command fb_export should then be available in the virtual env.

pip install dist/fb_export-0.2.0-py3-none-any.whl

Note: Firebird 2.5 and 3+ versions

The code has been tested with a with Firebird 2.5 database file.

However, I have also verified that the same code works with a Firebird 3 installation. FB3 and FB2.5 have incompatible on-disk file structures for the database files but using the fdb python library, one could load a 2.5 or 3.0 database by pointing to the appropriate 2.5 or 3.0 fbclient.so library file. In this way one could enable loading both the 2.5 and the 3.0 and up versions of Firebird databases in the same python code for comparison and/or transfer.

Test:

To run the tests in test/ use

pytest

Calling fb_export from python

Example:

# Test opening Firebase database for brief info, from python
import fb_export.fb_export as fb
fb.main("test/employee.fdb","-b")

To run:

python test_fb.py

Using Github Actions

Firebird-export has been tested with Github Actions, see .github/workflows.python-app.yml in the repo.

To run and test the workflow on a local runner, install Docker desktop and act, then invoke:

act -j build

On failure, an SSH session will be opened to be able to debug and the key will be printed to the terminal. Either close the session when done or touch continue to let the workflow proceed.

Footnotes

1. Firebird is a trademark of https://firebirdsql.org/ and is used under the 'fair use' case, https://firebirdsql.org/en/firebird-brand-faq ↩