django-firebird 5.1

Firebird SQL backend for Django

django-firebird lets Django applications use Firebird as their database, on top of the official firebird-driver.

Since version 5.0 the Python package is called django_firebird (the previous firebird package name conflicted with the namespace used by firebird-driver itself, see issue #130).

Compatibility

Every push is tested by continuous integration against the official Firebird Docker images.

[1] Firebird 6 development snapshots are also exercised in CI, as an informational (non-blocking) target.

Installation

Using pip:

pip install django-firebird

This installs the django_firebird package and pulls in firebird-driver. The driver loads the Firebird client library (libfbclient) at runtime; install it from your distribution (e.g. apt install libfbclient2) or a Firebird server/client package. Note that a Firebird 3 era client cannot describe the INT128-backed NUMERIC types of Firebird 4+ servers — use a client at least as new as your newest server (see docs/troubleshooting.rst).

From the repository:

git clone https://github.com/maxirobaina/django-firebird.git
cd django-firebird
pip install .

Configuration

Add a database to your settings.py:

DATABASES = {
    'default': {
        'ENGINE': 'django_firebird',
        'NAME': '/var/lib/firebird/data/mydb.fdb',  # path or alias on the server
        'USER': 'SYSDBA',
        'PASSWORD': '*****',
        'HOST': '127.0.0.1',
        'PORT': '3050',                # empty string uses the default 3050
        'OPTIONS': {
            'charset': 'UTF8',         # connection character set
            'lock_timeout': 10,        # seconds to wait on record locks
                                       # (optional; default: wait forever)
        },
    },
}

All settings, including the test-database options and the environment variables understood by the test suite, are documented in docs/settings.rst.

Then create your schema as usual:

python manage.py migrate

Documentation

• docs/settings.rst — every supported setting and OPTIONS key.

• docs/limitations.rst — Firebird capabilities and their consequences for the ORM (regex lookups, timestamp resolution, identifier case, decimal precision per server version, time zones, …).

• docs/internals.rst — how the backend maps Django concepts to Firebird: auto-increment fields, type mapping, introspection conventions, connection recovery.

• docs/testing.rst — running the test suite locally and in CI, including ready-made Docker commands.

• docs/troubleshooting.rst — common errors and what they mean.

• docs/changelog.txt — release history.

Upgrading from django-firebird 4.x or earlier

• Set 'ENGINE': 'django_firebird' (the old firebird / django.db.backends.firebird values no longer exist).

• firebird-driver 2.x replaces fdb; Firebird 3.0 is the minimum server.

• BooleanField uses the native BOOLEAN type on new columns and no longer creates check constraints. Existing columns keep working.

Contributing

Code and issues live on GitHub:

https://github.com/maxirobaina/django-firebird

There is also a mailing list:

http://groups.google.com/group/django-firebird-dev

License

BSD. See LICENSE.