InterBase SQL Dialects

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InterBase recognizes different client and database dialects to allow users more mobility in how their legacy databases are used, accessed, and updated. Beginning with InterBase 6, each client and database has a SQL dialect: an indicator that instructs an InterBase 6 or later server how to interpret transition features: those features whose meanings have changed between InterBase versions. The following transition features have different meanings based on the dialect used by the client applications:

• Double quote (“): changed from a synonym for the single quote (‘) to the delimiter for an object name.
• DECIMAL and NUMERIC data types with precision greater than 9: now stored as INT64 data types instead of DOUBLE PRECISION.
• DATE, TIME, and TIMESTAMP data types: DATE has changed from a 64-bit quantity containing both date and time information to a 32-bit quantity containing only date information. TIME is a 32-bit quantity containing only time information, while TIMESTAMP is a 64-bit quantity containing both date and time information (the same as DATE in pre-Version 6 SQL).

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