Unicode Database Upgrade (SQL Financial Accounting 5)

Must Do List

1. Backup all the databases before upgrade.

2. Remove/Uninstall the previous Firebird version installed, ie. 1.5, 2.0, 2.5.

3. Install Firebird 3.0.1.

4. SQL Financial Accounting 5 (Version: 5.2016.790.737).

5. Check the System Locale in Regional setting.

5.1 Go to Control Panel.

5.2 Look for Regional setting. See screenshot below.

5.3 Click on Administrative tab. Check the Language for non-Unicode programs, eg. English (United States) or Chinese (Simplified, China).

Important:
To ensure the encoding conversion correctly, please ask the user the following questions:
 1. Do you key-in any Chinese or other than English words in the database?. 
 2. What type of language input using? Simplified or Traditional Chinese? 

6. Check Local C drive free spaces (follow the Windows drive). Recommended 25GB free space or more.

7. Restore the database from the backup file.

Unicode Database Upgrade Steps

1. Execute the SQL Financial Accounting 5 (Version: 5.2016.790.737).

2. Restore the database from the backup file.

3. Login the database restored.

4. Click on Yes to confirm proceed the database upgrade.

5. Choose an appropriate encoding. Select Default - Windows 1252 ANSI if your server current language for non-Unicode programs is "English (United States)".

6. For more info about choosing a correct encoding, see the check list table below.

No.	SQL encoding	Regional setting (non-Unicode language)
1.	Defaul-Windows 1252 ANSI	All English, ie. English (United Kingdom), English (Malaysia), English (Singapore), etc.
2.	Simplified Chinese 简体中文	Chinese Simplified ONLY, ie. Chinese (Simplified, China), Chinese (Simplified, Singapore)
3.	Traditional Chinese 繁体中文	Chinese Traditional ONLY, ie. Chinese (Traditional, Hong Kong SAR), Chinese (Traditional, Taiwan)
4.	Firebird NONE character set	NONE encoding (Not recommended to use). For Firebird programmer use.
5.	Database Encoding Diagnosis (For Chinese only	To analyse the encoding (for Chinese character) able to read by your eyes.

7. Upgrade database started.

8. Transliterate to Unicode sample list out.

9. Click on Yes to proceed upgrade if you are confirm the characters are meaningful to read.

Note:
If you have click on No, you will get prompt an operation aborted. Press Ok to exit the message.

10. Upgrade database continue... (estimate upgrade duration : 15 -30 mins per database)

11. Database upgrade successfully, Old Database link will be DROP and New Database link will be ADD (new database file created automatically).

12. Re-login with New Database. Usually you can identify the new database at the remark, eg. Unicode from Old Database filename.

Example:
OLD database filename: ACC-0003.FDB (DROP)
NEW database filename: ACC-0001.FDB (ADD)


At the new database file (ACC-0001), you will see a remark displayed as Unicode from ACC-0003.

Possible Error and solution

1. Unsupported on-disk structure for file

Error message screenshot.

Solution: Restore the database from the backup file.

Advantages of Unicode Database

1. No longer need to set your system locale

You able to read, key-in and store the Chinese Simplified characters without change the system locale.

2. Multi-Language Support in Single Database

2.1 Capable to store different language characters (ie. English, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Vietnamese, Japanese, Arabic, etc...) in a database.

2.2 All reports are support multi-languages.

3. Free to search any characters in single database

You are free to search the keyword from the language that has stored in the database.

See also

• Backup Database
• Restore Database
• Firebird 3.0 Installation