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Article #25381: Compacting an InterBase database.

Problem:
I need make a reduced version of my database to transport to a 
development environment. I would like to get the whole definition 
of tables and some of the registers in a "reduced" file size.

Solution:
/*******************************************************************************/
Note: The information in this article applies to
            InterBase v5.x
/********************************************************************************/

There are two ways to do this:

1.  After deleting whatever you don't need, just do a backup 
    and a restore with GBAK.  By default, gbak will flush out 
    obsolete records and compact the file. Indexes get rebalanced
    as a result, too.

    The syntax for doing the backup is:
 
    gbak  -b -t   


    The syntax for doing a restore is:

    gbak -c  



2. If you just want the definitions of the tables, indices, etc,
   but do not want the actual data, then you can use the -m
   switch in gbak to back up the metadata. This only stores
   the definitions of the tables, etc.  It does not store the
   data in them.  This is handy if you want to create an empty
   copy of the database.

   The syntax for doing a metadata only backup is:

         gbak -b -m  


Last Modified: 26-SEP-00