How to export some data from Firebird database with FBExport?

Question

I'm trying to export some data from a Firebird database, with FBExport to a CSV file. The problem is I have two different errors. I spent a few hours to try different combinations:

• Unknown switch -
• Switches must begin with -

The command I tried:

fbexport -Sc -Q -F h:\AABBCC\export.csv -B -D h:\AABBCC\XXYYZZ.FDB -U "MMNNOO" -P "PPQQRR" -X "select PATIENTS.IPP, PATIENTS.NOM, PATIENTS.NOM_MARITAL, PATIENTS.NOM_USUEL, PATIENTS.PRENOMS, dmc.NUM_DOSSIER_PAPIER, dmc.NUM_DOSSIER_PAPIER_2, dmc.NUM_DOSSIER_PAPIER_3 from PATIENTS join dmc on PATIENTS.ipp = dmc.CODE where dmc.NUM_DOSSIER_PAPIER is not null or dmc.NUM_DOSSIER_PAPIER_2 is not null or dmc.NUM_DOSSIER_PAPIER_3 is not null;"

I absolutely don't understand what FBExport needs. How can I export the data?

Answer 1

For me, the following command line works:

fbexport -Sc -D employee -U sysdba -P masterkey -F C:\Temp\export.csv -Q "select * from employee"

The problem in your original command was that you had a bare -Q, which caused the following -F to be interpreted as the argument of -Q, which then lead to h:\AABBCC\export.csv to be interpreted as an option, which then produced an error because it doesn't start with a -.

In addition, your command also had the following problems:

• -B defines an alternative separator character for the produced CSV. It expects a separator character or TAB or \t for a tab. So, in similar vein as the previous problem, this would cause -D to be interpreted as an argument of -B, which then leads to h:\AABBCC\XXYYZZ.FDB to be interpreted as an option (without -).
• -X is a primary option (like -S), to execute the query specified by -Q, instead of exporting (saving, -S). It doesn't accept a query text as argument, so the query text is also interpreted as an option (without -). This occurrence of -X should have been -Q.