For our development purposes it is sometimes useful to transfer a database from Win to Mac and back. Our main client has Servoy and SQL Anywhere on Win 2003 Small Business Server. We tend to use both Mac OS X and Win for development.
Our experience with Sybase SQL Anywhere databases up to and including version 10 was that we could not transfer actual database files from Win to Mac and have them work. Binary compatibility was claimed for version 10, but we found our files would not transfer directly. Instead we needed to unload and reload each database file in turn.
Now, using SQL Anywhere version 11 we find the database files can be transferred from Win to Mac and back with no transfer process other than ensuring the database file is first closed before it is copied across. So convenient.
Perhaps you started with the dbs on OS X and moved them to Windows? Grateful if you would clarify.
My dbs were all initially created on Windows. After a period of operation, I would take copies and attempt to work with them on OS X. Earlier versions than 11 turned out not to transfer: hence the need to unload and reload the data into a new db created on OS X. But now version 11 is good for transfer in either direction. That has been my experience.
Perhaps one of the systems ran Sybase in 64-bits and the other in 32-bits ?
I know that this is an issue with PostgreSQL for example. It requires then a dump and restore if you want to move it from one system to the other.
Hi Robert
You have a good thought. Version dbsrv11 on the Mac shows as ‘Intel’ rather than ‘Intel (64 bit)’ in Activity Monitor. On Win2003 server it would be 32 bit; as on my WinXP test box. My guess is that previous versions of the engine distributed by Servoy have been 32 bit also for both Win and Mac, but maybe a Servoyan might confirm or deny this.
I haven’t done this for a few years but certainly did it successfully any number of times with SQL Anywhere 9 going from Win to Mac (and vice versa as I recall). One issue was that in moving from Win to Mac (and this was even pre-Intel) the db files themselves had to be manually ‘unlocked’ on the Mac. But once that was done just using Get Info on the Mac everything was fine.
John: your point about unlocking the db files on the Mac was part of my routine on version 9 and 10, but still the transfer was not binary compatible in my case. I asked Sybase technical to look at the problem, but the two who looked at the issue could not figure the problem. However, after conversion to version 11, my dbs now work OK on both Win and Mac.
Interesting… I wonder if it was working fine with me pre-Intel Macs. As I remember this was before the Intel Macs came out and certainly it was SQL Anywhere 9. As mentioned I haven’t had to do it for a few years. Now maybe SQL Anywhere has if figured out for 11 and Mac Intel machines.