Differences between Interbase server and other SQL servers. Unique row identifiers Interbase uses Generators to generate unique values where other servers have column types that assign sequential values to a table. An Interbase database can contain any number of generators.
Generators are global to the database, and can be used and updated in any transaction.
InterBase server will not assign duplicate generator values that span transactions. The BDE supports Repeatable Read, Read Committed, and Dirty Read. These defualts can be overridden by using explicit BDE database transactions. The BDE supports Repeatable Read, Commited Read, and Dirty Read. Informix also supports a row level isolation level called Cursor Stability which does not correspond to any BDE supported isolation levels.