LibreOffice Base is a free and open-source database development and administration tool for relational database management systems that is part of the

LibreOffice LibreOffice () is a free and open-source office productivity software suite, a project of The Document Foundation (TDF). It was forked in 2010 from OpenOffice.org, an open-sourced version of the earlier StarOffice. The LibreOffice suite co ...

office suite Productivity software (also called personal productivity software or office productivity software) is application software used for producing information (such as documents, presentations, worksheets, databases, charts, graphs, digital painting ...

. LibreOffice Base was built off of a

fork In cutlery or kitchenware, a fork (from la, furca 'pitchfork') is a utensil, now usually made of metal, whose long handle terminates in a head that branches into several narrow and often slightly curved tine (structural), tines with which one ...

OpenOffice.org OpenOffice.org (OOo), commonly known as OpenOffice, is a discontinued open-source office suite. Active successor projects include LibreOffice (the most actively developed), Apache OpenOffice, Collabora Online (enterprise ready LibreOffice) a ...

and was first released as version 3.4.0.1 on October 4, 2011. Similarly to the other packages in the LibreOffice suite, Base is supported across multiple platforms including Microsoft Windows,

macOS macOS (; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac computers. Within the market of desktop and lapt ...

, and

Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, w ...

. Base is recognized for its cross-platform compatibility relative to Microsoft Access, which is developed exclusively for

Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for ser ...

Features

LibreOffice Base is designed to allow users to easily create, access, modify, and view databases and their data. This is done by providing users with a

graphical user interface The GUI ( "UI" by itself is still usually pronounced . or ), graphical user interface, is a form of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices through graphical icons and audio indicator such as primary notation, inst ...

that allows users to work with four main tools:

Tables Table may refer to: * Table (furniture), a piece of furniture with a flat surface and one or more legs * Table (landform), a flat area of land * Table (information), a data arrangement with rows and columns * Table (database), how the table d ...

, queries, forms, and reports. Base includes software wizards to assist users with various aspects of the program. LibreOffice Base requires

Java Java (; id, Jawa, ; jv, ꦗꦮ; su, ) is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea to the north. With a population of 151.6 million people, Java is the world's mos ...

in order to create databases with forms, wizards, and more. LibreOffice 7

Base is able to work with both embedded and external database files. Embedded databases are stored as a single file using

C++ C++ (pronounced "C plus plus") is a high-level general-purpose programming language created by Danish computer scientist Bjarne Stroustrup as an extension of the C programming language, or "C with Classes". The language has expanded significan ...

based Firebird and Java-based HSQLDB as its storage engine. When connecting to external databases, Base acts as a graphical user interface front-end to facilitate interactions with various database systems including

Access Database Engine The Access Database Engine (also Office Access Connectivity Engine or ACE and formerly Microsoft Jet Database Engine, ''Microsoft JET Engine'' or simply ''Jet'') is a database engine on which several Microsoft products have been built. The firs ...

(ACE/JET), ODBC/

JDBC Java Database Connectivity (JDBC) is an application programming interface (API) for the programming language Java, which defines how a client may access a database. It is a Java-based data access technology used for Java database connectivity. I ...

data sources,

MySQL MySQL () is an open-source relational database management system (RDBMS). Its name is a combination of "My", the name of co-founder Michael Widenius's daughter My, and "SQL", the acronym for Structured Query Language. A relational database ...

MariaDB MariaDB is a community-developed, commercially supported fork of the MySQL relational database management system (RDBMS), intended to remain free and open-source software under the GNU General Public License. Development is led by some of the ori ...

, and PostgreSQL. Base has been described as an unusual project in the niche of database management system software which tends toward proprietary software designed for enterprise users. Proprietary database management software costs have been described as a reason for the use of Base in small businesses.

Migration From HSQLDB to Firebird

Work was started in 2014 to transition the embedded storage engine from HSQLDB to the Firebird SQL back-end. Firebird has been included in LibreOffice as an experimental option since LibreOffice 4.2. In August 2018, The Document Foundation announced the release of LibreOffice version 6.1. If the experimental mode is used, the embedded Firebird engine support is fully available, and the old HSQLDB engine is deprecated—although still available—and replaced by Firebird as the default option. In February 2019, The Document Foundation released LibreOffice version 6.2. The embedded Firebird engine support was moved from experimental mode to operational and the Firebird Migration Assistant can create a backup copy of content as an XML document for the migration process. In February 2020, embedded Firebird was moved back to experimental mode, taking effect in version 6.4.1.

References

External links

LibreOffice Base at LibreOffice.org

LibreOffice Base Handbook at The Document Foundation Wiki
{{DEFAULTSORT:LibreOffice Base Cross-platform free software LibreOffice Desktop database application development tools Database administration tools