| Subject | Firebird v1.0.3 maintenance update now available |
|---|---|
| Author | Paul Reeves by way of Paul Reeves |
| Post date | 2003-06-04T15:53:23Z |
The Firebird project is pleased to announcement the immediate availability of
the v1.0.3 maintenance release. It is a testament to the robustness of
Firebird 1.0 that no major problems have been found that have required
fixing. However, almost six months have passed since the Fb 1.0.2 and several
bug fixes and enhancements have appeared. Rather than letting them molder
indefinitely it is better to get them out into the big wide world.
One of the main bug fixes was for a problem that was inadvertently introduced
in Fb 1.0.2. Gbak and gfix could longer use the service manager api to work
on remote servers.
Another important fix was in the way event handlers were set up.
Multi-threaded operating systems were setting them up incorrectly, leading to
hard to diagnose errors.
One new feature was added - the removal of an artificial limit on maximum
indexes per table. This had been set at 64. IBPhoenix had a client who needed
more and subsequently carried out the work to remove this limit for them. The
readme documents the new limits. It also (hopefully) explains adequately that
having a multiple indexes (never mind 64 or 200 or more) is a huge
performance drag on applications that are primarily for data update. Just
because you can now define 1000 indexes for a table doesn't mean that you
should!
An MSVC based control panel applet is now part of the Firebird 1.0 source
tree and builds automatically with the rest of the code. It re-uses existing
code in the source tree to manage Firebird services. The reasons for
including this are quite simple. Firstly, as a server control applet it is a
core tool and as such should be buildable with the rest of the server.
Secondly, by re-using code we can consistently manage the behaviour of the
server. This is not so important for Firebird 1.0 (because of a de facto
feature freeze) but is likely to become important for Firebird 1.5 and
beyond. Thirdly, it produces 50% smaller code than Delphi coded cpl applets.
Firebird has a great tradition for lean and mean and there is every reason
for this to be continued, even in an age of 80Gb disc drives.
A half bug-fix/half feature from Firebird 1.5 has been back-ported. Database
attachment times had an artificial delay of up to one second due to a code
loop that wasn't being broken out of. Local connections are now almost
instantaneous.
While preparing the installable binaries for Firebird 1.5 release candidates
it became clear that the Firebird 1.0 and 1.0.2 installers have a major
design flaw. When doing an uninstallation they don't check to see if they are
the current Firebird version. If Firebird 1.5 is installed into a system
where Fb 1.0.0 or 1.0.2 exists and then Fb 1.0.0 or 1.0.2 are subsequently
uninstalled they will remove the registry entries for Fb 1.5. Firebird 1.0.3
fixes this problem. If you are planning on installing Firebird 1.5
simultaneously on a system with Firebird 1.0 it is highly recommended that
you upgrade to Fb 1.0.3 for this reason alone.
Simultaneous and harmonious existence between Firebird 1 and 1.5 still hasn't
been achieved. The remaining problems will be dealt with in subsequent
maintenance releases of Fb 1.0 and release candidates of Firebird 1.5.
Paul
--
Paul Reeves
http://www.ibphoenix.com
Supporting users of Firebird and InterBase
the v1.0.3 maintenance release. It is a testament to the robustness of
Firebird 1.0 that no major problems have been found that have required
fixing. However, almost six months have passed since the Fb 1.0.2 and several
bug fixes and enhancements have appeared. Rather than letting them molder
indefinitely it is better to get them out into the big wide world.
One of the main bug fixes was for a problem that was inadvertently introduced
in Fb 1.0.2. Gbak and gfix could longer use the service manager api to work
on remote servers.
Another important fix was in the way event handlers were set up.
Multi-threaded operating systems were setting them up incorrectly, leading to
hard to diagnose errors.
One new feature was added - the removal of an artificial limit on maximum
indexes per table. This had been set at 64. IBPhoenix had a client who needed
more and subsequently carried out the work to remove this limit for them. The
readme documents the new limits. It also (hopefully) explains adequately that
having a multiple indexes (never mind 64 or 200 or more) is a huge
performance drag on applications that are primarily for data update. Just
because you can now define 1000 indexes for a table doesn't mean that you
should!
An MSVC based control panel applet is now part of the Firebird 1.0 source
tree and builds automatically with the rest of the code. It re-uses existing
code in the source tree to manage Firebird services. The reasons for
including this are quite simple. Firstly, as a server control applet it is a
core tool and as such should be buildable with the rest of the server.
Secondly, by re-using code we can consistently manage the behaviour of the
server. This is not so important for Firebird 1.0 (because of a de facto
feature freeze) but is likely to become important for Firebird 1.5 and
beyond. Thirdly, it produces 50% smaller code than Delphi coded cpl applets.
Firebird has a great tradition for lean and mean and there is every reason
for this to be continued, even in an age of 80Gb disc drives.
A half bug-fix/half feature from Firebird 1.5 has been back-ported. Database
attachment times had an artificial delay of up to one second due to a code
loop that wasn't being broken out of. Local connections are now almost
instantaneous.
While preparing the installable binaries for Firebird 1.5 release candidates
it became clear that the Firebird 1.0 and 1.0.2 installers have a major
design flaw. When doing an uninstallation they don't check to see if they are
the current Firebird version. If Firebird 1.5 is installed into a system
where Fb 1.0.0 or 1.0.2 exists and then Fb 1.0.0 or 1.0.2 are subsequently
uninstalled they will remove the registry entries for Fb 1.5. Firebird 1.0.3
fixes this problem. If you are planning on installing Firebird 1.5
simultaneously on a system with Firebird 1.0 it is highly recommended that
you upgrade to Fb 1.0.3 for this reason alone.
Simultaneous and harmonious existence between Firebird 1 and 1.5 still hasn't
been achieved. The remaining problems will be dealt with in subsequent
maintenance releases of Fb 1.0 and release candidates of Firebird 1.5.
Paul
--
Paul Reeves
http://www.ibphoenix.com
Supporting users of Firebird and InterBase