Rel version 1.0.11 Beta now available!

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Dave
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Posts: 372
Joined: Sun Nov 27, 2005 7:19 pm

Rel version 1.0.11 Beta now available!

Post by Dave »

This is a maintenance release featuring various enhancements and bug fixes.

Prior to installing this version of Rel, you must make a backup of your database(s). Then, install this update and load and attempt to execute your backup script(s). If your script successfully loads, you're done. If Rel complains of syntax errors, you'll need to edit the backup script — based on the "Rel Version 1.0.11+ Syntax" article at http://dbappbuilder.sourceforge.net — until the script successfully loads.

Changes in this update:

* Enhancement: DBrowser: Now displays human-friendly messages when attempting to open an already-open database, or when a connection attempt to a remote Rel server fails.

* Enhancement: DBrowser: Now provides options to hide headings and declared types in headings in displayed output of relations.

* Enhancement: DBrowser: Now provides a "Get File Path" button to simplify putting file paths in source code. This facilitates use of external data sources, described below.

* Enhancement: Rel: Some minor syntax improvements have been made, in accordance with changes to Tutorial D. Formerly-required parentheses around WRAP, UNWRAP, GROUP, UNGROUP clauses have been removed. UNGROUP (a) and UNWRAP (a) are now UNGROUP a and UNWRAP a, respectively.

* Enhancement: Rel: All error messages are now uniquely identified to disambiguate references to them.

* Enhancement: Rel: Updated to version 6.0.11 of the Berkeley Java DB, which is used as a storage engine.

* Enhancement: Rel: A student project has produced simple support for external CSV/XLS/XLSX/JDBC sources as relvars:

e.g., VAR myvar EXTERNAL CSV "/home/dave/test.csv";
e.g., VAR myvar EXTERNAL XLS "/home/dave/test.xls" DUP_REMOVE;
e.g., VAR myvar EXTERNAL XLS "/home/dave/test.xlsx" DUP_COUNT;
e.g., VAR myvar EXTERNAL XLS "/home/dave/test.xlsx" AUTOKEY;
e.g., VAR myvar EXTERNAL JDBC "<host>,<user>,<password>,<database>.<table>,<driverpath>,<drivername>";

This feature also makes it possible to define new relvar types as Rel plug-ins. Documentation for this feature will be provided in the future.

* Enhancement: Rel: 'x RENAME {}' is now valid syntax.

* Enhancement: Rel: Errors occurring in a database constraint are now treated as if the constraint evaluates to false, and the failing constraint is named in the error message.

* Fix: DBrowser: Fixed minor errors parsing certain error messages.

* Fix: Rel: Given...

Code: Select all

   VAR S BASE RELATION {
        SNO CHAR, SNAME CHAR, STATUS INTEGER, CITY CHAR
   } KEY {SNO};
   VAR SP BASE RELATION { SNO CHAR, PNO CHAR, QTY INTEGER } KEY {SNO, PNO};
   VAR SPQ BASE INIT(
      EXTEND S: {PQ := RELATION {TUPLE {SNO SNO}} COMPOSE SP}
   ) KEY{SNO};
...these failed:

Code: Select all

  UPDATE SPQ WHERE SNO = "S2":
      {INSERT PQ RELATION {TUPLE {PNO "P5", QTY 500}}};   
  UPDATE SPQ WHERE SNO = "S2": {UPDATE PQ WHERE PNO="P5": {QTY := 250}};   
  UPDATE SPQ WHERE SNO = "S2": {DELETE PQ WHERE PNO="P5"};
 
This has been corrected.

* Fix: Rel: The following should have returned true but returned false:

Code: Select all

     RELATION  {
            TUPLE { SUPPLIES RELATION {
              TUPLE {PID "P5"}
            }},
            TUPLE { SUPPLIES RELATION {
              TUPLE {PID "P2"}
            }},
            TUPLE { SUPPLIES RELATION {
              TUPLE {PID "P4"}
            }}
     }
     =
     RELATION  {
            TUPLE { SUPPLIES RELATION {
              TUPLE {PID "P5"}
            }},
            TUPLE { SUPPLIES RELATION {
              TUPLE {PID "P2"}
            }},
            TUPLE { SUPPLIES RELATION {
              TUPLE {PID "P4"}
            }}
     }
This has been corrected. Internal changes to address this and similar errors in comparing relations with relation-valued attributes may have performance impact -- some queries may run faster, others slower.

* Fix: Rel: JOIN {}, TIMES {}, and COMPOSE {} now return DEE.

* Fix: Rel: XUNION {}, D_UNION {}, UNION {} now return TUPLE {}.

* Fix: Rel: XUNION {} {}, D_UNION {} {}, UNION {} {} return DUM.

* Fix: Rel: INTERSECT {} and INTERSECT {} {} throw an error.

* Fix: Rel: Type checking was too weak on comparison operators, allowing incorrect expressions like 'tuple{x 1} = tuple{y 2, x 1}' to return a result instead of throwing an error. Fixed.

* Fix: Rel: RELATION {TUPLE {x 10, y DEE}} WHERE x = 100 UNGROUP y threw a fatal error. It should have thrown a type error due to an attempt to ungroup integer 100. This has been fixed.

* Fix: Rel: Built-in operator name OP_GREATHERTHANOREQUALS corrected to OP_GREATERTHANOREQUALS.

* Fix: Rel: Assignment to a real relvar altered its CreationSequence. Fixed.

* Fix: Rel: CAST_AS_INTEGER("blah") and CAST_AS_RATIONAL("blah") should have thrown semantic errors, not fatal errors. Fixed.

Note: This release includes experimental support for a work-in-progress visual query language called Rev. Using an icons-on-strings data-flow style, it permits constructing queries visually and iteratively, and allows testing sub-expressions whilst constructing a query. To experiment with it, install the Rev package and it will appear as an additional tab in a DBrowser session. To remove it, delete the rev.jar file. Further documentation and video demonstrations will be provided in the future.

For more information, or to download Rel, see http://dbappbuilder.sourceforge.net/Rel.html
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