Release Notes (Relnotes.txt)
InterClient 1.50
Last modified September 21, 1998

Contents:
    I.  Differences with the 1.12 release
    II. Issues

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Differences with the 1.12 release

* This release communicates with InterBase 5.x under the JRE 1.1
* Big performance improvements.  We may now be the fastest driver
  on the market.
* Interclient is now completely localized, with easily translatable 
  resource bundles for all error messages and hard-wired text
  used by the driver. Customizable public resource bundles for 
  both InterClient and CommDiag are provided to accomodate 
  international applications.  
  See API reference for interbase.interclient.Resources and 
  interbase.interclient.utils.Resources.
* Direct international support for user-specified character sets.
  InterClient supports 20 of the 22 InterBase character set
  encodings, including Unicode FSS.  Data is transliterated
  directly using native encodings, this provides much better
  performance than drivers that use only a single universal
  encoding on the wire.  
  See the API reference for interbase.interclient.CharacterEncodings
  for a list of supported encodings.  All SQL, CHAR, VARCHAR,
  and blob character result/parameter data are encoded and decoded 
  using the encoding specified with the charSet connection property.
* Improved documentation accessible through the JBuilder help viewer.
  The InterClient Programmer's Guide has been renamed InterClient 
  Introduction, and the Reference and Help documentation has been extended.
  The API Reference now has links to JavaSoft's core API documentation.
  See docs/index.html in the InterClient distribution.
* Various capability and robustness enhancements to the API in general, 
  especially in the area of input parameter and result column type 
  conversions.  For example, prepared statement parameter conversions 
  now distinguish between character blobs and binary blobs, disallowing
  certain operations such as setString() on a binary blob and allowing 
  operations such as setBytes() on a character field according to the 
  JDBC conversion tables.
* Full support for SQL DESCRIBE and SQL DESCRIBE INPUT functionality.
  PreparedStatement.getMetaData() provides a way to access
  result set meta data before a prepared statement is executed.
  ParameterMetaData off a PreparedStatement provides a way to get
  metadata describing the input parameters to a prepared statement.
  This functionality is an extension to the base JDBC API.
* Configurable local row cache size.  See API reference for 
  interbase.interclient.Statement.setFetchSize().
* SQL State codes associated with driver generated exceptions
  are now published.  See the Help documentation.
* Improved error messages.
* New public classes, methods and fields:
    interbase.interclient.BlobIOException
    interbase.interclient.CharacterEncodings
    interbase.interclient.CharacterEncodingException
    interbase.interclient.ErrorCodes
    interbase.interclient.Resources
    interbase.interclient.UnsupportedCharacterSetException
    interbase.interclient.ConnectionProperties.setCharacterEncoding()
    interbase.interclient.PreparedStatement.getMetaData()
    interbase.interclient.Statement.setFetchSize()
    interbase.interclient.Driver.getCompatibleJREVersions()
    interbase.interclient.Driver.getCompatibleIBVersions()
    interbase.interclient.Driver.getBuildCertificationLevel()
    interbase.interclient.Driver.testBuild
    interbase.interclient.Driver.betaBuild
    interbase.interclient.Driver.finalBuild
* Discarded packages, interfaces, classes and methods:
    interbase.interclient.netscape_utils
    Driver.asString()
    BadInstallation() constructor
    ComponentException
    Monitor and monitoring facility
    DatabaseNotCapableException is now subsumed by DriverNotCapableException
    All exception class member methods
* All driver methods are tagged in the API Reference
  according to origination: JDBC 1, JDBC 2, or Extensions.
  Method deprecations are also noted in Reference. 
* Class inheritance changes to exception classes.
* Renamed classes and methods:
    LoginTimeoutException is now SocketTimeoutException
* VARCHAR fields are no longer right trimmed by the result set 
  Adaptor.RIGHT_TRIM_STRINGS directive.
* Non-zero error codes are now generated for driver generated exceptions.
* More fully qualified version strings for InterClient and InterServer,
  including build numbers and certfication levels.
* Classes are no longer distributed in a single interclient.jar file,
  rather the following Java archives are distributed:
    interclient-core.jar
       The JDBC driver with only the default American English text
       resources.  No utilities are included in the core jar file.
    interclient-res.jar
       Locale specific resource bundles.
    interclient-utils.jar
       Utilities, this jar file consists of the communications diagnostics
       utility.
    interclient.jar
       JDBC driver, all resources, and utilities. 
* DatabaseMetaData system table queries now return VARCHAR (vs. CHAR) data
  for InterBase metadata such as table, column and procedure names.
  So metadata is no longer right padded with blanks as CHAR data is.
* CommDiag improvements.
* Examples directory added to distribution with sample Java programs
  which use InterClient.
* Configurable TCP/IP port numbers for InterServer.  
  By default, InterServer listens on port 3060, but this port
  may be modified manually if necessary.
  If a port other than 3060 is used, it must be specified in the 
  database or server URL syntax.  See Help documentation.

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Issues

  Please be aware of the following issues affecting this release of
  InterClient:

  * InterBase table names and other metadata must have an ASCII 
    representation.

  * DatabaseMetadata.getProcedureColumns returns 0 for precision values 
    for NUMERIC and DECIMAL columns rather than the correct precision.

  * DatabaseMetadata.getColumns does not return the proper default value 
    of a column in an InterBase table.                           
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