Released pgExpress Driver v2.00 - Mailing list pgsql-announce

Hello,

Vita Voom Software just released a new version of pgExpress Driver:
v2.00.

The Vita Voom pgExpress PostgreSQL dbExpress Driver is a Borland
Kylix/Delphi 6+/C++ Builder 6.0+ dbExpress Driver that directly access
PostgreSQL 7.1 or newer: no ODBC layer is needed. It can access use
almost all field types, and is compliant to the Borland specifications
of dbExpress drivers.

The pgExpress Driver is the core of the pgExpress Suite of components,
which provides the widest range of features for accessing PostgreSQL
databases.


Changes in this version include:
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ADDED - PostgreSQL 7.3 is supported. All the metadata interfaces have
been thoroughly revised to support introduction of Schemas. You can
even retrieve metadata with fully qualified names.
ADDED - BLOB writing support. Please refer to the Section 4.7, "Large
Objects (BLOBs)" section for more details.
ADDED - Native support to int8 (Int64/bigint) type. Now this is the
default for int8 fields; users that want old behavior (which is
typecasting Int8 as BCD numbers) can force its use through the use of
the Int8Mode special parameter.
ADDED - With PostgreSQL 7.3, schemas are now supported through use of
the RoleName parameter. Just use something as:

RoleName = public, a, b to set the RoleName.
ADDED - Support for Custom Parameters on Delphi 7. The Custom String
parameter can be used to set the Special Params (please see docs for
details).
ADDED - Driver more compatible with Delphi 7. The following
ISQLConnection.getOption() values are interpreted:

eConnOnLine 
eConnServerPort 
eConnQualifiedName 
eConnQuotedObjectName 
eConnSchemaObjectName 
eConnCatalogObjectName 
eConnObjectObjectName

These options bring also better schema support.
ADDED - Support for functions that return multiple rows (PostgreSQL
7.3 and above).
ADDED - New Special Parameter: RetainCursor. Will retain the cursor
for the previous SELECT statement. This will avoid the same query to
be run twice for non-cached datasets. This an experimental switch and
should not be used by all users. Please read the docs.
ADDED - Support for the ServerPort parameter. Will work the same way
it does for the Borland PostgreSQL driver. It allows to specify the
port number to connect to. This setting is available from D7
ADDED - New Special Parameter: UseQualifiedNames (for PostgreSQL
7.3+). Will show qualified names (Schema + '.' + ObjectName) for
metadata objects. Default: False.
ADDED - New Special Parameter: RestrictedNameSpace (for PostgreSQL
7.3+). It controls how the metadata is retrieved. If
RestrictedNameSpace is True, only objects in the current namespace
search path will be retrieved. If False, all objects will be
retrieved, regardless of which namespace they are in.
ADDED - New Special Parameter: RequireSSL. Will only connect to the
server in SSL mode. Currently will work only under Kylix with SSL
compiled libpq (Windows libpq can't be compiled with SSL).
ADDED - New Special Parameter: ConnectionTimeout (needs libpq 7.3 and
above; included with distribution). Allows to specify connection
timeouts (in seconds). On Delphi 7, the regular driver parameter
[Connection Timeout] can also be used.
ADDED - New Special Parameter: AutoRecover. Will automatically try to
recover the connection if it gets broken. Registered users only.
ADDED - New pgeDriverUtils.pas unit, with easy to use wrappers for
retrieving information from the pgExpress Driver using the new Custom
Info Parameters.
ADDED - New Custom Info: TTY - allows setting file or TTY for optional
debug output from the backend.
ADDED - New Custom Info: BackendPID (read only). Will retrieve the PID
of the process of the connection in the backend server.
ADDED - Support for the eConnOnline ISQLConnection.getOption()
interface (D7+ only). Will return True if the driver is properly
connected to the server, False if not. See the pgeDriverUtils unit for
example usage.
ADDED New Special Param: ShowOID. Will show OID (if existent) as a field on the table, when quering metadata
(ISQLCursor.getFields()).
ADDED The following driver languages are now available:

Belgian 
Hungarian 
Slovak 
French 
Italian
ADDED - Documentation completely revamped. Now DocBook™ is used to
keep the documentation. The HTML, HTML (Chunked) and HTML Help formats
are available.
ADDED - New libpq library, from PostgreSQL v7.32, added to the
distribution.
CHANGED - With the introduction of the hack that allows native use of
Int8 fields, the AsInt8 parameter becomes obsolete. Please check
Native Int8 support for more details.
CHANGED - Code cleanup.
CHANGED - Now, objects (Tables, field names, etc.) with spaces or
other non-standard characters will be quoted automatically even if the
QuoteObjects special param is not in use. D7+ only.
FIXED - With the extra D7 dbExpress™ API implementation, the "parse
error" messages trying to use

CommandType = ctTable
should be gone (D7 specific bug).
FIXED - Solved bug loading pgExpress from DLLs/OCXs/etc. Now it should
be ok to use pgExpress from a ISAPI DLL, for instance.
FIXED - The FETCH cursors were not logging the additional FETCH
commands into the TSQLMonitor as they should (according to the docs),
but just the first one.
FIXED - Fixed bug on string parameters that were already quoted.
FIXED - Fixed Kylix bug that would keep the IDE from being detected.
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For checking the pgExpress page in our web site, and downloading it,
please go to http://www.vitavoom.com/Products/pgExpress_Driver/index.html.

Thanks for your attention.

Best Regards,
Steve Howe
Vita Voom Software
http://www.vitavoom.com