See also: FAQ List.
See also Upgrade Notes.
Attributes for Edit (dataTypeHint) and CheckBox (nativeLook) have been added. They are supported for applications displayed using GWC for HTML5.
See also Upgrade Notes.
New ON INSERT, ON APPEND, ON UPDATE and ON DELETE interaction blocks are now allowed in DISPLAY ARRAY dialogs to implement list modification, as an alternative to the traditional INPUT ARRAY dialog. These new triggers simplify the programming of modifiable record lists.
The new find and findnext actions of DISPLAY ARRAY and INPUT ARRAY can be used by the user to search rows where a field value matches the value entered in the find dialog box.
The DISPLAY ARRAY dialog supports now built-in seek feature, to quickly find rows where a field value starts with the character typed by the user.
It is now possible to define a summary line for TABLEs by using AGGREGATE form fields. Values can be automatically computed or can be calculated and displayed by program.
See Aggregate Fields for more details.
The NVL() allows you to write the equivalent of an IF expr IS NOT NULL THEN RETURN expr ELSE RETURN default END IF statement in a single scalar expression.
The IIF() allows you to write the equivalent of an IF bool-expr THEN RETURN true-value ELSE RETURN false-value END IF statement in a single scalar expression.
Genero 2.40 provides the following new database drivers :
The fglcomp compiler now supports SQL ... END SQL blocks for compliance with IBM Informix 4GL.
The Static SQL syntax has been extended to allow the FIRST, LIMIT, SKIP and MIDDLE SELECT projection clause options. These new IDS SELECT options can be used to return a subset of the complete result set. This can for example be used to replace a scroll cursor in a paged DISPLAY ARRAY. Note that the offset and row count parameters of these options can be SQL parameters (i.e. program variables), thus you can prepare such SELECT statement for subsequent execution with different offset and row count values.
The CASE operator is now allowed in Static SQL statements. The syntax of this operator is portable and can be used with most database engines.
The syntax of DDL (Data Definition Language) statements in Static SQL now allows the IF NOT EXISTS and IF EXISTS clauses. These IDS clauses can respectively be used in CREATE and DROP statements, to avoid SQL errors if the database object exists already (CREATE) or does not exist (DROP).
The transaction instruction set has been completed with SAVEPOINT and ROLLBACK WORK TO SAVEPOINT. Note that most database servers support now transaction savepoints, however you should pay attention with some minor differences.
Starting with IBM Informix IDS version 11.50.xC1, you can create shadow
columns on tables, which must not be extracted by the
fgldbsch
tool.
You must use the -sc option to force the extraction of shadow columns.
By default ORACLE DATE values are fetched into CHAR/VARCHAR with time information and are formatted with the ISO style (YYYY-MM-DD hh:mm:ss), but some legacy code can expect to get a DBDATE formatted date in the target variable. A new FGLPROFILE entry parameter has been added to control this conversion:
dbi.database.<dbname>.ora.date.ifxfetch = true/false
You can set this parameter to true, if you need to get the INFORMIX behavior, to fetch DATEs only with the YMD part following the DBDATE environment variable. Note that if you use DATE or DATETIME variables to hold ORACLE DATE values, there is no reason to set this parameter.
See the ORACLE ODI Guide for more details.
A new global program option has been added, OPTIONS SHORT CIRCUIT, to instruct the runtime system to evaluate Boolean expressions by using the short-circuit evaluation (also called minimal evaluation) method. This feature can improve performances and simplify programming.
In prior versions, Genero runtime system supported termcap only. If your UNIX operating system has the ncurses library installed, you can set the INFORMIXTERM environment variable to the value terminfo and use the terminfo database for text terminal mode (FGLGUI=0).
See Configuring your text terminal for more details.
With Genero 2.40 you can now use columns defined with the ROWVERSION data type. Note however that in SQL Server 2005, the CONVERT() function does not properly transform the hexadecimal string to a binary value. Therefore, you should only use ROWVERSION starting with SQL Server 2008.
See also Upgrade Notes.
In this Genero BDL version does not include new features. The development team focused on stability and defects correction.
See also Upgrade Notes.
The major new feature of Genero BDL 2.30 is the ability to implement Drag & Drop in DISPLAY ARRAY for tables or treeviews.
A new form item type called WEBCOMPONENT is provided to integrate external Java-Script-based widgets in your forms.
Genero 2.30 provides the following new database drivers for latest database engine versions:
Genero BDL is now available on Mac OS/X. You need at least Mac OS/X
version 10.5.
The Operating System code for Mac OS/X
10.5 64b is m64x105.
When using the -V option to display version information with FGL command-line tools, you get now also the platform identifier:
$ fglrun -V ... Target lnxlc23 ...
The "Target" line helps to identify the operating system the binary was compiled for. This information can be useful on systems where you can mix 32b and 64b binaries.
Informix SMALLFLOAT and FLOAT can now be stored in Oracle native
BINARY_FLOAT / BINARY_DOUBLE types.
See Oracle Adaptation Guide for more
details.
The FGLPROFILE environment variable now accepts multiple file specification with an operating-system-specific path separator:
FGLPROFILE="/opt/app/etc/license.prf:/opt/app/etc/gui.prf:myprofile.prf"
A new method was added to the ui.Form
built-in class, to make a specific form field visible, showing the
parent containers automatically.
This method can also be used to bring a given folder page to the front, even
if the field is not active (i.e. not driven by a dialog).
The ERROR and MESSAGE instructions get an additional STYLE attribute, to reference a presentation style and define the rendering with font, color, and position.
You can now define a style for TOOLBAR and TOPMENU elements. See Front-End documentation for more details about possible decoration attributes.
As with COMBOBOX, the items of a RADIOGROUP are now filled with the values of the INCLUDE attribute, if specified.
The LOAD/UNLOAD SQL instructions and the base.Channel class now support the "CSV" delimiter specification to read/write files in Comma Separated Value format.
Before version 2.30, the only way to identify what CANVAS item was clicked was to bind a specific function key to the item, from F1 to F255. You can now identify the last clicked item with the drawGetClickedItemId() function of fgldraw.4gl.
The FIELD_TOUCHED() operator and ui.Dialog.getFieldTouched() method accept now a simple star as parameter, in order to check all fields used by the dialog.
In order to identify the target database type, you can use the fgl_db_driver_type() built-in function. This function returns the 3-letter code of the database driver (ifx, ora, ads, db2, ...). See also the db_get_database_type() function in FGLDIR/src/fgldbutil.4gl, this function maps the driver type to a database code.
The JUSTIFY attribute is now supported for all form item types, in order to let you specify both the data justification in the field/cell and the alignment of the table column header.
In order to identify the reason why a database driver cannot be loaded, when setting FGLSQLDEBUG you now get an additional debug message that contains the operating system error message (dlerror())
With 2.30 the fgldbsch tool can now extract database schema from SQLite. However, pay attention to the data types used in SQLite (V 3.6): This database supports some standard type names in the SQL syntax but in reality the types used to store data are very limited. For example, a DATE will be stored as an integer or string (i.e. there is no native DATE type). See SQLite documentation for more details.
The fgldbsch tool will extract the schema according to the original type names used to create the table.
The ui.Dialog.setFieldActive() method is now accepting a list of fields as parameter, with the "dot-asterisk" notation, like the setFieldTouched() method:
CALL DIALOG.setFieldActive("customner.*", FALSE)
CALL DIALOG.setFieldActive("customner.cust_name", TRUE)
Warning: If all fields of the dialog are disabled, the dialog stops.
This new feature is part of the fix for bug #18224.
When modifying a tree during the dialog execution (for example, when implementing dynamic trees with ON EXPAND / ON COLLAPSE triggers), if you use the ui.Dialog.insertRow(), ui.Dialog.deleteRow() or ui.Dialog.deleteAllRows() methods to modify the node list, the internal tree structure was corrupted. You could safely modify directly the program array with array methods, but multi-range selection flags and cell attributes are not synchronized when doing this. Starting with 2.30.02, you can now use the ui.Dialog.insertNode(), ui.Dialog.appendNode() and ui.Dialog.deleteNode() methods to manipulate the node list and get secondary data information synchronized.
Version 2.30.04 re-enables the fglrun.arrayIgnoreRangeError FGLPROFILE entry which was supported by Four Js BDS. This entry can be set to true to force the runtime system to return the first element of an array when the array index is out of bounds. See Arrays for more details.
The version 2.30.04 introduces the new fglrun.mapAnyErrorToError FGLPROFILE entry. This configuration parameter can be set to true to map the default action of the WHENEVER ANY ERROR exceptions to the action defined for the WHENEVER ERROR exception type. See Exceptions for more details.
The major new feature of Genero BDL 2.21 is the support of the 42m module specification with the IMPORT instruction.
Please refer to the following links for more details:
The SPINEDIT widget gets two new attributes to define the range of possible values: VALUEMIN, VALUEMAX.
The following database drivers are supported by Genero version 2.21:
A new driver for Genero db 3.81 is available in version 2.21; the name is dbmads381. This driver no longer scans SQL text for translation, as most common Informix syntax is now supported in Genero db 3.81 when using COMPATIBILITY_MODE=INFORMIX. Skipping the SQL text scanning will improve the performance of your programs.
For more details, see the ODI Adaptation Guide.
This driver is also back-ported in 2.20 versions (starting with 2.20.07).
Version 2.21.00 introduces a new set of database drivers based on the EasySoft SQL Server ODBC client. See the ODI Adaptation Guide for SQL Server for more details about configuration settings.
This driver is also back-ported in 2.20 versions (starting with 2.20.08).
Version 2.21.00 provides PostgreSQL 8.4 support with the new dbmpgs84x driver. This driver converts Informix-style INTERVALs to native PostgreSQL INTERVALs. See the ODI Adaptation Guide for more details.
This driver is also back-ported in 2.20 versions (starting with 2.20.07).
The following new style attributes were added in version 2.21:
With Genero 2.21, the decimal separator key of the numeric keypad does not follow the application settings for numeric data formatting defined by DBMONEY or DBFORMAT. The decimal separator defined by one of these environment variables will be used when pressing the dot key of the numeric keypad.
Image data contained in a BYTE variable can now be displayed automatically by Genero when using a simple DISPLAY BY NAME, DISPLAY TO or when the BYTE variable is used by a dialog instruction. See the ImageList demo, for example, in FGLDIR/demo/Widgets.
Note that the BYTE data must be located in a file (LOCATE IN FILE "path") or temp file (LOCATE IN FILE)
For more details about image fields, see IMAGE field types.
Before 2.21, when using a Paged DISPLAY ARRAY, it was mandatory to provide the total number of rows in the result set, which required a SELECT COUNT(*) before executing the dialog instruction. The dialog now supports an undefined number of rows, with value -1 in the COUNT dialog attribute.
For more details, see Paged DISPLAY ARRAY.
Starting with 2.21 the syntax of the CREATE TABLE and ALTER TABLE Static SQL statements allows the DEFAULT clause in column definitions.
CREATE TABLE item ( num SERIAL, name VARCHAR(50) DEFAULT '<undefined>' NOT NULL )
With 2.21 it is now possible to use TEXT/BYTE data with PostgreSQL with the dbmpgs drivers.
Genero BDL 2.21 provides a new ui.Interface method to let you define the initial size of the MDI container window:
CALL ui.Interface.setSize( "600px", "1000px" )
Version 2.21 supports a new Static SQL syntax for the INSERT statement, which removes the record member defined as SERIAL, SERIAL8 or BIGSERIAL in the schema file:
SCHEMA mydb DEFINE record RECORD LIKE table.* ... INSERT INTO table VALUES record.*
For more details, see Static SQL.
You can enable the digit-based Ming Guo date format by adding the C1 modifier at the end of the value set for the DBDATE environment variable:
$ DBDATE="Y3MD/C1" $ export DBDATE
Notes:
For more details, see Ming Guo date format.
The LOAD statement can fail with error -846 when the input file has a corrupted line (missing or invalid field separator, invalid character set, UNIX/DOS line terminators). Before 2.21.00, you had to check every line of the input file to find the problem. With this new version you can now easily find the invalid line by setting the FGLSQLDEBUG environment variable. The runtime system will display such debug messages with the line number:
| DBI: LOAD: Corrupted data file, check line #12345.
Starting with version 2.21.02, you can instruct the SNC driver to use simple char or wide-char character strings for ODBC, with the following FGLPROFILE entry:
dbi.database.<dbname>.snc.widechar = true/false
See ODI Adaptation Guide for SQL Server for more details.
The formScroll Presentation Style attribute can be set for Windows to control scrollbars display when the Window is larger as the screen.
See also Upgrade Notes.
The major new feature of Genero BDL 2.20 is the Java Interface. This allows you to instantiate and use Java classes from FGL.
Genero BDL 2.20 introduces typical Tree-View widgets with the new TREE container.
See Tree Views for more details.
To simplify migration from Informix 4GL or Four Js BDS, you can now run applications in traditional mode to render windows as simple boxes, as in the WTK front-end. For more details, see Traditional GUI mode. See also the new I4GL migration guide and BDS migration guide
Genero BDL 2.20 introduces a new sort of form field with the PHANTOM
keyword. Phantom fields are used to define the screen-record or
screen-array, but are not used in the LAYOUT section of the form. Phantom
fields are especially useful when implementing a TREE container.
See Phantom Fields for
more details.
DISPLAY ARRAY can now handle multi-row selection.
Version 2.20 introduces three new built-in data types:
Before version 2.20, built-in sort was only available in DISPLAY ARRAY. Now the rows can be sorted during an INPUT ARRAY.
The following database drivers are supported by Genero version 2.20:
A new Action Defaults attribute named "contextMenu" has been added to allow you to specify whether the menu option is visible in the default context menu. The default value is "yes" - the option is visible whenever the action is visible.
It is now possible to hide a function (or report) to the other modules with the new PRIVATE keyword.
The fglcomp compiler has been extended with a new --build-doc option for generating 4gl source documentation.
On UNIX platforms, you can now use man pages for Genero BDL tools like fglcomp and fglform:
$ man fglcomp
Note that on some platforms, you must set the MANPATH environment variable to $FGLDIR/man.
It is now possible to use TEXT/BYTE data with MySQL with the dbmmys drivers.
fglcomp has a new option (fglcomp --timestamp) to write the compilation timestamp to the generated 42m p-code module. If present, the timestamp will be printed when using fglrun -b. Use compilation timestamps only if really needed; every new compiled .42m module will be different, even if the source code has not changed.
Front-End protocol compression can now be disabled with a new FGLPROFILE entry. This is especially useful in fast networks to save processor time. See Front-End Protocol for more details.
To work around conflicts with the Informix database path specification in DBPATH, you can now use the FGLRESOURCEPATH environment variable to specify search paths for program resource files like forms.
New built-in functions are now available to control the part of the text that is selected in the current field:
FGL_DIALOG_GETSELECTIONEND()
FGL_DIALOG_SETSELECTION()
The LAYOUT element of a form definition can now use the IMAGE attribute to define the icon to be used for the parent Window. This is especially useful in a Container-based application, to distinguish child programs inside the container.
The ON ACTION interactive block has been extended with a new INFIELD field-name clause, to automatically enable/disable the action when entering/leaving the specified field.
Following built-in functions have been added for precision math computing with DECIMALs:
When using the DATABASE instruction, you can now define an FGLPROFILE entry specifying a callback function which returns a username and password to be used for the database connection.
A new class method is now available to get the current active dialog: ui.Dialog.getCurrent().
The START REPORT instruction now supports a new clause to specify the XML SAX Document Handler to process XML output with the TO XML HANDLER syntax.
If you have vim 7 installed, you can now use .per and .4gl code completion within your preferred editor.
With fglcomp 2.20 you can use the --build-rdd option to generate a data definition file (.rdd)
When setting the FGLSQLDEBUG environment variable, you get now the SQL command header with SQL command name and 4GL source/line information before executing the underlying ODI driver code. If the driver code crashes or stops the process with an assertion, you can easily identify the last SQL instruction that was executed. Before version 2.20, SQL debug output was printed after the execution of the ODI driver code. If the ODI driver encountered a problem, you could not find what SQL instruction was the reason for the crash.
The following database drivers are supported by Genero version 2.11:
Genero BDL static SQL syntax now supports derived tables and derived column lists in the FROM clause, for example:
SELECT * FROM (SELECT * FROM customers ORDER BY cust_num) AS t(c1,c2,c3,...)
See database server documentation for more details about this SQL feature. Note that Informix 11 does not support the full ANSI SQL 92 specification for derived columns, while other databases like DB2 do. For this reason, fglcomp allows the ANSI standard syntax.
The SET ISOLATION statement now supports the new Informix 11 clauses for the COMMITTED READ option:
SET ISOLATION TO COMMITTED READ [LAST COMMITTED] [RETAIN UPDATE LOCKS]
When connecting to a non-Informix database, the LAST COMMITTED and RETAIN UPDATE LOCKS are ignored; other databases do not support these options, and have the same behavior as when these options are used with Informix 11.
The CAST operator can now be used in static SQL statements:
CAST ( expression AS sql-data-type )
Note that only Informix data types are supported after the AS keyword.
You can now remove line number information with -p noln when preprocessing sources to get a readable output:
fglcomp -E -p noln mymodule.4gl
In order to execute database administration tasks, you can now connect to Oracle as SYSDBA or SYSOPER with the CONNECT instruction:
CONNECT TO "dbname" USER "scott/SYSDBA" USING "tiger"
The ui.ComboBox class has been extended with new methods: getTextOf() and getIndexOf().
A new FGLPROFILE entry has been added to force the current row to be shown automatically after a sort in a table:
Dialog.currentRowVisibleAfterSort = 1
By default, the offset does not change and the current row may disappear from the window. When this new parameter is used, the current row will always be visible. For more details, see Runtime Configuration.
The -b option of fglrun has been extended to recognize headers of pcode modules compiled with older versions of FGL. For more details, see Compiling Programs. Additionally, fglform now writes build information in the 42f files, to identify on the production site what Genero BDL version was used to compile forms.
See also Upgrade Notes.
A new DIALOG instruction handles different parts of a form simultaneously. See also ui.Dialog class.
The TRY/CATCH pseudo statement can handle exceptions raised by the runtime system.
Instructs the DVM that an uncaught exception will be handled by the caller of the function. See Exceptions.
Support for SQL Server 2005 Native Client is now provided.
HBox and VBox containers can now have a splitter. See also Layout Tags.
With the new DOUBLECLICK table attribute, it is now possible to send a specific action when the user double-clicks on a row.
The fgldbsch tool now supports the X conversion code to ignore table columns of a specific type. This is useful for ROWID-like columns such as SQL Server's uniqueidentifier columns.
Before version 2.10, SQL interruption was not supported well for Oracle, SQL Server, DB2 and Genero db databases. SQL interruption is now available with all databases providing an API to cancel a long-running query.
For more details, see SQL Programming.
Error -8083 will be raised if you try to call an object method with a variable that does not reference an object (that contains NULL):
DEFINE x ui.Dialog
-- x is NULL
CALL x.setFieldActive("fieldname",FALSE) -- raises -8083
In previous versions, this raised a fatal NULL pointer error. This exception can now be trapped with WHENEVER ERROR.
The Channel class now provides a method to establish a client socket connection to a server, with the new openClientSocket() method.
For debugging purpose, you can now get the stack trace of the program with the Application.getStackTrace() method.
It is now possible to define a timeout delay for front-end connections with the following FGLPROFILE entry:
gui.connection.timeout = seconds
See Dynamic User Interface for more details.
Before version 2.10, it was only possible to assign a TEXT to a TEXT variable. Now you can assign STRING, CHAR and VARCHAR values to a TEXT variable. For more details about data type conversions, see the Data Conversion Table.
The -s option of fglrun now reports more information about sizes. See Optimization for more details.
The fglrun -e option now supports a comma-separated list of extensions, and -e can be specified multiple times:
fglrun -e ext1,ext2,ext3 -e ext4,ext5 myprogram
See C Extensions for more details.
It is now possible to get an action event when the user modifies the value of a field, with the predefined dialogtouched action.
You can now use the validate="no" action default attribute to prevent data validation when executing an action.
It is now possible to define a minimum width and height for forms with the MINWIDTH, MINHEIGHT attributes.
With the new AUTO APPEND attribute, you can now avoid the automatic creation of a temporary row in INPUT ARRAY.
The parse() and toString() methods are now available for a DomNode object, and a DomDocument object can be created with createFromString().
The TEXT and BYTE data types now support the methods readFile(fileName) and writeFile(fileName).
Some common SQL statements have been added to the static SQL syntax, such as TRUNCATE TABLE, RENAME INDEX, CREATE / ALTER / DROP / RENAME SEQUENCE. See Static SQL Commands.
You can now share global variables between the Genero BDL source and the C Extension, by using the -G option of fglcomp. See Global variables in C Extensions.
It is now possible to customize the runtime system error messages according to the current locale. See Localization for more details.
New debugger commands (ptype).
You can now avoid switching into debug mode with SIGTRAP (Unix) or CTRL-Break (Windows) with the new fglrun.ignoreDebuggerEvent FGLPROFILE entry.
You can now specify a TABINDEX of zero to exclude the form item from the tagging list. See TABINDEX for more details.
It is now possible to specify the SELECT statement producing the unique session
identifier which is used for temporary table names.
See Database vendor specific parameters
for more details.
To emulate Informix temporary tables, you can now set the temptables.emulation
parameter to use GLOBAL TEMPORARY TABLES instead of permanent tables.
See temporary table emulation for more
details.
ESQL/C Compiler.
Warning: Since version 2.32, fesqlc is no longer part of Genero BDL package and is shipped as a separate product.
Support of DB2 V9.x. See DB2 V9.x support.
Support of PostgreSQL 8.2.x. See PostgreSQL V 8.2.x support.
The layout tag syntax in grids has been extended to support an ending tag to get better control of form layout.
The fglcomp compiler now supports a negative form for warning arguments.
When using the RUN command, the ComSpec environment variable is now used under Windows platforms.
See also Upgrade Notes.
Runner now uses shared libraries; you no longer need to link a runner. See Dynamic Runner Architecture.
You can now define your own data type with records or arrays. See User defined types.
New widgets have been added: SLIDER, SPINEDIT, TIMEEDIT.
Database Schema files have been extended for Genero (FIELD item type). See Extended Schema Files.
File management function library provided as loadable extension. See File Management Functions.
Mathematical function library provided as loadable extension. See Math Functions.
The runtime system now shares several static elements among all processes, reducing the memory usage. The shared elements are: Data type definitions, string constants and debug information. For example, when a program defines a string containing a long SQL statement, all Genero processes will share the same string, which is allocated only once.
To declare a C extension module, you must now use the IMPORT instruction at the beginning of a module.
You can now specify the WIDTH and HEIGHT attributes for IMAGE form items, as a replacement for PIXELWIDTH / PIXELHEIGHT.
New commands have been added to the debugger (call, ignore).
You can now specify pseudo selectors such as focus, active, inactive, input, display for fields and odd / even states for table rows.
Some new style attributes were added:
For more details, see Presentation Styles.
It is now possible to specify primary key, foreign key and check constraints in static CREATE TABLE statements:
CREATE TABLE t1 (
col1 INTEGER PRIMARY KEY,
col2 CHAR(2),
col3 DATE,
FOREIGN KEY (col2) REFERENCES t2(col1)
)
In X11 or Windows TSE environments, you can now automatically start up the front-end with FGLPROFILE entries. See Dynamic User Interface for more details.
The Channel class now has an isEof() method to detect end of file.
It is now possible to ignore the CTRL_LOGOFF_EVENT events on Windows platforms.
The fglcomp compiler has new warning flags: See fglcomp for more details.
You can now define a fourth accelerator for an action in actions defaults or in the form files.
It is now possible to specify TTY attributes (COLOR, REVERSE) and conditional
TTY attributes (COLOR WHERE) for all type of fields.
See Form Specification Files and
COLOR WHERE attribute for more details.
A new built-in function has been added to set an environment variable: FGL_SETENV().
The XML reader and writer classes have been extended to properly support markup language entities (like HTML's ).
The fgldbsch tool can now extract database tables with LVARCHAR columns. The LVARCHAR type is converted to VARCHAR2(n>255) in the .sch file.
A class to serialize program variables. See TypeInfo class.
A generic ODBC database driver is now available (code is odc). See Generic ODBC support.
Genero db version 3.4 is now supported. See Genero db support.
PostgreSQL version 8.1 is now supported. See PostgreSQL 8.1 support.
Microsoft SQL Server 2005 is now supported. See SQL Server 2005 support.
New license manager supporting strict licensing. See New license manager.
The base.Channel class now supports a binary mode with the 'b' option, to control CR/LF translation when using DOS files.
Distribution of Datetime.h, Interval.h, loc_t.h header files in FGLDIR/include/f2c.
You can now pre-fetch rows by block with SQL Server to get better performance. Use the following FGLPROFILE entry to specify the maximum number of rows the driver can pre-fetch:
dbi.database.<dbname>.msv.prefetch.rows = <count>
See "Database vendor specific parameters" in Connections for more details.
You can now define a third accelerator for an action in actions defaults or in the form files.
PostgreSQL version 8.0 is now supported (8.0.2 and higher). See PostgreSQL 8.0 support.
Get/Put functions to transfer files from/to the front-end. See File transfer functions.
New debugger commands (watch with condition, whatis).
The preprocessor is now part of the compilers and is always enabled. Preprocessing directives start with an ampersand character (&).
MySQL version 4.1.x is now supported, 3.23 is de-supported. See MySQL 4.1.x support.
Oracle version 10g is now supported. See Oracle 10g support.
The FGL_WIDTH built-in function computes the number of print columns needed to represent a single or multi-byte character.
Interruption handling with SSH port forwarding - only supported with GDC 1.31!
New method ui.Form.setFieldStyle() to set a style for a field.
Improved front-end identification when connecting to GUI client.
See also Upgrade Notes.
Integrated preprocessor allows use of #include and #define/#ifdef macros. See Preprocessor.
New layout rules and form item attributes provide better control of form design. See Layout Enhancements.
Decoration attribute can be defined in a style file to set fonts and colors. See Presentation Styles.
Localization Support (multi-byte character sets). See Localization Support.
Action defaults can be specified in forms. See Action defaults in forms.
New drivers to connect to Sybase Adaptive Server Anywhere V7 and V8.
Support for PostgreSQL 7.4 with parameterized queries. See PostgreSQL 7.4 support.
The fglcomp compiler now adds build information in 42m modules. Compiler version of a 42m module can be checked on site by using the fglrun with the -b option:
$ fglrun -b module.42m 2004-05-17 10:42:05 1.30.2a-620.10 /devel/tests/module.4gl
A MySQL 3.23 driver is now provided for Windows platforms (was previously only provided on Linux).
COMBOBOX fields now support UPSHIFT and DOWNSHIFT attributes, to force character case when QUERYEDITABLE is used.
The fglmkmsg tool now has the same behavior as other tools like fglcomp and fglform: If you give only the source file, the message compiler uses the same file name for the compiled output file, adding the .iem extension.
New BREAKPOINT instruction to stop a program at a given position when using the debugger. It is ignored when not running in debug mode.
New TABLE presentation style attribute highlightCurrentRow, to indicate if the current row must be highlighted in a specific mode. By default, the current row is highlighted during a DISPLAY ARRAY.
New method base.Array.appendElement(), to append an element at the end of a dynamic array.
Compiled Localized String files now have the .42s extension. Previous extension was .4ls.
New assignment operator := has been added
to the language. You can now assign variables in expressions:
IF ( i := (j+1) ) == 2 THEN
The fglcomp compiler now has a new option to
detect non-standard SQL syntax:
fglcomp -W stdsql module.4gl
The fglcomp compiler now converts static SQL updates like:
UPDATE tab SET (c1,c2)=(v1,c2) ...
to a standard syntax:
UPDATE tab SET c1=v1, c2=v2 ...
See also SQL Programming.
The new method ui.Dialog.SetCellAttributes() lets you define colors for each cell of a table.
The ui.Window class provides new methods to create or get a form object.
New method base.StringBuffer.replace(), to replace a sub-string in a string:
CALL s.replace("old","new",2)
Replaces two occurrences of "old" with "new"...
New methods to read/write complete lines in Channel built-in class: readLine() and writeLine().
When using a dynamic array in INPUT ARRAY or DISPLAY ARRAY, the number of rows is defined by the size of the dynamic array. The SET_COUNT() or COUNT attributes are ignored.
The new form field attribute TITLE can be used to specify a table column label with a localized string.
The FGLLDPATH variable is now used during link
New class method ui.Dialog.setDefaultUnbuffered() to set the default for the UNBUFFERED mode.
Action Defaults now applied at element creation by the runtime system. In previous versions this was done dynamically by the front-end. Now, changing an action default node at runtime has no effect on existing elements.
The DATEEDIT field type now supports DBDATE/CENTURY settings and the FORMAT attribute.
New default action 'close' to control Window closing. You can now write the following to control window closing:
ON ACTION closeSee Windows and Forms.
INPUT ARRAY using TABLE container now needs FIELD ORDER FORM attribute to keep tabbing order consistent with visual order of columns.
New instructions ACCEPT INPUT / ACCEPT CONSTRUCT / ACCEPT DISPLAY to validate a dialog by program.
ON ACTION doit ACCEPT INPUT
New dialog attribute ACCEPT / CANCEL to avoid creation of default actions
'accept' and 'cancel'.
See Record Input control
instructions.
New default action 'append' in INPUT ARRAY. Allows you to add a row at the end of the list.
The linker option -O (optimize) is de-supported (was ignored before). You now get a warning if you use this option.
New method ui.Window.createForm() to create an empty form object in order to build forms from scratch at runtime.
TopMenu definition in forms now allows attributes in parenthesis.
The form layout syntax now allows you to specify the real width of form items. By default, BUTTONEDIT, COMBOBOX and DATEEDIT get a real width as follows:
if nbchars>2 : width = nbchars - 2; otherwise width = nbchars(Here nbchars is the number of characters used in the layout definition.)
Now you can specify the real width by using a dash '-' in the tag:
1234567 [f01 - ] width = 5, grid cells used = 7
This works also in hbox tags and screen arrays.
User interface protocol is now controlled with a version number, to check compatibility between the front end and runtime system.
Important remark: Before build 530 the MENU has attached the WINDOW when returning from the BEFORE MENU actions. Since build 530 the WINDOW must exist before the MENU statement. So now the MENU node is available in the BEFORE MENU block, but a WINDOW opened or made CURRENT in the BEFORE MENU block will NOT be used.
Layout GRID now accepts HBox tags to group items horizontally.
RADIOGROUP fields now support the attribute ORIENTATION = { VERTICAL | HORIZONTAL }.
Now, on Windows platforms only, the ix drivers automatically set standard Informix environment variables with ifx_putenv(). Values are taken from the console environment with getenv(). Additional variables can be specified with:
dbi.stdifx.environment.count = n dbi.stdifx.environment.xx = "variable"
The MENU COMMAND clause now generates action names in lowercase. This means, when you define COMMAND "Open", it will bind to all actions views defined with the name 'open'.
New ui.Interface.loadTopMenu() method to load a global topmenu.
The ON CHANGE block is now invoked when the user clicks on a checkbox, radiogroup, or changes the item in a combobox.
New ui.Dialog built-in class available with the DIALOG keyword in all interactive instructions. You can now activate/deactivate fields and actions during a dialog:
INPUT ...
AFTER FIELD field1
CALL DIALOG.setFieldActive("field2",rec.field1 IS NOT NULL)
CALL DIALOG.setActionActive("check",rec.field1 IS NOT NULL)
The ui.Form built-in class has new methods to handle form elements. The hidden attribute is now also managed at the model level, this allows you to hide form fields by name, instead of using the decoration node.
CALL myform.setElementHidden("formonly.field1",2)
CALL myform.setFieldHidden("field1",2) -- prefix is optional
The [] array sub-script operator now returns the sub-array:
DEFINE a2 DYNAMIC ARRAY WITH DIMENSION 2 OF INTEGER LET a2[5,10] = 123 DISPLAY a2.getLength() -- displays 5 DISPLAY a2[5].getLength() -- displays 10
Dynamic arrays are now passed by reference to functions. You can change a dynamic array in a function when it is passed as an argument.
New methods are provided in ui.Interface to control the MDI children.
In INPUT ARRAY, CANCEL INSERT now supported in AFTER INSERT, to remove the new added line when needed.
Toolbar and Topmenu elements now have the hidden attribute so you can create them and hide the options the user is not supposed to see.
Warning: Hiding a toolbar or topmenu option does not prevent the use of the accelerator of the action. Use ui.Dialog.setActionActive()!
New keyword for NEXT FIELD: NEXT FIELD CURRENT. Gives control back to the dialog instruction without moving to another field.
Internationalizes your application in different languages with localized strings.
Localized Strings are now supported. You can identify strings to be localized, with the % notation:
LAYOUT ( TEXT= %"custlist" )
See Localized Strings.
Interactive instructions support the UNBUFFERED mode, to synchronise data model and view automatically. Dialogs can now use the UNBUFFERED attribute, that simplifies INPUT, DISPLAY ARRAY and INPUT ARRAY coding; input/display buffer is no longer used. When you set a variable, the value is automatically displayed to the field. See Unbuffered Dialogs.
DISPLAY ARRAY can now work in buffered mode, to avoid loading a big array when you have a lot of rows to display. The DISPLAY ARRAY instruction now has a new ON FILL BUFFER block that can be used with dynamic arrays to feed the dialog with data rows on demand. See Paged Display Array.
Centralize default attributes for actions in Action Defaults files.
Client side settings are now saved in registry according to the 'name' attribute of UserInterface, which can be set with ui.Interface.setName() method. By default UserInterface.name is not set to the name of the program.
New attribute APPEND ROW = TRUE/FALSE for INPUT ARRAY instruction. Defines if the user is allowed to add rows at the end of the list.
New attribute KEEP CURRENT ROW = TRUE/FALSE for DISPLAY ARRAY and INPUT ARRAY instructions. Defines if the current row must remain highlighted when leaving the dialog. The default is FALSE.
Image and labels now support the UNHIDABLE attribute for table columns.
New report instructions TERMINATE REPORT / EXIT REPORT. Use the EXIT REPORT
statement to terminate a report within a REPORT definition. Both statements
have the following effects:
- Terminate the processing of the current report.
- Delete any intermediate files or temporary tables that were created while
processing the report.
SQL Server driver now supports the TINYINT data type.
You can now define Toolbars in form specification files.
You can now define Topmenus in form specification files.
The FGL_GETVERSION() function returns the internal version number of the runtime system.
The FGL_GETHELP() function returns the message text for a give help number.
The FGL_SET_ARR_CURR() function changes the current row in DISPLAY ARRAY or INPUT ARRAY.
Users can now send an interruption request from the client to the program, to stop long running queries, reports and other BDL procedures, by testing the int_flag variable. The client is using an OOB signal.
There is now a new window style attribute for statusbar layout specification. You can now set statusBarType attribute in the 4st style file for Windows, in order to control the display of status bars.
New OPTIONS clause FIELD ORDER FORM provided to use the TABINDEX attribute to define the field tabbing order. FIELD ORDER FORM can also be used at the dialog level as dialog attribute.
Runtime system has been re-written in pure C language, g++ 3.2 and corresponding gnu libs (libstdc++, libsupc++, ...) are no longer needed; a runner can be linked with a native cc compiler. See Installation and Setup.
Arrays can be passed as parameters, all elements are expanded.
You can now write static SQL statements using ANSI outer joins:
SELECT .. FROM a LEFT OUTER JOIN b ON a.key=b.key
New methods for StringBuffer class: base.StringBuffer.replaceAt() and base.StringBuffer.insertAt().
For COMBOBOX form items, a default ITEMS list is created by fglform when an INCLUDE list is used.
The ON IDLE clause can be used to execute a block of instructions after a timeout.
New logical order of execution for INPUT ARRAY triggers:
New ui.ComboBox class has been added, to configure COMBOBOX fields at runtime.
DISPLAY ARRAY and INPUT ARRAY instructions now automatically use two predefined actions nextrow and prevrow, which allow binding action views for navigation.
FOREACH that raises an error no longer loops infinitely.
Operators equal (= or ==) and not equal (<> or !=) now can be used with records. All members will be compared. If two members are NULL the result of this member comparison results in TRUE.
ON CHANGE field trigger in INPUT and INPUT ARRAY. Same as AFTER FIELD, but only invoked if the value has changed.
New image attribute in UserInterface node, for the program icon. Can be set with ui.Interface.setImage().
New option -W for fglform to show warnings.
LABELs can now have a FORMAT attribute.
New SQLSTATE and SQLERRMESSAGE operators, to give SQL execution information.
You can now call predefined functions in the front-end, by using the
ui.Interface.frontCall()method.
See also Front End Functions.
New ui.Form built-in class to handle forms.
New TABINDEX field attribute to define the tabbing order in forms.
New LSTR operator to get a localized string by name:
DISPLAY LSTR("custno_comment")
New SFMT operator to format strings with parameters:
DISPLAY SFMT("Could not find %1 in %2.",filename,dirname)
New ON ROW CHANGE clause in INPUT ARRAY. This trigger will be executed if at least one value in the row has been modified. The ON ROW CHANGE code is be executed just before the AFTER ROW clause.
The StringTokenizer class can be used to parse strings for tokens.
Linker is now faster when having program modules with a huge number of functions.
CONSTANTs can now be defined as GLOBALs.
MENU instruction now supports ON ACTION clause, to write abstract menus as simple action handlers.
The base.Application class provides an interface to the program properties.
New definition of the interface for Channels, now based on objects:
DEFINE c base.Channel
LET c = base.Channel.create()
CALL c.openFile("data.txt","r")
New 'help' predefined action, to start help viewer for HELP clauses in dialog instructions.
INPUT BY NAME .... HELP 12423 -- Creates action 'help'
The Dynamic User Interface is the major new concept in Genero. It is the basement for the new graphical user interface. See Dynamic User Interface.
Classical interactive instructions such as INPUT, INPUT ARRAY, DISPLAY ARRAY, CONSTRUCT have been extended with new control blocks and control instructions. See Interactive Instruction Extensions.
The language supports now built-in classes, a new object-oriented way to program in BDL. See Built-in Classes.
It is now possible to define constants, as in other languages. See Constant Definitions.
You can now define complex layouts with the extended PER files. See Extended Form Files.
The language now supports dynamic arrays with automatic memory allocation. DISPLAY ARRAY can now work in buffered mode, to avoid to load a big array when you have a lot of rows to display. See Dynamic Arrays.
A set of XML Utilities are provided in the runtime library as built-in classes.
A new STRING data type is now available, to simplify utility function coding.
Defining Window Containers (MDI) is a simple way to group programs.
The new SCHEMA instruction allows you to specific a database schema without having an implicit connection when the program executes.