New version of IBProvider is now available. The new release:

1. Use Unicode Windows API for national alphabet.
2. Has an improved compatibility with SharePoint Designer.
3. Errors in the type converter have been eliminated.

Problems with national characters in Windows have been eliminated

New IBProvider v.3 uses Unicode Windows API. This allows avoiding problems with displaying in non-localized Windows versions:

• in connection dialogs /DataLinks
• when working with temporary files having such symbols in their names or paths

Now, IBProvider v3 is compiled in UNICODE mode. The mode is supported only by platforms Windows NT,XP,Vista,2003,Win7. If you need 32-bit builds of v3 for Win9x, write to our support e-mail and we will send them.

Problems revealed in testing "SharePoint Designer 2007” have been eliminated

1. The initialization property Data Source is now defined as optional. This eliminates certain problems of working with the provider from SharePoint Designer 2007.
2. Error COM objects now support free-threaded applications.

Informativity of the error messages related to data transfer to the provider (v1/v2/v3) has been improved

In case of errors in transformation of IN parameters type or new column values into the type defined by Firebird or Interbase server , the provider saves information on fault reasons in the value status.

Changes in data type convertor (v1/v2/v3)

The revealed problems with DBTYPE_NULL have been eliminated.

Be quick to get a free license for IBProvider Professional

Quite recently, Firebird 2.5 Release Candidate 2 appeared. During regular IBProvider testing with new FB2.5 SuperClassic (RC2), we revealed a problem in the server: page 14194, page type 5 lock conversion denied (215). See detailed description of the problem here .

Possible test case:

Perform repeatedly the following operations with the base in parallel and using independent connections:
1. adding a group of entries with blobs/arrays
2. reading of entries added in p. 1
3. deleting of entries added in p. 1

IBProvider turns 10 years today

• We thank all who have been with us all these years.
• We thank FibPlus, ZStyle Group, Gemini InterBase/Firebird ODBC Driver, Easysoft ODBC-InterBase Driver, IBObjects. Owing to you, we have what to compare IBProvider to; together we make a big deal of promoting Firebird and Intrebase among masses.
• We thank Firebird developers. Owing to you, people have a good free database server.
• We thank our clients. Owing to you, IBProvider has been developed and will be developed.

Changes in IBProvider v.3.0.0.8416

DDL query "COMMENT ON" in Firebird 2.1

COMMENT ON – is a DDL query, which allows setting up description for database objects. It was first introduced in Firebird 2.1 .

When running COMMENT ON DDL query, IBProvider auto_commit_ddl and auto_commit_ddl_level properties are taken into account.

Examples of COMMENT ON for Firebird 2.1

COMMENT ON DATABASE IS 'NASA Database';

COMMENT ON for: DOMAIN, TABLE, VIEW, PROCEDURE, TRIGGER, EXTERNAL FUNCTION, FILTER, EXCEPTION, GENERATOR, SEQUENCE, INDEX, ROLE, CHARACTER SET, COLLATION

COMMENT ON DOMAIN CUSTNO IS 'DOMAIN FOR CUSTOMER NUMBER';

COMMENT ON COLUMN EMPLOYEE.EMP_NO IS 'Employee number'

COMMENT ON PARAMETER add_emp_proj.EMP_NO IS NULL;

Updatable rowsets code revision in IBProvider v.2.6.16.2972

• We revised and enhanced updatable rowsets code.
• We improved testing system for Updatable rowsets.

We recommend upgrading to all clients who use updatable rowsets in IBProvider v2.

All DB servers are supported:

• Interbase: v4.x, v5.x, v6.x, v7.x, v8.x (2007), v9 (2009)
• Firebird: 0.9, 1.0, 1.5.x, 2.1.x, 2.5
• Yaffil

If you use Firebird 2.1 , we recommend you to upgrade to FB 2.1.2 or above (see Bug Tracker, CORE-2008 )..

Stored procedure call command "exec SP" was improved

Sample procedure:

 CREATE PROCEDURE SP_TEST (A INTEGER=2) AS BEGIN ... END 

In previous IBProvider versions exec SP_TEST command transformed to EXECUTE PROCEDURE SP_TEST (see property ado_exec_sp). Call of prepare() for this command worked fine but IN-parameters was not built.

In new IBProvider v.3.0.0.8195 stored procedure call:

exec SP_TEST

will be transformed using IN-parameters list to the following sql-command:

 EXECUTE PROCEDURE SP_TEST(?) 

Åxec SP restriction: Firebird 2.1 supports default-values for SP-parameters but didn't supports SQL_DEFAULT type. Therefore IBProvider disable this feature and didn't interact with default values of SP-params.

In the new IBProvider version, we removed the cause of low performance of IBProvider builds compiled in Visual Studio.

Now these builds work several times faster in both single-threaded and multi-threaded applications.

Now you can see for yourself that the new IBProvider version is much more effective than previous ones..

The figure presents the diagram of the builds testing in our test system:

* X-direction is test time in seconds.

• Red graph - the old version IBProvider v 3.0.0.7798.
• Blue graph - the new version IBProvider v.3.0.0.7866.

The table contains performance results in complex OLE DB test:

Test system description:

We fixed the error related to the queries pool

Load-testing of IBProvider 3.0.0.7866 resulted in the identification and fixing of the error related to the queries pool. The error started to appear in IBProvider 3.0.0.7575. We recommend the owners of this version to upgrade it.

Error description:

In some extremely neglected cases with server performance ( Firebird 2.5 debug build was used), IBProvider used to hang up at obvious call of ADODB.Connection.Close.

New component LCPI.IBP.Samples.RowCursor - the faster substitute for ADODB.Recordset

IBProvider distribution kit now has the new component LCPI.IBP.Samples.RowCursor available both compiled and as source codes. This is a simplified counterpart of ADODB.Recordset component. However, it provides faster access to data due to the following features:

• Instead of EOF/MoveNext, the component provides the unified Fetch method.
• At each reference to Field.Value, ADODB.Recordset makes a query to OLEDB provider and doesn’t cache the obtained data, and RowCursor is able to download data from all entry fields and uses caching.
• IDispatch::Invoke call has been optimized for basic methods. This makes script programs work faster.
• IOpenRowset interface is used, which allows to perform SQL-queries via session object without creation of a command. This feature is supported only in IBProvider v3.

Peculiarities of the component operation:

• ADODB-compatible, uses ADODB.Connection to connect to the database.
• Supports all data types including BLOB, arrays, and binary types.
• By now, only unidirectional data access has been implemented.

Comparative tests on VBScript (IDispatch interface is used) have shown that LCPI.IBP.Samples.RowCursor works up to 30% faster with some operations than ADODB.Recordset..

Source code of the component

The source code of LCPI.IBP.Samples.RowCursor is available in IBProvider distribution kit: (Samples\oledb\sample_com_object)

Examples of the component usage

The examples of the component usage can be found in IBProvider test system, which is included into the distribution kit :

• TestCode\ActiveX\IBP\test_system\tests\test.ibps.row_cursor.01.vbs
• TestCode\ActiveX\IBP\test_system\tests\test.ibps.row_cursor.02.vbs
• TestCode\ActiveX\IBP\test_system\tests\test.ibps.row_cursor.03.vbs
• TestCode\ActiveX\IBP\test_system\prog\prog_perf__02_row_cursor.wsf
• TestCode\ActiveX\IBP\test_system\prog\prog_perf__03.wsf

Changes in the distribution kit

Now IBProvider Professional distribution kit includes 2 new optimized dlls:

• _IBProvider_v1_vc9_i.dll (IBProvider v1);
• _IBProvider_v2_vc9_i.dll (IBProvider v2);

Instead of Free Borland C++ compiler, they are compiled with the new up-to-date compiler from Visual Studio 2008 SP1+. They substituted the following files:

• _IBProvider.dll;
• _IBProvider_v2.dll;

The new installer includes only optimized builds of IBProvider v1 and IBProvider v2:

1. _IBProvider_v1_vc9_i.dll, _IBProvider_v2_vc9_i.dll, (Visual Studio 2008 SP1+ compiler);
2. _IBProvider_v1_vc9_w64_i.dll è _IBProvider_v2_vc9_w64_i.dll (Visual Studio 2008 SP1+ compiler); registered during installation on a 64-bit platform.
3. _IBProvider_i.dll, _IBProvider_v2_i.dll (Free Borland C++ compiler); Ðregistered by the installer..

Optimization (v3)

• temp_file_dir
• rowset_file__sys_flags
• rowset_file__write_block_size
• rowset__memory_usage

Added support of GB18030 charset (v3)

New compiler

Support of tables list getting in Delphi in Client Cursor Engine mode

New version of Microsoft Visual C++ 2005 SP1 Runtime

Performance optimization for repeated queries

• Connection to Firebird and Interbase via MS SQL Linked Server .
• Client Cursor Engine (used in Delphi’s dbGo components ).
• ASP applications.

Queries pool and metadata

Queries pool operation peculiarities

• Prepared query related to a particular SQL command. It is placed to the pool after the client has made the command's object free and started preparation of another query.
• Initiated query enters the pool when the client sets incorrect SQL text and the server refuses to prepare such a query. The initiated query is placed to the pool for further use.

• A query with the appropriate SQL is searched for among the prepared queries. If the prepared query with the same SQL-text has been found, it is returned to the client.
• If a query with the appropriate text has not been found in the pool, initiated queries are used first and then prepared queries being in the pool for over 30 seconds ( stmt_cache__req_life_time property) but related to other SQL-commands.
• If the pool contains only prepared queries related to other commands and added less than 30 seconds ago ( stmt_cache__req_life_time property) or the pool is empty, a new query will be initiated and prepared.

Queries pool settings

• stmt_cache__time - minimum lifetime of an initiated or prepared query. 60 seconds by default. Any query contained in the pool for more than stmt_cache__time seconds will be deleted.
• stmt_cache__req_life_time - minimum lifetime of a prepared query. 30 seconds by default.
• stmt_cache__size - maximum number of resources. 1024 by default.

Queries pool disabling

Queries pool setting via Data Links dialog

1. using special NULL flag
2. using type DBTYPE_NULL
3. using Variant with VT_NULL type

The problem is:

• GUID type is currently not supported by any Firebird and Interbase server, but it is frequently used by different clients (for example, in ADO Entity Framework).
• Boolean type is supported by Interbase starting from 7th version and is not supported by Firebird server. IBProvider can work with this type, but it lacks support from other servers.

• Be based on SMALLINT type for BOOLEAN type.
• Be based on CHAR(16) type with OCTETS charset for GUID type.

New properties enabling emulation of the types

• Columns with a simple type;
• Columns with arrays;
• OUT-parameters with a simple type;
• OUT-parameters with arrays;
• IN-parameters with arrays.

Restrictions for emulation of the types

Emulation of the types in metadata

The problem of connection setting via DataLink (v1,v2,v3) dialog has been fixed

Optimization of the provider’s objects for free threaded COM model (v1,v2,v3)

Finally

Commands cancellation support in Firebird 2.5 and Interbase 6.5

 CREATE OR ALTER PROCEDURE SP_EXEC_DUMMY_COUNTER (n integer) AS BEGIN WHILE(N>0)DO BEGIN N=N-1; END END 

 [Test(Description = "Sample - Command.Cancel")] public void CancelCommand() { using (OleDbConnection con = ConnectionProvider.CreateConnection()) { con.Open(); OleDbTransaction trans = con.BeginTransaction(); cmd.CommandText = "exec SP_EXEC_DUMMY_COUNTER(5000000)"; // call cmd.ExecuteScalar using BackgroundWorker class BackgroundWorker bw = new BackgroundWorker(); bw.DoWork += delegate(object sender, DoWorkEventArgs e) { OleDbCommand cmd1 = e.Argument as OleDbCommand; Console.WriteLine("begin call"); cmd1.ExecuteScalar(); Console.WriteLine("end call"); }; bw.RunWorkerAsync(cmd); //Cancel command after 500 miliseconds System.Threading.Thread.Sleep(500); cmd.Cancel(); // waiting while cancel perform while (bw.IsBusy) { System.Threading.Thread.Sleep(500); } trans.Commit(); } } 

Support of new data type SQL_NULL in Firebird 2.5

 select count(*) from PROJECT where :par_null is NULL 

 dim cn, cmd, rs set cn = wscript.createobject("adodb.connection") call cn.open("Provider=LCPI.IBProvider.3;Password=masterkey;" & _ "Persist Security Info=True;User ID=sysdba; " & _ "Location=localhost:EMPLOYEE.FDB; dbclient_library=fbclient.dll") cn.BeginTrans WScript.Echo "IB Base=" & cn.Properties("IB Base").Value WScript.Echo "IB Client Version=" & cn.Properties("IB Client Version").Value WScript.Echo "Provider Version =" & cn.Properties("Provider Version").Value set cmd = WScript.Createobject("adodb.command") cmd.activeconnection = cn cmd.CommandText = "select count(*) from PROJECT where :par_null is NULL" cmd("par_null").Value = null set rs=cmd.Execute WScript.Echo cstr(rs(0)) cn.CommitTrans cn.Close 

 [Test(Description = "Sample - 'is NULL' operator")] public void ExecIsNullCommand() { using (OleDbConnection con = ConnectionProvider.CreateConnection()) { con.Open(); OleDbTransaction trans = con.BeginTransaction(); OleDbCommand cmd = new OleDbCommand("select (*) from PROJECT where ? is NULL", con, trans); cmd.Parameters.AddWithValue("", null); // if cmd parameter is null then command will return count result Assert.IsTrue((int)cmd.ExecuteScalar() > 0); trans.Commit(); } } 

Access to BLOB fields from ADOExpress (dbGo) bug was fixed

New implementation of result sets cache

• Asynchronous writing (in a separate stream) into own swap file has been implemented.
• Writing into a temporary file has been optimized.

Finally

New Option of working with TIME type via MS SQL Linked Server

Enhanced self-descriptiveness of error messages when working with temporary files.