BASIS International Ltd. announces the release of BBj® 4.01. Having just upgraded their production system to 4.01, BASIS employees report noticeable performance improvement in both the accounting application and ODBC queries to the BASIS database.

4.01 Maintenance Release with a Preview of BBj 5.0 Features

This 4.01 release includes over 200 bug fixes (www.basis.com/devtools/bbj/fixes4.txt) and the following 5.0 preview features:

BASIS Database Management

• BLOB (Binary Large OBject) Field - a database field type without a defined structure, capable of storing large amounts of raw data. This data is stored in binary format without any translation. Any type of data or file can be stored in a BLOB field, especially images, audio and video clips, or entire documents. Storing objects such as customer and product images inside the database ensures that the objects are always available. And with data in one file rather than hundreds or thousands of separate files, data backup and restoration is efficient and convenient.

• Sequence - a new database object that several users can access. This feature automatically generates unique numbers - often used for primary key generation - thereby offloading the work of creating unique values from the application program to the database engine. Various creation parameters such as the starting value and increment by value determine how a sequence increments or decrements. Once the sequence is created, it exposes the nextval and curval pseudo columns to extract the current sequence value and the next value in the sequence.

Language

• FILEOPEN(), FILESAVE() - an additional mode that allows the developer to show the file open and save dialogs for directories as well as files. The dialog is configurable to show files only, directories only, or both files and directories.

Development Tools

• Enhanced BASIS Data File Viewer in the IDE - a new tab that shows a record-based view of any data file given a string template describes the record layout. The developer can display records in a tabular format, showing the field names and values for each record. Entering the appropriate password allows the developer to decrypt encrypted fields and display them on-the-fly. Additionally, the IDE can decrypt and display the entire contents of encrypted files.

Performance and System Administration

• Silent Installation - a silent installation mode that is now supported on all UNIX-based BBj ports, originally available only on Windows. The same .properties file gives the developer extensive control over the installation, including target directory, BLM host, etc.

• Connection Pooling - a method used to optimize the communication between various components of the BBj product suite. Retaining unused connections in a common pool allows subsequent connections to take place instantly without the overhead of creating another socket connection and reestablishing communication between the two components. BBj 5.0 implements connection pooling with:
  • ODBC Driver® - retains the connection to BBj Services for a configurable amount of time after an application closes an ODBC connection. If the application attempts to make another ODBC connection during that time, it reuses the connection to connect the application to the BBj Database instantly.

  • Database - minimizes connection overhead by maintaining and reusing network connections whenever possible.

  • Licensing - retains connections in a pool for a short time after checking in a connection-based (ODBC, JDBC, etc.) license. The pooled connection is reusable if the same user/host/display attempts to make another connection during that time, eliminating the overhead of creating another socket connection.

BASIS to Show Latest BBx®, BBj 5.0, at TechCon2004

BASIS will introduce and demonstrate highlights of BBj 5.0 this November 15-16, at TechCon2004. Presenters will focus on these features, showing how and why BBx developers can integrate 5.0 into their development projects. In addition, BASIS will debut deployment of BBj running on the Mac OS X in both client and server modes, and the improved or new development tools offered in the BASIS IDE such as the Watch Window, Debugger, Resource Builder, Data Dictionary Builder, and BASIS Data File Viewer.

Make plans today to attend TechCon2004. For conference or training information and registration, visit the BASIS TechCon2004 Web site.

Read additional feature information in the BBj Readme, Relnotes.

Download the latest release of BBj today.

Read our previous marketing and technical communiqués for additional information regarding BASIS technology.

For further information, contact your BASIS Sales Representative directly or through the following sales channels:

BBj®, PRO/5®, and Visual PRO/5® are registered trademarks of BASIS International Ltd.