1.0.0.0 Release
===============

The 1.0.0.0 release contains no enhancements and is simply the first
commercial version. See the Changes.txt file for a list of a few bugs
fixed since 0.8.0.0.

0.8.0.0 Release
===============

The 0.8.0.0 release contains a number of bug fixes -
See the Changes.txt file for a detailed list.

This version contains a few enhancements/changes:

[1] Licensing code has been added to the OOB Server. You now need a
    valid license to connect to the OOB Server from a client. No
    license is required for the client. You can obtain licenses by
    running the Easysoft License Administrator, a short cut is
    installed in

Start Menu > Program Files > Easysoft > Easysoft Data Acess 2000 Licensing

    Trial licenses currently last 28 days and have unlimited
    connections.  Full licenses are available by contacting
    sales@easysoft.com.

[2] Support for access control has been added to the OOB Server. Lists
    of allowed and disallowed client addresses may be added via a
    browser pointing at the OOB HTTP Server.

[3] HTTP authentication has been added to some of the OOB HTTP Server
    web pages.

[4] The Flags and Logging configurable parameters may now be specified
    in hexadecimal (prefix with 0x) or decimal (no prefix).

[5] New OOB Server configurable parameters created which define the
    number of times the server will attempt to create a thread/process
    to handle a client connection or obtain a license slot.

[6] Output bound parameters are now fully supported.

0.6.0.0 Release
===============

The 0.6.0.0 beta release is mostly a bug fix release.
See the Changes.txt file for a detailed list.

This version contains only a few enhancements:

[1] The OOB is faster. Retrieving data with bound columns and via
    BlockFetchMode is about 10-20% faster.

[2] The OOB will now search all possible odbc.ini files for the
    requested DSN instead of only the first odbc.ini file found.

[3] The Windows DSN Setup dialogue now contains a combo box for the
    server which lists all unique servers ever specified in DSNs.

[4] On some UNIX platforms, the installer can now install the unixODBC
    Driver Manager if you want it.

[5] The UNIX OOB Server can now run standalone without inetd in which case
    it forks a child for the HTTP Server.

[6] The OOB HTTP Server statistics page automatically refreshes every
    60 seconds.

[7] In the Linux version there is an improved method of detecting the version
    of the C runtime library you are using.

[8] The Windows DSN Setup dialogue contains an improved Test facility.

0.4.0.0 Release
===============

For the 0.4.0.0. beta release of the Easysoft ODBC-ODBC Bridge there
have been a number of bug fixes. See the Changes.txt file for a
detailed list.

This version contains the following significant enhancements:

[1] The previously alpha block-fetch-mode is now at the same status as
    the OOB itself (beta). It is now perfectly safe to use a
    BlockFetchSize of 1 from any application without concern for
    cursors and in fact the OOB is normally faster with
    BlockFetchSize=1 than without block-fetch-mode at all.

[2] The Windows version of the OOB Server now contains an integral
    HTTP server which can be used to:

    [a] display statistics on OOB Server access
    [b] display a list of system DSNs
    [c] show and change the OOB configurable parameters.

[3] All the metadata functions have been speeded up.

[4] The transfer of bound parameters from the client to the server is
    a great deal faster.

[5] Network speedups.

[6] If you have the unixODBC Driver Manager installed then the OOB
    will automatically install itself under unixODBC if you wish.

[7] Support to/from Rexx/SQL.

[8] ODBC fixed and variable length bookmarks are now supported.

[9] Further ODBC 2.0 functions were added (SQLSetScrollOptions and
    SQLGetStmtOption.

[10] ODBC API SQLAllocHandleStd now supported.

[11] There are new DSN attributes, MetaData_ID_Identifier,
     MaxBookMarkSize and Description (see the Changes.txt file).

[12] The OOB Client now contains the SQLDrivers and SQLDataSources APIs
     so it may be used with Perl DBD::ODBC 0.21.

[13] The NT OOB Server may be set up to create a new process to handle each
     connection instead of a thread for each connection (the default).
     This may be used with ODBC drivers that are not thread-safe.

0.2.4.0 Release
===============

For the 0.2.4.0 beta release of the Easysoft ODBC-ODBC Bridge there
have been a number of bug fixes. See the Changes.txt file for a more
detailed list of changes.

This version contains the following significant enhancements:

[1] Compression has been introduced for network data within certain
    limits.

[2] OOB now looks for the odbc.ini file in the users home directory
    and /etc/odbc.ini as well as the current directory. It will also
    accept a .odbc.ini file.  The new order of search is:


    <cwd>odbc.ini
    <cwd>.odbc.ini
    <home>odbc.ini
    <home>.odbc.ini
    /etc/odbc.ini

    We are working towards conformance with unixODBC as well which
    may add much greater flexibility over the DSN definition and setup.

    You should note that these files are not searched sequentially for
    a particular DSN but the OOB picks the first file it finds as the
    only source of DSN definitions.

[3] We have introduced an alpha block-fetch-mode. If BlockFetchSize=n
    (where 0 < n < 100) is added to a DSN entry in the odbc.ini/.odbc.ini
    file then OOB will consider using block-fetch-mode (n=0 or the absence
    of BlockFetchSize implies no block-fetch-mode). If the application
    uses SQLFetch/SQLExtendedFetch without bound columns then OOB will
    attempt to set the RowArraySize/RowSetSize to n, bind all the columns
    and thus retrieve n rows of data at a time. This shows a significant
    speed improvement. However, block-fetch-mode is only applicable if the
    application uses SQLFetch/SQLExtendedFetch-SQLGetData to retrieve the
    data and there are other conditions which prevent block-fetch-mode:

    [a] any bound columns.
    [b] RowArraySize or RowSetSize > 1.
    [c] a bind offset being set.
    [d] anything other than forward-only cursors.
    [e] columns of type SQL_LONGVARBINARY or SQL_LONGVARCHAR.

    block-fetch-mode is alpha code currently and does not work to MS
    SQLServer when accessed by an ODBC 2.0 application because MS
    SQLServer does not return the RowsFetched. This will be remedied
    in future versions of the OOB.

[4] More documentation. We are currently working on full-blown manuals
    for OOB in PDF and HTML formats. When these are available a notice
    will be posted on the news server and to the mailing list.

[5] OOB now works with mxODBC, the Python interface to ODBC.

[6] OOB now works with StarOffice.
