VOSS 3.1

Version 3.150.03 fixes an initialization fault in 3.150.02.

Download 3.150.03 here.

John

Version 3.150 improves administrative integrity safeguards; in particular, each most recent transaction commit timestamp is now stored in new header records in each of the files which comprise a virtual space (.vs1, .vs2, .tsq, .tlb), in addition to the existing .vot header record. Log-on is blocked if these do not match, safeguarding the virtual space against accidental mixups with the files.

The new header records are automatically added to existing virtual space files, (.vs1 or .vs2) and .tsq on the first garbage collector flip, (.vs2 or .vs1) on the second flip. The transaction log archive (which never needs garbage-collection, as nothing is ever deleted from it) is ‘converted’ when it is next replaced by a new empty one prior to routine backup (the transaction log must know the timestamp of the backup which it may be called upon to roll forward in crash recovery).

Note that virtual spaces which have been flipped at least once by version 3.150 cannot thereafter be used with any earlier version of VOSS, as earlier versions do not expect the header records to be there. Similarly, virtual spaces created by version 3.150 cannot be used with any earlier release of VOSS for the same reason.

There is a bug fix in VOSortedDictionary>>forKeyMatches: (which matches String keys with wild * and # characters) replacing the erroneous case-sensitive #= comparison by #voEQ: which looks at the VOSSRoot>>caseSensitiveKeys global variable to decide what to do.

In this area, it has been suggested that it would be useful to give each instance of VOSortedDictionary (and therefore its subclass VirtualDictionary, and by extension, the VOAutoDictionary components of VirtualDictionarySet etc) its own #caseSensitiveKeys attribute. If you have views on this please let me know.

VOSS 3.150.02 is available for download here.

John