What Was New in Zen v14 SP1

This General Availability release of Zen v14 SP1, version 14.10, offered the following new features and changes:

This document may be updated after the release. Download the latest version from the Actian website.

This release increases the scale available for TIMESTAMP and adds support for the new data type TIMESTAMP2.

You can now specify a scale for a TIMESTAMP column from 0 (no fractional seconds) to 7 (10-7 septaseconds). When you use explicit scale, such as TIMESTAMP(3), the storage and the default display will match. TIMESTAMP columns without explicit scale continue with their legacy behavior, which is to store septaseconds but to display with millisecond precision. The ZenCC mechanism for displaying time values is fixed at milliseconds. For more information, see TIMESTAMP.

TIMESTAMP2 tracks time in nanoseconds for file formats 9.5 and 13.0. In SQL applications, you can use this data type to stamp a record with the current time and date of the last update to the record. Values are stored in 8-byte unsigned values with a default scale of 9, representing nanoseconds (10-9 second), to match the AUTOTIMESTAMP data type. As with TIMESTAMP, when you create a SQL column you can choose the scale, which for this type ranges from zero to 9. For more information, see TIMESTAMP2.

The AUTOTIMESTAMP data type is now supported in SQL in addition to its Btrieve key type.

This release introduces new scalar functions for time and date:

The deu tool runs at a command prompt to export the results of a SQL SELECT statement to a delimited text file. It offers a range of code pages for the output.

This release introduces the following extended delete operations:

These operations behave the same as existing Get and Step Extended operations, moving forward and backward through a data file and using filter terms to match records, which the database engine attempts to delete. For more information, see Btrieve API Guide.

SQL statements that use this variable return a value based on the Zen server engine, reporting engine, or workgroup engine to which the session is connected.

This new feature is documented under Global Variables in SQL Engine Reference.

Zen Core SDK now includes support for using SQL on Android and iOS platforms.

The following DSN configurations now offer an option to set a read-only DSN:

For information about the behavior of read-only DSNs, see the topic Read-Only under the Zen engine DSN setup instructions in ODBC Guide.

When you use the -stat option with the butil utility at a command prompt, the information returned now includes whether owner name protection is used, including encryption level.

The -cache and -purge options for butil now support an @listFile alternative to the sourceFile input.

If the MicroKernel Engine cannot open a file for writing, then the writable mode returns an error. One common scenario is a file without file system write permission. The status code returned is 88, “The application encountered an incompatible mode error.”

This release adds JDBC 4.1 to its support for the Java Database Connectivity API.

This release adds RADStudio 10.3 Rio to its support for the PSQL Direct Access Components (PDAC) API, a set of Visual Component Library (VCL) components that allow direct access to Zen database engines from within the Embarcadero Delphi and C++ Builder Environments.

SYSDATETIME()	Returns the current local date and time as a time stamp value in the format 'yyyy-mm-dd hh:mm:ss.nnnnnnn'. Uses the local clock time by default. Precision is septaseconds on Windows and microseconds on all other platforms, with the last digit always zero on all other platforms. If SET TIME ZONE has been called, then the value of SYSDATETIME() is determined by calculating UTC time and date from the system clock and operating system locale setting, then adding the offset value from SET TIME ZONE.
SYSDATETIMEOFFSET()	Returns the current date and time along with the hour and minute offset between the current time zone and UTC of the computer on which the Zen database engine is running. Daylight saving time (DST) is accounted for. The default format returned is YYYY-MM-DD hh:mm:ss[.nnnnnnn] [<+ \| ->hh:mm]. A plus sign indicates that the current time zone is ahead of the UTC. A minus sign indicates that the current time zone is behind the UTC.
SYSUTCDATETIME()	Returns the current local date and time as a time stamp value in the format 'yyyy-mm-dd hh:mm:ss.nnnnnnn'. Uses the local clock time by default. Precision is septaseconds on Windows and microseconds on all other platforms, with the last digit always zero on all other platforms. If SET TIME ZONE has been called, then the value of SYSUTCDATETIME() is determined by calculating UTC time and date from the system clock and operating system locale setting.