Zen v15 | What Was New in Zen v15 SP1

Zen v15 introduced system data v2 for data files in the 13.0 format, in which you can access record insert and update time stamps using the column names sys$create and sys$update for Btrieve keys 125 and 124, respectively. In Zen v15 SP1, these keys now have a TIMESTAMP(7) format, YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS.sssssss, with septasecond precision. For more information and a working query example, see Accessing System Data v2 in SQL Engine Reference.

Zen SQL

This release offers the following new Zen SQL capabilities:

• DATEFLOOR is a general-purpose scalar function that rounds a time stamp down to the nearest specified interval. This function is a Zen SQL extension.

• EVERYN is a general-purpose scalar function for rounding time stamps to help group records within regular intervals, such as "every 6 seconds." This value can then be used in a PARTITION BY or GROUP BY to return results comparable to the InfluxDB feature GROUP BY TIME. This function is a Zen SQL extension.

• A new ILIKE operator, which is a case-insensitive version of LIKE. This function is a Zen SQL extension.

• LAG is a standard windowing function that retrieves a value from an earlier row.

Two windowing limitations in Zen v15 have been removed in this release:

• An OVER clause no longer requires a PARTITION BY, thus allowing the entire result set to be a single partition.

• A PARTITION BY column no longer has to be a base column.

For more information, see topics under SELECT in SQL Engine Reference.

Performance Improvements

Zen v15 SP1 offers performance improvements:

• This release can shorten execution times for SQL queries that use indexed columns. To take advantage of this improvement, the data file must be in 13.0 file format and have had its indexes created by a Zen v15 SP1 database engine. Existing files in formats before 13.0 must be rebuilt in Zen v15 SP1 to 13.0. Files already in 13.0 must have all indexes dropped and recreated in Zen v15 SP1.

• Client tracing performance has been improved to be comparable to engine tracing.

Zen 64-bit ODBC DSN Setup

The default size of the buffer used to cache an array fetch has been raised from 8 to 64 KB. Its value can be set anywhere from 1 to 64 KB.

ADO.NET Support

Zen v15 SP1 ADO.NET SDK has the following changes:

• Zen ADO.NET SDK for .NET Framework supports integration of data provider tools with Visual Studio 2022.

• ADO.NET Data Provider 4.5 has added support for .NET 6.

• .NET 6 makes Data Provider 4.5 compatible with .NET 5 and .NET 3.x.

• Samples in the SDK for Data Provider 4.5 have been upgraded to require Visual Studio 2022 and target .NET 6 Framework.

• Support has been added for Microsoft Entity Framework 6.1 and later.

• ADO.NET Data Provider 4.4 is unchanged from Zen v15.

Defragmenting Files with System Data V2

Data files that use system data v2 can now be defragmented.

PSA Renamed ZenSA

Pervasive System Analyzer (PSA) has been renamed Zen System Analyzer (ZenSA), with a corresponding name change to its log file from psa.log to zensa.log.

Customizing Zen Product Configuration During Installation

It is now possible to override default Zen product configuration settings during their installation by creating the file bcfg_install.txt and locating it in the same folder as the ptksetup.ini file. Each product download has a variation of this file with the name bcfg_install_<product>_<lang>.txt. The file includes instructions for its use to automatically configure Zen Server, Client, Workgroup Engine, or Reporting Engine during installation.

Documentation

The documentation for this release has been updated to cover new or changed functionality. It has also been revised for clarity, grammar, spelling, and changes to internet addresses and product names.

Last modified date: 10/31/2023