InterBase XE7 Update 1 Overview

InterBase XE7, update 1 went live on Friday and brings with it SQL language enhancements for Change View, and some updates to IBConsole and the availability of InterBase ToGo for XE7

Full details about the update are available on the InterBase DocWiki

Change View Updates

There are 2 major additions to InterBase Change Views in Update 1

• DROP SUBSCRIPTION
• Change View SQL Extensions

Drop Subscription

Prior to update 1 you had to manually drop a subscription via an SQL statement. This was a temporary solution and has now been replaced with the correct SQL syntax

DROP SUBSCRIPTION <subscription name> [RESTRICT | CASCADE]

If you want to remove a subscription that has subscribers you must use the CASCADE command as RESTRICT is the default.

Change View SQL Extensions

InterBase SQL now includes additional language to support querying about the changed state of specific fields via the <FIELD> IS [NOT] {CHANGED | INSERTED | UPDATED | DELETED} clause.

Take the following example.  Lets imagine we have two employee records that have been modified.

• EMP_NO 39 has their DEPT_NO changed
• EMP_NO 109 has their SALARY changed.

At run time you want to select only those that have had a SALARY change prior to processing staff payments. To achieve this first, a Change View subscription is set active (making any SQL statement subsequently run only return the delta for that subscriber). Then SQL where clause then filters further where the SALARY IS UPDATED.

SET SUBSCRIPTION sub_employee_changes at 'MyDeviceID' ACTIVE;
SELECT EMP_NO, DEPT_NO, SALARY FROM EMPLOYEE WHERE SALARY IS UPDATED;

EMP_NO     DEPT_NO           SALARY
--------   ----------        ----------
109        600               75000

Regardless of what you select, the commit will still bring

InterBase IBConsole Updates

InterBase IBConsole has a number of new features, introduced in Update 1 designed to get you started quicker.

• Getting Started with InterBase
• Recent databases window
• Change Views Integration

Getting started with InterBase

When you open IBConsole now you find the new InterBase – Start Here page as a tab at the top of the screen. The start here page includes containing details about Community and featured posts, as well as training videos and direct links to the documentation. While an offline page ships with IBConsole, If you want to see this page now, please visit http://www.embarcadero.com/starthere/interbase/index.html

Having this page online allows us to improve our communication with our customers about critical information and appropriate news.

Recent Databases

There is also a new feature in the bottom left of the screen (see image above or below) enabling you to quickly connect back to the recent database you have been working on.

This windows shows you the database name, server and also the when you last accessed the database via IBConsole.

Change Views

IBConsole also now includes access to work with subscriptions.

InterBase ToGo XE7

InterBase XE7 ToGo trial edition is now available for download – more details to come soon about ToGo.