DBD::Informix for DBI

- Written by Alligator Descartes <descarte@mcqueen.com>
- Rewritten by Jonathan Leffler (johnl@informix.com)

18/08/95:       Started.
                Version 0.0.0 (Totally pre-alpha!)

17/10/95:15:39  After a good break of about a month and a half, back in the
                saddle.

                We have data from SELECTs coming back from the database!

                Released 0.20pl0 Disney on ftp.mcqueen.com. Limited hacker
                release.

14/04/96:18:04  Added support for CREATE, DROP, INSERT, UPDATE and DELETE.
                Fixed $DBI::errnum and $DBI::errstr problems
                Fixed Informix.pm to stop reporting MSQL_HOME errors
                Fixed Makefile.PL
                Removed hacky 'build' file and uses Makefile.PL exclusively
                now.

0.21 Release
------------

01/09/95:       Fixed truncated INTEGER bug. Other numerical types still
                screwed. Patch on the way.

0.22 Release
------------

09/09/96:       Added @ary = $drh->func('_ListDBs'); method for getting
                a list of extant databases on the local Informix server.
                (From original code and suggestion by
                  George.Vicherek@Sciatl.COM)

10/09/96:       Fixed all numeric types to return correctly. CHAR fields don't
                quite behave as planned, or perhaps they do. Added 'multicursor'
                test which proves that simultanous multiple cursors fails
                miserably.

0.23 Release
------------

17/09/96:       Added patch for bad column names as show in George Vicherek's
                splendid test case. (extratests/primitives.pl exercises this)

18/09/96:       Wrapped in a patch to Makefile.PL from Christophe Martin.
                Added some other Makefile.PL patches of my own. It should now
                support cleaner builds on HP-UX (spit!) and correctly detect
                when dbdimp.ec has changed.

18/09/96:       Wrapped in patches by Terry Nightingale based on Bill Hailes'
                isqlperl for supporting multi-cursors. Cleaned the type
                handling code again.

0.24 Release
------------

26/09/96:       Patches from Terry arrived. This'll be the 0.25 release. Seems
                to work.

0.25 Release
------------

96-11-01: Control transferred to Jonathan Leffler (johnl@informix.com).
96-11-19: Rewrite of dbdimp.ec more or less complete.  The ESQL/C code
          has been almost totally rewritten; the Perl interface code is
          still similar to what was there previously.  Nearly ready to go
          into release.  5.0x ESQL/C not linking OK on Solaris; not sure
          why.  7.21 is doing fine.
96-11-25: Changes leading up to 0.25b1 release.  Add sqlca record handling
          for statements.  Add use of EXEC IMMEDIATE when feasible.
96-11-26: Feedback from beta testers incorporated into build process.
          Not all problems will be resolved yet.  Version 0.25b2.
96-11-30: Move sqlca handling to connection (not statement).
          Fix blob handling to the extent that SELECT works.  (INSERT and
          UPDATE still need fixing.  INSERT will probably be able to adapt
          the SELECT code to handle blobs.  UPDATE will be very tricky.
          Memory leaks may (probably) occur.
          Upgrade Makefile.PL to always set INFORMIXC when compiling ESQL/C.
96-12-01: Upgrade Makefile.PL to use new Perl scripts esqlcc, esqlsed and
          esqlld to protect platforms such as DEC OSF/1 where the C
          compiler is not used to link shared libraries.  Also, only use
          GCC warnings when DBD_GCC_DEBUG is set in the environment.  Also
          use $(RM_F) to remove the generated C files instead of $(RM) so
          that it works for platforms like SCO where $(RM) is not defined
          by MAKE automatically.
96-12-02: Release 0.25b3 with some work incomplete.  Update Makefile.PL so
          that "make perl" works.  Note that INSERT and blobs does not work!
96-12-03: Update Makefile.PL (and esqlcc) to use '$(FULLPERL) esqlcc' etc.
          Rename the extratests directory to t for automatic testing as
          documented in the Test::Harness module.  Create (and document)
          InformixTest.pm to help with the test programs.  Note that
          test.pl does not exploit it all that much because it has to test
          some more basic stuff.  However, the other tests do use it.
          NB: ESQL/C 5.00 and 5.01 have a bug in the SQL descriptor code
          which means that using 'char *' as a type restricts you to precisely
          3 characters of data.  This is fixed in 5.02 and above.  Dammit!
96-12-04: Update Makefile.PL to overcome Dave Thomas problems on DEC OSF
          (version 25.13 sent to him for approval, and comments incorporated
          into version 25.14 .. 25.16).  Also finish converting the tests in
          the t directory.
96-12-05: More revisions to Makefile.PL, some putting teeth into the
          prerequisites, some more dealing with DEC OSF (there's a compiler
          flag to say set __STDC__, as there usually is).  Rename nm_* inside
          the imp_sth structure.  Redefine the type of imp_sth->blobs and
          upgrade code to match.  Test t/blob03.t passes; some work to do to
          get t/blob04.t to pass.  Improved README.  Etc.
96-12-09: Finally worked out how SQL descriptors handle blobs.  Code now works
          safely with blobs located in memory.  However, with ESQL/C 7.21.UC1
          on Solaris 2.4, there is a memory leak corresponding to the space
          allocated for the blobs for a given statement unless you manually
          release it before deallocating the descriptor.  This is nasty, and
          may not be true of other versions.  Added test t/blob02.t.  Note
          that t/blob03.t uses the data created by t/blob02.t, so it must be
          run (reasonably successfully) before t/blob03.t can be run
          successfully.  Use decsci.[ch] code (plus auxilliary function
          decgen() inside dbdimp.ec) to format FLOAT, SMALLFLOAT, DECIMAL and
          MONEY quantities.  The 5.0x and 6.0x libraries do not always handle
          these gracefully.

With Thanks to the DBD::Informix v0.25 Testing Team:
John Wang - wangj@aromat.com
Del Simmons - del@infoman.com
Dave Thomas - dave@thomases.com
Oyvind Gjerstad - ogj@tglobe1.tollpost.no
Jeff Rowe - j.p.rowe@larc.nasa.gov
Rodlyn Joseph - bluephi@sharpcomm.com
Duc Nguyen - dhn@benvolio.nova.att.com
Serge Davidov - serge@fcmc.com

96-12-10: Handle 5.00 and 5.01 by supplying actual array names to GET
          DESCRIPTOR, thus bypassing the bug.  Note that it does affect 5.01
          too; edited esql5_00.h to match.  Patch sent to Jeff Rowe who
          confirms it works.  (Note to JL: 5.01 found on Godzilla; what is
          installed as 5.00 is actually 4.10 ESQL/C).  Version 0.25p1 created
          but not released officially or publicly.
96-12-13: Update Makefile.PL to help the AIX people.  Version 0.25p2 created
          but only the Makefile.PL changes sent to the dbi-users@fugue.com so
          not released officially, though available publicly.

0.26 Release
------------
96-12-18: Fix bug in patched Makefile.PL (need space before __H_LOCALEDEF).
          Updated dbd_ix_setconnection() to take connection information, and
          updated code in dbdimp.ec to ensure that the correct connection is
          set before starting work.  Simple testing more or less works.  Some
          more major revisions, such as not passing SV* to most of the code in
          dbdimp.ec (let the Informix.c code convert as much as possible to
          plain C).  Rework the 'do' function to completely override
          DBI::_::db::do, avoiding problems with the rows() function.
96-12-19: Add install instructions to README file after Wes Gamble
          (wgamble@informix.com) pointed out this omission.  Add extensive
          notes to Informix.PM on transaction management.  Implement most
          of what those notes say (WITH HOLD cursors omitted at the
          moment).
96-12-20: Get transaction stuff to work, more or less, with AutoCommit On or
          Off, in MODE ANSI or Logged databases.  Tests t/transact0[123].t
          added, but these still need to be more formally verified.  They
          pass with OnLine and any type of database.  Clean up various tests
          so that they pass on MODE ANSI databases.  Add select_some_data
          and select_zero_data functions to InformixTest.pm. Etc.  Version
          0.26a1.  Use bug-fixed version of decsci.c (ouch!).
97-01-09: Updated copyright messages.  Improved documentation.  Fixed tests.
          Add $dbh->{InTransaction} query.  Clean up dbdimp.ec so that
          AutoCommit works better. Etc.  Version 0.26a2.
97-01-12: Use cursors WITH HOLD when a MODE ANSI database is working with
          AutoCommit set On.  Make transaction tests more sensitive.
          This release never made public.

0.50 Release
------------
97-01-12: Version bumped to 0.50p1, for consistency with documented intentions
          when 0.25 release was made.
97-01-23: Fix InformixTest.pm so it works with perldoc.  It seems that perldoc
          does not like lines which start with a single quote.  Thanks to
          Jason Bodnar (jcbodnar@mail.utexas.edu) for pointing this problem
          out. Add and use stmt_err to report errors or warnings, and document
          it.
97-02-13: Version 0.50 released.  Handle null database names on connect so
          that CREATE DATABASE, etc, can be used.  ESQL/C 5.0x has to handle
          this by doing nothing (successfully) in dbd_ix_database(), but the
          disconnect code needs to know that there is no database so it
          doesn't try to close the current database.  This requires interface
          changes for dbd_ix_database() and dbd_ix_connect().  Add testing.
          Thanks to Serge Davidov (serge@fcmc.com) for finding the problem.
          You can also use DBI->connect('@server','','','Informix'), which
          actually worked in v0.25.  DBD::Informix is still confused, in
          general, by statements such as CLOSE DATABASE.

0.51 Release
------------
97-02-25: Version bumped to 0.51.  Nulls on SELECT handled correctly.  Test
          nulls01.t added.  Notes on access to the SQLCA record added to the
          POD in Informix.PM, after this omission was noted by Torsten Stein
          (stein@cls.de).
97-02-26: Add $sth->{CursorName} and $dbh->{ConnectionName}.  Add test
          updcursor.t to check that you can do 'UPDATE ... WHERE CURRENT OF'.
          Add ".DEFAULT." as an explicit way of making the default connection.

--------------

Jonathan Leffler (johnl@informix.com)
@(#)ChangeLog	51.2 97/02/26 12:08:36
