New ODS version

Databases created with InterBase 2017 use ODS 17.

isql

New RECONNECT command

isql supports a new command, RECONNECT. You can use RECONNECT in isql and SQL scripts, to reconnect to the latest successfully connected database. See RECONNECT for more information.

New -names Command-line Option

isql supports a new command line option, -names <character set name>. You can use this option to specify the character set to use for current database connection. See Command-line Options for more information.

Monitor all online databases

InterBase 2017 provides monitoring of all the online databases in a server with a single connection. Administrators can use the server level statistics to better monitor an instance usage.

Note:This feature is only available with ODS 17 and above.

To use this feature:

Connect to the admin database on the system
Run performance monitoring queries on any TMP$ tables as you would in a single database. You will see cumulative data for all databases that are currently online.

Restrictions

Run UPDATE operations on TMP$DATABASE for SWEEP, FLUSH and RECLAIM for database other than admin
Run UPDATE operations on TMP$TRANSACTIONS for COMMIT and ROLLBACK for database other than admin

Subscriptions reflect ALTER TABLE changes

Subscriptions now reflect changes when a column is added with ALTER TABLE. For example, using the following code FOO_SUBS shows the newly added column BID.

CREATE TABLE FOO (AID INT);
CREATE SUBSCRIPTION FOO_SUBS ON FOO;
INSERT INTO FOO VALUES (1);

ALTER TABLE FOO ADD BID INT;
UPDATE FOO SET BID=2;
COMMIT;

Note: Databases must be ODS 17.

Exclusive Isolation Level

Exclusive Isolation allows transactions to acquire exclusive lock on a target table, and be the only ones able to execute SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE, and DELETE on a table. Refer to Exclusive Isolation Level for more information.

SQL Derived Table Support

InterBase now supports derived tables, a highly used SQL development feature. The derived table syntax enhances the abilities of existing applications to use InterBase as a back end RDMBS. For more information refer to derived tables documentation.

Truncate Table

The Truncate Table command allows users and applications to empty the contents of a database table. This feature is useful for tables where rows require frequent deletion. The Truncate Table command performs faster, requires less I/O, and journals and archives much less information than an equivalent DELETE FROM table command. For more information refer to Truncate Table.

Transaction Wait Time

Specify a period of time transactions wait for acquiring lockable resources. Now is possible to specify a time period that transactions wait for a lockable resource to be acquired. For more information refer to Wait time.

Single Line Comment

You can add a single line comment to a SQL statement using two dashes, for more information and examples refer to Comment for more information.

--This is a comment line.

Other

Change View Performance

In InterBase 2017 Change View retrieval performance has been enhanced.

Note: This performance enhancement only works on ODS 17 databases.

First Sweep of a Restored Database is now a Fast Sweep

With InterBase 2017, any database that you restore is immediately marked as swept, therefore the first sweep of that database is a fast sweep. In order to take advantage of this feature, you need to perform a database restore with InterBase 2017 and use either ODS 15 or ODS 16. See Sweep Interval and Automated Housekeeping for more information about sweeping.

Bug Fixes

See Resolved Defects for a list of bug fixes in InterBase 2017.

System Requirements/Prerequisites

For system requirements to install and run InterBase, see System Requirements/Prerequisites.

What's New in InterBase 2017