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                    *          DB/C Newsletter          *
                    *            August 2003            *
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                              News and Comments

     DB/C DX 13.0 has been released.  Thank you to all who have helped with
beta testing.  The result is worth all the effort.  This month's article
describes the new features in DB/C DX 13.0.

     We are currently working on providing a UNIX ODBC driver for DB/C FS.
If you are interested in this feature and would like to help with testing,
contact us at support@dbcsoftware.com.

                                                     don.wills@dbcsoftware.com

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                                DB/C DX 13.0

     DB/C DX 13.0 contains many new features - several small ones and one
major new feature.  The major new feature is the DB/C DX Development Toolkit
or DDT.  DDT is a GUI-based integrated development environment that replaces
FDE. (FDE has been part of DB/C DX for Windows for several releases.)  One
important difference between DDT and FDE is that DDT is available for all
platforms, not just Windows.  That is, you can use DDT in LINUX and other
UNIXs to do development of DB/C DX programs.  Here are DDT's highlights:

  . text editing of DB/C DX source programs with syntax coloring
  . graphical editing of GUI elements of DB/C DX source programs
  . automatic compilation and source editor integration of compiler errors
  . runtime execution integration with source level debugging
  . integration with various source code control systems

     As has been noted in previous newsletter articles, DDT is based on
Eclipse, a popular open source platform for programmer development tools.
To install DDT, you first install Eclipse.  After Eclipse is installed,
DDT can then be installed into Eclipse as a feature.  Other Eclipse-based
features can also be installed so that all of your development activities
take place inside Eclipse.  It's a very productive way to do application
development!

    Here is a list of some of the other new features in DB/C DX 13.0:

  . TRIM is a new verb and unary operator in expressions that removes
    leading and trailing white space from character variables and literals
  . ROTATE is a new verb that operates on the 32 bits of INTEGER variables
  . The AND, OR, XOR and NOT verbs operate on 32 bit INTEGER variables
  . The CLOCK verb supports UTC (GMT) time, timestamps, offset and timezones
  . Truncation in an expression with character concatenation gives an E 566
  . The REFORMAT -FP option allows conditional text insertion into the output
  . HELP text (Win32 calls it "tip text") is available for most controls
  . Toolbars can contain DROPBOX controls 
  . Tab pages can be programmatically changed without changing keyboard focus
  . The FEDITMASK can be changed dynamically with a CHANGE statement
  . The TREE control can contain icons
  . A TREE control doesn't move unless necessary when a CHANGE SELECT is done
  . A centered, variable text control (CVTEXT) is available
  . The WSIZ message sent when a window is resized no longer includes
    the status bar area.  This is different than in DB/C DX 12.1.
 
     The only new features that will affect existing programs are the WSIZ
message returning a different value and the E 566 untrapable error.

     The E 566 error occurs in DB/C DX 13 whenever an intermediate value
or the result value of a character expression is truncated because of the
limit of 256 characters for character work variables in expressions.  This
can occur with the concatenation (+), CHOP, TRIM or SQUEEZE operators.
If you want the runtime to work as in DB/C DX 12 and before (that is, the
truncation occurs without any indication), specify dbcdx.cxcompat=old in
the dbcdx.cfg file.

     Most of the other new features are self-explanatory.  The addition
of the ROTATE verb and the changes to AND, OR, XOR and NOT are useful in
calculations made in encryption and authentication algorithms (like MD5
and Blowfish) which can now be accomplished in DB/C DX.  A future DB/C
Newsletter will provide examples of the use of these new features. 

     In addition to the new features, DB/C DX 13.0 is now available for
Mac OS X.  Note that the Mac OS X version of DB/C DX is just like other
UNIX versions of DB/C DX in that the runtime provides only character mode
support.  If you want to run GUI DB/C DX programs in Mac OS X or other
versions of LINUX/UNIX, you need to run the Java version of Smart Client.


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                          DB/C DX Class Schedule

   Class:     DB/C DX Fundamentals
   Date:      September 8-10, 2003
   Location:  Oak Brook, Illinois

For information, send email to admin@dbcsoftware.com.


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