Announcing GT.M V4.4-002 and V4.4-FT01

GT.M V4.4-002 and V4.4-FT01 are now available at Source Forge (x86
GNU/Linux only, at http://sourceforge.net/projects/sanchez-gtm) as
well as the Sanchez FTP site, if you have purchased support from
Sanchez.

With V4.4-002 on UNIX/Linux, the M run-time system is now packaged as
a shared library (libgtmshr.so) and the mumps executable is merely a
wrapper that calls functions in the shared library (e.g., it is now
just 15,833 bytes in size on Linux). The major new functionality that
results from this is that the top level program (that which is called
from the shell), no longer needs to be an M program -- the outer level
can also be a C main() function. Effective V4.4-002, M and C code can
be intermixed in an application. The implications are significant --
for example, it is now possible to use GT.M for dynamic web content
scripting by directly calling M functions from a web or application
server, instead of using a CGI interface. There is a new technical
bulletin (TB5-027) on the call-in functionality.

V4.4-002 also brings a significant rewrite of the journaling and
recovery logic, enhancing both performance and robustness. In
particular, interrupted rollbacks and backward recoveries (e.g.,
recovery from a system that crashes while a recovery from a system
crash is in process) are now much better handled by simply repeating
the rollback or backward recovery command (previously, such a
condition could have required restoring a backup and using forward
recovery). The journaling chapter of the GT.M Administration and
Operations Guide has been rewritten, and is made available as a
technical bulletin (TB5-029) describing the new functionality.

In both the above, backward compatibility has been maintained, while
adding significant new functionality. The online help has been
updated to reflect the current user documentation. On x86 GNU/Linux,
Red Hat 9 is also now supported.

Of course, there are a number of bug fixes. Details are in the
technical bulletin (TB5-028A). The error messages have been updated
(TB5-030).

GT.M V4.4-FT01 is a field test release based on V4.4-002 with two
additional changes on the Linux platform.

The first is that the maximum string size has been increased from 32KB
to 1MB.

The second is a bug fix: if the second argument of a Set $Piece is a
$Select, GT.M will give incorrect results. Certain versions of the
VistA source code work around this problem, but others don't. If you
encounter otherwise unexplained errors with VistA (e.g., undefined
variables), see whether V4.4-FT01 makes the errors go away.

On platforms other than Linux -- in particular, AIX, Tru64 UNIX and
OpenVMS, there are other significant enhancements that are a precursor
of forthcoming functionality on those platforms. Please contact
Sanchez if you are interested in these platforms.

Thank you for your continued interest in GT.M.

Regards
-- Bhaskar

N.B. If all technical bulletins have not hit your download site as of
the time you receive this message, please check back in 24 hours.

K.S. Bhaskar
VP, Database Products
Sanchez Computer Associates, Inc.
40 Valley Stream Parkway
Malvern, PA 19355, USA
+1 (610) 578-4265
k dot bhaskar at sanchez dot com
http://www.sanchez.com
http://www.sanchez-gtm.com

I'm sure everyone is pleased to see continued improvements to GT.M and
continued support for the open source version, but I wanted to be
certain at least one person said - Thank you.