BDL 2.10 new features

Features added in 2.10 releases of the Genero Business Development Language.

Important:

This version of Genero BDL is desupported, use a more recent version of the product.

Important:

This page covers only those new features introduced with the Genero BDL version specified in the page title. Check prior new features pages if you migrate from an earlier version. Make sure to also read the upgrade guide corresponding to this Genero version.

Corresponding upgrade guide: BDL 2.10 upgrade guide.

Prior new features guide: BDL 2.02 new features.

Table 1. Core language
Overview	Reference
The `TRY/CATCH` block can handle exceptions raised by the runtime system.	See TRY - CATCH block.
`WHENEVER ... RAISE` instructs the runtime system that an uncaught exception will be handled by the caller of the function.	See WHENEVER instruction.
NULL point exceptions can now be trapped as other exceptions: Error -8083 will be raised if you try to call an object method with a variable that does not reference an object (that contains NULL): `DEFINE x ui.Dialog -- x is NULL CALL x.setFieldActive("fieldname",FALSE) -- raises -8083` In previous versions, the above code raised a fatal NULL pointer error.	See OOP support.
The `base.Channel` class now provides a method to establish a client socket connection to a server, with the new `openClientSocket()` method.	See base.Channel.openClientSocket
For debugging purpose, get the stack trace of the program with the `base.Application.getStackTrace()` method.	See base.Application.getStackTrace.
Before version 2.10, it was only possible to assign a `TEXT` to a `TEXT` variable. It is now possible to assign `STRING`, `CHAR` and `VARCHAR` values to a `TEXT` variable.	See Type conversions.
The fglrun `-e` option now supports a comma-separated list of extensions, and `-e` can be specified multiple times: `fglrun -e ext1,ext2,ext3 -e ext4,ext5 myprogram`	See Loading C-Extensions at runtime.
Get an action event when the user modifies the value of a field, with the predefined `dialogtouched` action, to detect first user modifications.	See Immediate detection of user changes.
The `parse()` and `toString()` methods are now available for a `om.DomNode` object.	See The DomNode class.
A `om.DomDocument` object can be created with `createFromString()`.	See The DomDocument class.
The `TEXT` and `BYTE` data types now support the methods `readFile(fileName)` and `writeFile(fileName)`.	See BYTE, TEXT.

Table 2. User interface
Overview	Reference
The new `DIALOG` instruction handles different parts of a form simultaneously.	See Multiple dialogs (DIALOG - inside functions).
`HBox` and `VBox` containers can now have a splitter.	See SPLITTER attribute.
The new `DOUBLECLICK` table allows to configure the action to be sent when the user double-clicks on a row.	See DOUBLECLICK attribute.
Define a timeout delay for front-end connections with the following FGLPROFILE entry: `gui.connection.timeout = seconds`	See GUI connection timeout.
Before version 2.10, it was only possible to assign a `TEXT` to a `TEXT` variable. It is now possible to assign `STRING`, `CHAR` and `VARCHAR` values to a `TEXT` variable.	See Type conversions.
Presentation styles have been extended: The style attribute "`position`" for Windows™ can be set to "`previous`". `TEXTEDIT` now has the "`textSyntaxHighlight`" attribute (value can be "`per`", more to come...). All widgets can now use the "`localAccelerators`" global style attribute to interpret standard navigation and editor keys (like Home/End) without firing an action that uses the same keys as accelerators.	See Presentation styles.
Get an action event when the user modifies the value of a field, with the predefined `dialogtouched` action, to detect first user modifications.	See Immediate detection of user changes.
Use the `validate="no"` action default attribute to prevent data validation when executing an action.	See Data validation at action invocation.
Define a minimum width and height for forms with the `MINWIDTH`, `MINHEIGHT` attributes.	See MINHEIGHT attribute, MINWIDTH attribute.
In `INPUT ARRAY`, avoid the automatic creation of a temporary row with the new `AUTO APPEND = FALSE` dialog attribute.	See Appending rows in INPUT ARRAY.

Table 3. SQL databases
Overview	Reference
Support for SQL Server 2008 (using SQL Server 2005 Native Client)	See Microsoft SQL Server.
The `fgldbsch` tool now supports the `X` conversion code to ignore table columns of a specific type. This is useful for ROWID-like columns such as SQL Server's `uniqueidentifier` columns.	See Data type conversion control.
Before version 2.10, SQL interruption was not supported well for some databases. SQL interruption is now available with all databases providing an API to cancel a long-running query.	See Using SQL interruption.

Table 4. Web Services
Overview	Reference
The Genero Web Services XML library (`xml`) has been added. This library provides classes and methods to perform: XML manipulation with a W3C Document Object Model (DOM) API XML manipulation with a Streaming API for XML (StAX) Validation of DOM documents against XML Schemas Serialization of BDL variables in XML Creation of XML Schemas corresponding to BDL variables	See The xml package.
New classes have been added to the Genero Web Services COM library to facilitate low-level XML and TEXT over HTTP and TCP Client communication (`com`). The Genero Web Services `com` library provides two classes, `HttpRequest` and `HttpResponse`, to perform low-level XML and TEXT over HTTP communications on the client side. Two more classes, `TcpRequest` and `TcpResponse`, are also provided to perform low-level XML and TEXT over TCP communications on the client side. This allows communication between applications using the core Web technology, taking advantage of the large installed base of tools that can process XML delivered plainly over HTTP or TCP, as well as SOAP over HTTP. Specific streaming methods are also available to improve the communication by sending XML to the network even if the serialization process is not yet finished, as well as for the deserialization process. It is also possible to prevent asynchronous requests from being blocked when waiting for a response, and to perform specific HTTP form encoded requests as specified in HTML4 or XForms1.0.	See The HttpRequest class, The HttpResponse class, The TcpResponse class and The TcpResponse class.
The `fglwsdl` tool now generates low-level and asynchronous client stubs from the WSDL. The `fglwsdl` tool generates all client stubs with the low-level `HttpRequest` and `HttpResponse` classes of the `com` library to perform HTTP communications. The low-level generated stub also takes advantage of the streaming methods, if Document Style or RPC-Literal web services are performed. Streaming is not possible with RPC-Encoded web services, as nodes can have references to other nodes in the XML document, requiring the entire document in memory to perform serialization or deserialization. The `fglwsdl` tool also generates two new BDL functions for each operation of a Web service. These two functions enable you to perform asynchronous web service operation calls by first sending the request, and retrieving the corresponding response later in the application. This allows you to prevent a BDL application from being blocked if the response of a web service operation takes a certain amount of time.	See The HttpRequest class, The HttpResponse class, and fglwsdl.
Genero Web Services provides an enhanced `fglwsdl` tool that is able to generate Genero data types from a XML schema. The data types can then be used in your application to be serialized or deserialized in XML. The resulting XML is a valid instance of that XML schema, and validation with a XML validator will succeed.	See fglwsdl.