Is Eloquence A.06.xx compatible with previous revisions ?

• HP260 device specifiers (like :F2,6,0) are no longer be supported. This affects programs using the READ LABEL statement with an argument array. In addition the MMSPEC$ AND LDSPEC$ functions will return the volume label instead of the device specifier.

• Single letter data set names may be misunderstood on little endian systems (Intel) under some conditions as data set numbers. In this case the workaround is to append a space or a semicolon to the data set name. This may affect only the Eloquence database library.

• On little endian systems (Intel) unpacking of packed values may be affected. Because the bytes are stored in a different order, unpacking a 32bit value is different that unpacking two 16bit values. This may affect DBINFO mode 102 and 202 results. The solution is to unpack 32bit values.

• The syntax of the database name as passed to DBOPEN is slightly different. The recommended solution is to either simply omit any volume label for the database (it's usually not needed) or to define a separate volume label for the database which points to the database server (eg. VOLUME DB localhost). Since the A.06.xx data base no longer resides in the file system but are connected using the network pathes no longer have any traditional meaning with the A.06.xx data base.

• The database password is ignored in the DBOPEN statement. If your application requires database authorization you should use the new DBLOGON statement.

• A DBDELETE/DBPUT sequence is almost guaranteed to use a different record number. Eloquence versions before usually re-used the same record number. The correct solution to this issue is to either use DBUPDATE mode 2 (new with A.06.20) or use an INDEX instead of a search item.

The following restrictions apply to Eloquence before version A.06.30 on the Linux platform:

• Linux does not support the virtual terminal capabilities ("secondary tasks"), because the eloq program relies on non-portable ioctl() which are not available in the Linux kernel. TASK statements like REQUEST#, RELEASE#, ATTACH# return error 400.

Windows specific restrictions:

• TIO is not supported on the Windows platform.

• Virtual terminal capabilities ("secondary tasks") are not available. TASK statements like REQUEST#, RELEASE#, ATTACH# return error 400.

Additional restrictions apply to the Windows platform with Eloquence before version A.06.20:

• Character oriented I/O is not available on the Windows platform. Programs using FORMs and softkeys must be migrated to dialogs.

• The QUERY utility program is not available on Windows (because character I/O is not suppored).

• The CFORM, MFORM and PFORM utility programs are not available on Windows (because character I/O is not supported).