ANNOUNCE: DBI 1.20

  file: $CPAN/authors/id/T/TI/TIMB/DBI-1.20.tar.gz
  size: 191676 bytes
   md5: 71002061526134cb4e0417e47a6b5b66

Changes in DBI 1.20,    24th August 2001

  WARNING: This release contains two changes that may affect your code.
  : Any code using selectall_hashref(), which was added in March 2001, WILL
  : need to be changed. Any code using fetchall_arrayref() with a non-empty
  : hash slice parameter MAY, in a few rare cases, need to be changed.
  : See the change list below for more information about the changes.
  : See the DBI documentation for a description of current behaviour.

  Changed fetchall_arrayref({ foo=>1, ...}) specification again (sorry):
    The key names of the returned hashes is identical to the letter case of
    the names in the parameter hash, regardless of the L</FetchHashKeyName>
    attribute. The letter case is ignored for matching.
  Changed fetchall_arrayref([...]) array slice syntax specification to
    clarify that the numbers in the array slice are perl index numbers
    (which start at 0) and not column numbers (which start at 1).
  Added { Columns=>... } and { Slice =>... } attributes to selectall_arrayref()
    which is passed to fetchall_arrayref() so it can fetch hashes now.
  Added a { Columns => [...] } attribute to selectcol_arrayref() so that
    the list it returns can be built from more than one column per row.
    Why? Consider my %hash = @{$dbh->selectcol_arrayref($sql,{ Columns=>[1,2]})}
    to return id-value pairs which can be used directly to build a hash.
  Added $hash_ref = $sth->fetchall_hashref( $key_field )
    which returns a ref to a hash with, typically, one element per row.
    $key_field is the name of the field to get the key for each row from.
    The value of the hash for each row is a hash returned by fetchrow_hashref.
  Changed selectall_hashref to return a hash ref (from fetchall_hashref)
    and not an array of hashes as it has since DBI 1.15 (end March 2001).
    WARNING: THIS CHANGE WILL BREAK ANY CODE USING selectall_hashref()!
    Sorry, but I think this is an important regularization of the API.
    To get previous selectall_hashref() behaviour (an array of hash refs)
    change $ary_ref = $dbh->selectall_hashref( $statement, undef, @bind);
        to $ary_ref = $dbh->selectall_arrayref($statement, { Columns=>{} }, @bind);
  Added NAME_lc_hash, NAME_uc_hash, NAME_hash statement handle attributes.
    which return a ref to a hash of field_name => field_index (0..n-1) pairs.
  Fixed select_hash() example thanks to Doug Wilson.
  Removed (unbundled) DBD::ADO and DBD::Multiplex from the DBI distribution.
    The latest versions of those modules are available from CPAN sites.
  Added $dbh->begin_work. This method causes AutoCommit to be turned
    off just until the next commit() or rollback().
    Driver authors: if the DBIcf_BegunWork flag is set when your commit or
    rollback method is called then please turn AutoCommit on and clear the
    DBIcf_BegunWork flag. If you don't then the DBI will but it'll be much
    less efficient and won't handle some error conditions very cleanly.
  Retested on perl 5.4.4, but the DBI won't support 5.4.x much longer.
  Added text to SUPPORT section of the docs:
    For direct DBI and DBD::Oracle support, enhancement, and related work
    I am available for consultancy on standard commercial terms.
  Added text to ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS section of the docs:
    Much of the DBI and DBD::Oracle was developed while I was Technical
    Director (CTO) of the Paul Ingram Group (www.ig.co.uk).  So I'd
    especially like to thank Paul for his generosity and vision in
    supporting this work for many years.

Enjoy!

Tim.