XPO - Firebird 3.0 Server and other new DB feature Support

Extended database support

As you may already know, XPO (our object-relational mapping library) supports more than a dozen database engines (including SQL Server, Oracle and various Open Source products). As part of our ongoing commitment to support the needs of those using XPO, we've updated it with the following database specific features:

Firebird

In addition to SQL Server, MySql, PostgreSQL and SQLite, XPO for .NET Core / .NET Standard 2.0 supports ADO.NET provider 5.11+ for Firebird starting with v17.2.5. As we noted in our introductory post, the lack of support for other providers is not an XPO limitation - as soon as RDBMS vendors begin supporting .NET Standard 2.0, we will test XPO with these RDBMS providers and add them to our supported list.

Support for Firebird 3.0 server and the client ADO.NET data provider (FirebirdSql.Data.FirebirdClient 5.8.0) will be available in v18.1. We will also support the Substring criteria function that was missing before.

PostgreSql

XPO currently supports Npgsql versions up to v2.0.11, and the runtime System.Guid type maps to the CHAR(36) column. The Npgsql library supports the UUID column type, a more natural solution for a primary key, starting with v3.1.0. XPO support for this latest Npgsql version and its features is available in v18.1. If you do not want to migrate your existing database, set the static PostgreSqlConnectionProvider.GlobalUseLegacyGuidSupport flag to True to inform XPO that System.Guid properties should be mapped to CHAR(36) as before.

SQL Server

Support for the Row Level Security and Dynamic Data Masking feature of MS SQL Server 2016 and SQL Azure is available starting with v17.2.3.

Oracle

Support for Oracle 12c (both 12.1 and 12.2) version is available starting with v17.2.3.

SQL Anywhere

We have added support for fetching of table lists from the ASA database in v18.1 (it requires special privileges for the query). This was helpful for a specific Report Server scenario. Did you know that various DevExpress products besides XAF use XPO core features for data access?

WCF Data Services & OData v4 client

The IsOutlookIntervalToday and a dozen or so other IsOutlookXXX criteria functions work with grid data sources for Server and Instant Feedback Modes starting with v17.2.3. These are the WcfInstantFeedbackSource / WcfServerModeSource and ODataServerModeSource / ODataInstantFeedbackSource components from the DevExpress Data library.

Your feedback counts

What do you think of the features above? Have you built XPO apps on the .NET Core platform so far? As always, we will be more than happy to provide v18.1 early access preview builds to users who want to ensure that we have covered their needs in the best possible way. Contact me at dennis@devexpress.com or use the https://www.devexpress.com/ask service.

Guess the next XPO feature!

We are finishing work on a cool and popular user request for v18.1. If you are an XPO fan like me, can you guess its name? Tip: the name contains 'NULL'. I am looking forward to hearing from you in comments!

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