ANN: Sequel 3.6.0 Released

Sequel is a lightweight database access toolkit for Ruby.

* Sequel provides thread safety, connection pooling and a concise DSL
  for constructing database queries and table schemas.
* Sequel also includes a lightweight but comprehensive ORM layer for
  mapping records to Ruby objects and handling associated records.
* Sequel supports advanced database features such as prepared
  statements, bound variables, stored procedures, master/slave
  configurations, and database sharding.
* Sequel makes it easy to deal with multiple records without having
  to break your teeth on SQL.
* Sequel currently has adapters for ADO, Amalgalite, DataObjects,
  DB2, DBI, Firebird, Informix, JDBC, MySQL, ODBC, OpenBase, Oracle,
  PostgreSQL and SQLite3.

Sequel 3.6.0 has been released and should be available on the gem
mirrors.  The 3.6.0 release adds numerous improvements:

New Features
------------

* Dataset#filter and related methods now accept a string with named
  placeholders, and a hash with placeholder values:

    ds.filter('copies_sold > :sales', :sales=>500000)

  Sequel's general support for this syntax is nicer:

    ds.filter{copies_sold > 500000}

  But named placeholder support can make it easier to port code
  from other database libraries.  Also, it works much better than
  the ? placeholder support if you have a long SQL statement:

    DB['SELECT :n FROM t WHERE p > :q AND p < :r', :n=>1,:q=>2,:r=>3]

  Sequel doesn't subsitute values that don't appear in the hash:

    ds.where('price < :p AND id in :ids', :p=>100)
    # WHERE (price < 100 AND id in :ids)

  This makes it easier to spot missed placeholders, and avoids issues
  with PostgreSQL's :: casting syntax or : inside string literals.

* The Model add_ association method now accepts a hash and creates
  a new associated model object associated to the receiver:

    Artist[:name=>'YJM'].add_album(:name=>'RF')

* The Model remove_ association method now accepts a primary key
  and removes the associated model object from the association. For
  models using composite primary keys, an array of primary key values
  can be used.  Example:

    Artist[:name=>'YJM'].remove_album(1) # regular pk
    Artist[:name=>'YJM'].remove_album([2, 3]) # composite pk

* Dataset#bind was added, allowing you to bind values before calling
  Dataset#call.  This is more consistent with Sequel's general
  approach where queries can be built in any order.

* The native postgres adapter now has Dataset#use_cursor, which
  allows you to process huge datasets without keeping all records in
  memory.  The default number of rows per cursor fetch is 1000, but
  that can be modified:

    DB[:huge_table].use_cursor.each{|r| p r}
    DB[:huge_table].use_cursor(:rows_per_fetch=>10000).each{|r| p r}

  This probably won't work with prepared statements or
  bound variables.

* The nested_attributes plugin now adds newly created objects to the
  cached association array immediately, even though the changes
  are not persisted to the database until after the object is saved.
  The reasoning for this is that otherwise there is no way to access
  the newly created associated objects before the save, and no way
  to access them at all if validation fails.

  This makes the nested_attributes plugin much easier to use, since
  now you can just iterate over the cached association array when
  building the form.  If validation fails, it will have the newly
  created failed objects in the array, so you can easily display the
  form as the user entered it for them to make changes.

  This change doesn't affect many_to_one associations, since those
  don't have a cached association array.  This also does not affect
  updating existing records, since those are already in the cached
  array.

* You can now easily override the default options used in the
  validation_helpers plugin (the recommended validation plugin).
  Options can be overridden at a global level:

    Sequel::Plugins::ValidationHelpers::DEFAULT_OPTIONS[:format].
      merge!(:message=>"incorrect format", :allow_missing=>true)

  Options can also be overridden on a per-class level:

    class Album < Sequel::Model
      plugin :validation_helpers
      DEFAULT_VALIDATION_OPTIONS = {
       :format=>{:message=>"incorrect format", :allow_missing=>true}}

      private

      def default_validation_helpers_options(type)
        super.merge(DEFAULT_VALIDATION_OPTIONS[type] || {})
      end
    end

* You can now use a proc instead of a string for the
  validation_helpers :message option.  This should allow much
  easier internationalization support.  If a proc is given, Sequel
  calls it to get the format string to use.  Whether the proc should
  take an argument depends on whether the associated validation
  method takes an argument before the array of columns to validate,
  and the argument provided is what is passed to the proc.  The
  exception to this is the validates_not_string method, which doesn't
  take an argument, but does pass one to the proc (a symbol with the
  schema type of the column).

  Combined with the above default option support, full
  internationalization support for the validation_helpers plugin
  should be fairly easy.

* The nested_attributes plugin now accepts a :fields option that
  specifies the fields that are allowed.  If specified, the
  plugin will use set_only instead of set when mass assigning
  attributes.  Without this, the only way to control which fields
  are allowed is to set allowed/restricted attributes at a class
  level in the associated class.

* Associations now accept a :distinct option which uses the SQL
  DISTINCT clause.  This can be used instead of :uniq for
  many_to_many and many_through_many associations to handle
  the uniqueness in the database instead of in ruby.  It can
  also be useful for one_to_many associations to models that
  don't have primary keys.

* The caching plugin now accepts an :ignore_exceptions option that
  allows it to work with memcached (which raises exceptions instead
  of returning nil for missing records).

* Sequel now emulates JOIN USING poorly using JOIN ON for databases
  that don't support JOIN USING (MSSQL and H2).  This isn't
  guaranteed to work for all queries, since USING and ON have
  different semantics, but should work in most cases.

* The MSSQL shared adapter now supports insert_select, for faster
  model object creation.  If for some reason you need to disable it,
  you can use disable_insert_output.

* Model#modified! has been added which explicitly marks the object
  as modified.  So even if no column values have been modified,
  calling save_changes/update will still run through the regular
  save process and call all before and after save/update hooks.

* Model#marshallable! has been added which removes unmarshallable
  attributes from the object.  Previously, you couldn't marshal
  a saved model object because it contained a dataset with a
  singleton class.  Custom _dump and _load methods could be used
  instead, but this approach is easier to implement.

* Dataset#literal_other now calls sql_literal on the object with
  the current dataset instance, if the object responds to it.
  This makes it easier to support the literalization of arbitrary
  objects.

  Note that if the object is a subclass of a class handled by
  an existing dataset literalization method, you cannot use this
  method.  You have to override the specific Dataset#literal_* method
  in that case.

* Model#save_changes now accepts an option hash that is passed to
  save:

    album.save_changes(:validate=>false)

* A bunch of Dataset#*_join methods have been added, for specific
  join types:

  * cross_join
  * natural_join
  * full_join
  * left_join
  * right_join
  * natural_full_join
  * natural_left_join
  * natural_right_join

  Previously, you had to use join_table(:cross, ...) to use a CROSS
  JOIN.

* You can now create clustered indexes on Microsoft SQL Server using
  the :clustered option.

* AssociationReflection#associated_object_keys has been added,
  specifying the keys in the associated model object that are related
  to this association.

* Sequel::SQL::SQLArray#to_a was added.

Other Improvements
------------------

* Constant lookup in virtual row blocks now works correctly in ruby
  1.9.  Virtual row blocks are based on BasicObject on ruby 1.9,
  which doesn't allow referencing objects in the top level scope. So
  the following code would cause an error on 1.9:

    DB[:bonds].filter{maturity_date > Time.now}

  Sequel now uses a Sequel::BasicObject class on 1.9 with a
  const_missing that looks up constants in Object, which allows the
  above code to work.

* Sequel no longer attempts to load associated objects when
  one of the key fields in the current table is NULL.  This fixes
  the behavior when the :primary_key option for the association
  is used to point to a non-primary key.

  A consequence of this change is that attempting to load a
  *_to_many association for a new model object now returns
  an empty array instead of raising an exception.  This has its
  own advantage of allowing the same association viewing code
  to work on both new and existing objects.  Previously, you had
  to actively avoid calling the association method on new objects,
  or Sequel would raise an exception.

* Dataset aggreate methods (sum/avg/min/max/range/interval) now
  work correctly with limited, grouped, or compound datasets.
  Previously, count worked with them, but other aggregate methods
  did not.  These methods now use a subquery if called on a
  limited, grouped or compound dataset.

* It is no longer required to have an existing GROUP BY clause
  to use a HAVING clause (except on SQLite, which doesn't permit
  it).  Sequel has always had this limitation, but it's not required
  by the SQL standard, and there are valid reasons to use HAVING
  without GROUP BY.

* Sequel will now emulate support for databases that don't support
  multiple column IN/NOT IN syntax, such as MSSQL and SQLite:

    ds.filter([:col1, :col2]=>[[1, 2], [3, 4]].sql_array)
    # default:  WHERE (col1, col2) IN ((1, 2), (3, 4))
    # emulated: WHERE (((col1 = 1) AND (col2 = 2)) OR
    #                  ((col1 = 3) AND (col2 = 4)))

  This is necessary for eager loading associated objects for models
  with composite primary keys.

* Sequel now emulates :column.ilike('blah%') for case insensitive
  searches on MSSQL and H2.  MSSQL is case insensitive by default,
  so it is the same as like.  H2 is case sensitive, so Sequel
  uses a case insensitive cast there.

* The nested_attributes plugin no longer allows modification of
  keys related to the association.  This fixes a possible security
  issue with the plugin, where a user could associate the nested
  record to a different record.  For example:

    Artist.one_to_many :albums
    Artist.plugin :nested_attributes
    Artist.nested_attributes :albums
    artist = Artist.create
    artist2 = Artist.create
    album = Album.create
    artist.add_album(album)
    artist.albums_attributes = [{:id=>album.id,
     :artist_id=>artist2.id}]
    artist.save

* The one_to_many remove_* association method now makes sure that the
  object to be removed is currently associated to this object.
  Before, the method could be abused to disassociate the object from
  whatever object it was associated to.

* Model add_ and remove_ association methods now check that the passed
  object is of the correct class.

* Calling the add_* association method no longer adds the record
  to the cached association array if the object is already in the
  array.  Previously, Sequel did this for reciprocal associations,
  but not for regular associations.

  This makes the most sense for one_to_many associations, since
  those can only be associated to the object once.  For many_to_many
  associations, if you want an option to disable the behavior, please
  bring it up on the Sequel mailing list.

* An array with a string and placeholders that is passed to
  Dataset#filter is no longer modified.  Previously:

    options = ["name like ?", "%dog%"]
    DB[:players].where(options)
    options # => ["%dog%"]

* Getting the most recently inserted autoincremented primary key
  is now optimized when connecting to MySQL via JDBC.

* Model.inherited now calls Class.inherited.

* The MSSQL shared adapter once again works on ruby 1.9.  It was
  broken in 3.5.0 due to minor syntax issues.

* The force_encoding plugin now handles refreshing an existing
  object, either explicitly or implicitly when new objects are
  created.

  To use the force_encoding plugin with the identity_map plugin, the
  identity_map plugin should be loaded first.

* Using nil as a bound variable now works on PostgreSQL.  Before,
  Sequel would incorrectly use "" instead of NULL, since it
  transformed all objects to strings before binding them.  Sequel
  now binds the objects directly.

* The Amalgalite adapter is now significantly faster, especially for
  code that modifies the schema or submits arbitrary SQL statements
  using Database <<, run, or execute_ddl.

* Model#save_changes is now used when updating existing associated
  objects in the nested_attributes plugin.  This should be
  significantly faster for the common case of submitting a complex
  form with nested objects without making modifications.

* You can now prepare insert statements that take multiple arguments,
  such as insert(1, 2, 3) and insert(columns, values).

* Dataset#group_and_count now supports aliased columns.

* Adding indexes to tables outside the default schema now works.

* Eager graphing now works better with models that use aliased tables.

* Sequel now correctly parses the column schema information for tables
  in a non-default schema on Microsoft SQL Server.

* changed_columns is now cleared for when saving new model objects
  for adapters that support insert_select, such as PostgreSQL.

* Dataset#replace on MySQL now works correctly when default values
  are used.

* Dataset#lock on PostgreSQL now works correctly.

* Dataset#explain now works correctly on SQLite, and works using
  any adapter.  It also works correctly on Amalgalite.

* The JDBC adapter now handles binding Time arguments correctly when
  using prepared statements.

* Model add_ and remove_ association methods now have more
  descriptive exception messages.

* Dataset#simple_select_all? now ignores options that don't affect
  the SQL, such as :server.

* Dataset#window in the PostgreSQL adapter now respects existing
  named windows.

* Sequel now better handles a failure to begin a new transaction.

* The dataset code was split into some additional files for improved
  readability.

* Many documentation improvements were made.

Backwards Compatibility
-----------------------

* Model::Errors no longer uses a default proc, but emulates one in the
  [] method.  This is unlikely to have a negative affect unless you
  are calling a method on it that doesn't call [] (maybe using it in
  a C extension?).

* Model#table_name now only provides the alias if an aliased table is
  used.

* The Sequel::Dataset::STOCK_COUNT_OPTS constant has been removed.

* Dataset#lock on PostgreSQL now returns nil instead of a dataset.

Thanks,
Jeremy

* {Website}[http://sequel.rubyforge.org]
* {Source code}[http://github.com/jeremyevans/sequel]
* {Bug tracking}[http://code.google.com/p/ruby-sequel/issues/list]
* {Google group}[http://groups.google.com/group/sequel-talk]
* {RDoc}[http://sequel.rubyforge.org/rdoc]
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