1. Release Notes for GemBuilder for Smalltalk 5.4.6

GemBuilder™ for Smalltalk (GBS) version 5.4.6 is a new version of the GemBuilder for Smalltalk product, adding support for GemStone/S 64 Bit version 3.6. Please take time to read through these release notes before installing or upgrading, to acquaint yourself with the changes.

These release notes provide changes between the previous version of GBS, version 5.4.5, and version 5.4.6. If you are upgrading from a version prior to 5.4.5, please also review the release notes for each intermediate release to see the full set of changes.

This release supports applications running with Instantiation’s VA Smalltalk only. Version 5.4.6 does not support VisualWorks, nor can it be used with GemStone/S 64 Bit 2.x or 32-bit GemStone/S. Support for these servers is provided in separate GBS releases.

To install GemBuilder for Smalltalk 5.4.6, follow the instructions in the GemBuilder for Smalltalk Installation Guide for version 5.4.6.

Supported Platforms and Versions

The following tables describe the client Smalltalk versions and platforms supported by GBS 5.4.6, and the GemStone server versions that can be used with each. For more details, see the GemBuilder for Smalltalk Installation Guide for version 5.4.6.

Table 1 Supported GemStone/S 64 Bit Server versions - RPC logins only
	32-bit VA Smalltalk 9.2.2	32-bit VA Smalltalk 8.6.3
Windows 10	3.6, 3.5.4	3.6, 3.5.4
Windows 7, Professional or above		3.5.4

Changes in this Release

Support for GemStone/S 64 Bit version 3.6

Support for the latest version of the GemStone/S 64 Bit server, v3.6, has been added.

If you are upgrading to v3.6 as well as upgrading GBS, please read through the Release Notes for v3.6 for changes that impact your GBS application.

New Specials added

GBS 5.4.6 includes support for replicating the special data types added in GemStone/S 64 Bit v3.6:

SmallDate
SmallTime
SmallScaledDecimal
SmallDateAndTime

These are replicated as immutable instances of client objects.

DateAndTime now mapped

DateAndTime has been available in both VAST and the GemStone server, but it was previously not mapped for replication. Now, instances of DateAndTime can be replicated and flushed.

GBS Window titles now prefixed with #imageShortName

VAST allows you to set an Image Short Name, which is used to prefix the title on individual browser windows. These prefix names are now displayed on GBS-specific windows as well.

Setting transaction mode in Session Browser

The Session Browser now includes buttons to set the transaction mode, and allows you to set the transaction mode to #transactionless

Bugs Fixed

On Windows 10, loading server shared library full path had issues

Loading the server shared library using libraryName: accepts a full path to the libgcirpc server library. On Windows 10, this was not sufficient to allow other libraries that are loaded by libgcirpc to be found. (#48680)

GbsScaledDecimal did not support //

The operator // was not implemented for GbsScaledDecimal. (#48717)

Call Tracing improvements

The call tracing mechanism had several deficiencies, such as failing to close files when a new trace was opened. (#48299).

The Call Tracing code has been refactored and cleaned up in this release.

Call tracing produces a record of the low-level GCI calls that are made from GBS to the server, and are intended for use by experts who are familiar with the internal operations of the GCI calls.

Browse implementors/senders/references unnecessary second prompt

If the search results is a single entry that is equal to the search criteria, there was an unnecessary second prompt, which is only needed for wild-card searches. (#48193)

Class Instance Variable Check On Create/Compile in ST Raises Error

Create/Compile in ST for a GemStone class that has a capitalized class instance variable results in a warning dialog, since this is not the convention. A ’no’ answer on this dialog previously was not handled well; now, any issues with create or compile in ST are reported clearly. (#35422).

Invalid transactionMode: argument could deadlock debugger

Due to the code path to error handling, when setting the transactionMode (via GBSM currentSession transactionMode:), if the argument was not a valid transaction mode symbol, opening the debugger could deadlock. (#49186)

Opening a workspace on a file may have errored

Opening a file in a workspace may have errored in recent VAST versions. (#48194)