QUIC network layer: Automatic update and sleep mode
Our development of the QUIC network layer continues, and with 4D 20 R4, we now have the sleep mode and the automatic update. Let’s take a closer look at these enhancements and see how they compare to the way they work with other network layers.
Non-blocking Printing
With 4D v20 R4, we significantly improved the management of print jobs inside 4D. 4D can now run multiple print jobs in parallel, significantly increasing your applications’ reactivity while facilitating the management of concurrent print jobs.
Let me tell you more about it!
Auto-Generated SSL/TLS Certificates for Client-Server Communications
To simplify the security of client-server communications, from 4D v20 R4 onwards, 4D Server generates its own SSL/TLS certificates instead of relying on the default certificates provided by 4D.
This update brings a significant advantage for both testing and production environments. You’ll experience heightened security measures without the necessity of providing your own certificates. Let me explain to you what will change.
SSL/TLS: Support for ECDSA certificates
4D uses SSL/TLS to secure client-server communication and HTTP requests. 4D is supporting RSA cryptography since more than a decade and with 4D v20R4 we are now adding ECDSA cryptography to our tool belt. It’s a good moment for me to speak a bit about security.
ORDA: Assigning a path to a blob or picture attribute
Non-ORDA database commands allowed you to put images and blobs outside your data file thanks to the SET EXTERNAL DATA PATH command. This command is not adapted for ORDA, so we have decided to add similar functionality in v20 R3: The ability to assign to a blob or picture attribute a path pointing to a file. Let me tell you more about it.
Deprecation of PHP Commands & Removal of 4D Built-in PHP Interpreter
PHP has played a crucial role in web development, and it was introduced into 4D v12 to offer features not readily available in the native language, such as zip, hash, or LDAP functionality. Over time, 4D has incorporated many of these PHP features into its core functionality. As a result, we decided to remove the built-in PHP interpreter in 4D v20 R3 and begin the deprecation process for PHP commands in v21.
While we won’t entirely remove the PHP commands from 4D, we strongly encourage you to use the system workers to execute PHP code in the future.
This blog post will guide you through this transition process, demonstrating how to use an external interpreter through PHP Execute and explaining how to execute PHP code effectively with a system worker.
Activate QUIC Layer from the Structure, User and Database Settings
In 4D v20 beta, we were excited to show you our work on the new QUIC network layer. As the layer is still in the beta version, we deactivated it for the LTS final release. The QUIC layer will be available in the feature releases, so you can follow its development and help us improve it.
While 4D v20 allowed switching network layers only in interpreted applications and forced a new build for engined applications, 4D v20 R2 allows layer changing in compiled/build applications via the Structure, User and Database Settings to facilitate testing even in production.
Declaring Class Properties
The 4D language is constantly improving. For v20, we bring you a new feature that will ease the use of your classes: declared class properties. Declaring your class properties will significantly improve autocomplete and give you meaningful errors when compiling. Do you want to know more about it? Let me show you how it works!
Logging ORDA Calls on the Server
Since its release, ORDA has grown in popularity and is now widely used on your production servers.
With 4D v20, we provide two improvements on how ORDA requests are logged server-side:
- The first is an improvement of the request log that will now give more information about ORDA calls.
- The second is the addition of a server-side ORDA log similar to the client-side ORDA log. Let me introduce you to these new features.
Automatic integration of multiple journals
As developers and database administrators, you know the importance of quickly recovering from data corruption. Backups and journals help you with the task. But sometimes, a backup may be corrupted, and you need to come back from an older backup and integrate multiple journals consecutively. Or maybe your journal file is growing big too quickly, and you prefer to regularly create a new one to avoid cluttering your server hard drive. Or you are just using your own way of backing up your database. In all these cases, you must integrate multiple journals, which is only manually possible through the Maintenance and Security Center.
With 4D v20, you can automatically integrate multiple journals at database startup. Let me explain to you how it works.
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