0.9.5 Release

• guid:
• author: Mihael Pranjic
• pubDate: Sun, 11 Apr 2021 23:24:25 +0200
• shortDesc: Java Binding Improvements, Breaking Change to kdbOpen

We are proud to release Elektra 0.9.5.

Elektra serves as a universal and secure framework to access configuration settings in a global, hierarchical key database. For more information, visit https://libelektra.org.

You can also read the news on our website

You can try out the latest Elektra release using our docker image elektra/elektra. This is the quickest way to get started with Elektra without compiling and other obstacles, simply run docker run -it elektra/elektra.

• Breaking change to kdbOpen. see below
• Ongoing improvements of Java bindings and publishing of bindings to maven central for easy dependency integrations in Java projects

The signature of kdbOpen has been changed from

KDB *  kdbOpen (Key * errorKey);

to

KDB * kdbOpen(const KeySet * contract, Key *parentKey);

You can use kdbOpen (NULL, errorKey) to get the same behaviour as before.

The new parameter contract is similar to what could be done via kdbEnsure (which has been removed). Currently, the contract allows you to mount global plugins and add data into the global KeySet (passed to all plugins) during kdbOpen. This alone is already quite powerful, but we might more functionality in future releases.

For now, there are three use cases for the contract parameter. All of them are covered by helper functions:

int elektraGOptsContract (KeySet * contract, int argc, const char * const * argv, const char * const * envp, const Key * parentKey, KeySet * goptsConfig);
int elektraIoContract (KeySet * contract, ElektraIoInterface * ioBinding);
int elektraNotificationContract (KeySet * contract);

With elektraGOptsContract you can mount and set up the gopts plugin used for command-line argument parsing. The other two functions are the new way to configure Elektra's notification feature.

For more information take a look at doc/dev/kdb-contracts.md

The following section lists news about the plugins we updated in this release.

• The cache plugin now only caches the parts of the global keyset that are below system:/elektra/cache or below system:/elektra/cached. The part below system:/elektra/cache is meant for internal data of the cache, so you should put data below system:/elektra/cached, if you want it to be cached. _(Klemens Böswirth)_

• Fix use of kdb_long_double_t on armel platforms (#3450). _(Mihael Pranjić)_

• Internal changes to ensure compatibility with the new elektraNotificationContract. _(Klemens Böswirth)_

• Removed plugins yamlsmith and yanlr. _(René Schwaiger)_

• Internal changes to ensure compatibility with the new elektraNotificationContract. _(Klemens Böswirth)_

The text below summarizes updates to the C (and C++)-based libraries of Elektra.

• keyCopy and keyDup now take an additional flag. See below.
• kdbEnsure was removed and integrated into kdbOpen, which now takes an additional KeySet * contract parameter. See above

• The keyCopy and keyDup functions have been changed. They now take a flags argument which specifies which parts of the Key should be copied. The API also changed slightly. Most importantly NULL values are handled differently. For example, keyDup (NULL, KEY_CP_ALL) returns a key similar to what keyNew ("/", KEY_END) produces, whereas previously keyDup (NULL) returned NULl. _(Klemens Böswirth)_
• We added keyReplacePrefix, a function that allows you to easily move a key from one parent to another. _(Klemens Böswirth)_
• kdbEnsure was removed and replaced by similar functionality added to kdbOpen. see above _(Klemens Böswirth)_
• KEY_END is now defined as (void *) 0 instead of 0. This allows us to mark keyNew with the GCC attribute __attribute__ ((sentinel)), which causes a compiler warning, if keyNew calls don't use KEY_END as their last argument. _(Klemens Böswirth)_

• elektraSetIoBinding has been removed. Use elektraIoContract instead. _(Klemens Böswirth)_

• elektraNotificationOpen has been removed. Use elektraNotificationContract instead. elektraNotificationClose has also been removed. There is no replacement, cleanup now happens automatially during kdbClose. _(Klemens Böswirth)_
• The contract for transport plugins has been changed. The exported functions "openNotification", "closeNotification" and"setIoBinding"are no longer used. Instead, plugins should retrieve the I/O binding from the keysystem:/elektra/io/bindingin the global keyset. The notification callback and context that were passed to"openNotification", can now be read from the global keyset as well. The keys aresystem:/elektra/notification/callbackandsystem:/elektra/notification/context` respectively. _(Klemens Böswirth)_

Bindings allow you to utilize Elektra using various programming languages. This section keeps you up to date with the multi-language support provided by Elektra.

• Since internal iterator support for KeySet is due to being dropped, the following methods have been removed:

  • Elektra::ksNext
  • Elektra::ksCurrent
  • Elektra::ksGetCursor
  • Elektra::ksSetCursor
  • KeySet::next
  • KeySet::current
  • KeySet::rewind
  • KeySet::getCursor
  • KeySet::setCursor

  Until internal KeySet iterator support has been dropped form native library, Elektra::ksRewind is being retained while also being annotated as 'deprecated for removal'. The reason is, that we still need to rewind a KeySet before passing it to a native plugin via NativePlugin::set, NativePlugin::get or NativePlugin::error. _(Michael Tucek)_

  Furthermore Elektra::ksPop and KeySet::pop have been removed and KeySet::remove has been introduced as replacment. Until internal KeySet iterator support has been dropped form native library, Elektra::ksRewind is being retained while also being annotated as 'depricated for removal'. The reason is, that we still need to rewind a KeySet before passing it to a native plugin via NativePlugin::set, NativePlugin::get or NativePlugin::error. _(Michael Tucek)_

  Further more Elektra::ksPop and KeySet::pop have been removed and KeySet::remove has been introduced as replacment. _(Michael Tucek)_

• Renamed KeyException specializations: KeyInvalidNameException, KeyTypeConversionException, KeyTypeMismatchException
• Migration from Maven to Gradle _(Michael Tucek)_
• Updated documentation for usage of published artifacts _(Michael Tucek)_
• Integration of Maven Central publishing on Elektra release _(Robert Sowula)_

Ongoing work on bringing the JNA binding up to scratch and improving developer experience. Both for JNA binding API consumers, as well as future JNA binding contrubutors. _(Michael Tucek)_

Add support for keyset.remove(key). _(Manuel Mausz)_

• webd: update ini, y18n and elliptic dependencies. _(Mihael Pranjić)_
• Make search for providers not skip rest of plugins on exceptions. _(Markus Raab)_

• Fix enums in examples/spec. _(Markus Raab)_

• Document names of different components. _(Markus Raab)_
• Update buildserver documentation _(Robert Sowula)_
• Reworked METADATA.ini _(Markus Raab)_
• Minor rewording in INSTALL.md _(-kraschitzer)_
• Write notes that \\ are due to shell recorder, and are not to be copied _(Markus Raab)_
• Add link to Go bindings _(Markus Raab)_
• Fix order of tutorials _(Markus Raab)_
• Added API-Reviews for multiple functions in the public API _(Stefan Hanreich)_
• Minor rewording in java-kdb.md _()_
• Added a short Visual Studio 2019 tutorial (/doc/tutorials/contributing-windows.md) _(Dominic Jäger)_
• Added hint regarding WSL filesystem configuration (/doc/tutorials/contributing-windows.md) _()_
• Fixed broken link in yanlr-plugin readme _()_
• Minor readability improvement in highlevel.md _(Tobias Schubert )_
• Fix examples of spec plugin. _(Robert Sowula)_

• Added small test for jna Return plugin (Return.java), KeyNameIterator.java _()_

• Change shlibs version compatibility policy of Debian packages to ">=". _(Robert Sowula)_
• Automate publishing of the release Elektra Docker images. _(Robert Sowula)_

• Fix issue where the library runpaths of the jni plugin could not be resolved. _(Robert Sowula)_

• Update Alpine Linux images to version 3.13.1 and update Elektra release image. _(Mihael Pranjić)_

• Update FreeBSD images from version 12.1 to 12.2 _(Robert Sowula)_
• Update brew before installing packages and print brew config. _(Mihael Pranjić)_
• Restart dbus service before running tests and find DBUS_LAUNCHD_SESSION_BUS_SOCKET manually (as workaround). _(Mihael Pranjić)_
• Use macOS Big Sur images. _(Mihael Pranjić)_

• Fix issues with dbus and java paths, exclude jni. _(Mihael Pranjić)_

• Update daily job to always keep the latest Docker images containing installed Elektra packages that were build on master or during release. _(Robert Sowula)_
• Add a cleanup of the aptly database to the daily job. _(Robert Sowula)_

The website is generated from the repository, so all information about plugins, bindings and tools are always up to date. Furthermore, we changed:

• It is now possible to have two links on the same line of a markdown file rendered on the website. _(Klemens Böswirth)_
• The file doc/KEYNAMES.md is now rendered on the website. _(Klemens Böswirth)_
• Update ini dependency. _(Dependa Bot)_
• Update many dependencies (Node 14.x LTS, angular, bootstrap, ..) and fix broken RSS feed permalinks. _(Mihael Pranjić)_

We are currently working on following topics:

• Elektrify KDE _(Dardan Haxhimustafa)_, _(Felix Resch)_ and _(Mihael Pranjić)_
• 1.0 API _(Stefan Hanreich)_ and _(Klemens Böswirth)_
• Improve Java Development Experience _(Michael Tucek)_
• Elektrify GNOME _(Mihael Pranjić)_
• Continious Releases _(Robert Sowula)_
• KDB access using FUSE _(Alexander Firbas)_
• Default TOML plugin _(Jakob Fischer)_
• Improve Plugin Framework _(Vid Leskovar)_
• Improve 3-way merge _(Dominic Jäger)_
• Shell completion _(Ulrike Schäfer)_
• Ansible bindings _(Thomas Waser)_

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For more information, see https://libelektra.org

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