The features below that are marked as optional are chargeable and must be separately enabled with a software key. Contact your Northgate representative to obtain the keys you need.
Reality Data Encryption makes your data more secure and also allows you to control which users can access particular items of data. Each encrypted file has an associated key that is stored in a centrally located file – users are granted access to the file by being given permission to use that key. The encryption key file is itself protected by a database administration key that is only accessible to the users of the database. You can use either the DES:CBC or the Triple DES algorithm to encrypt your data.
Encryption is transparent to the users that are granted access to a file – they do not have to manually decrypt an encrypted file before they can use it, but can view, change and delete the file in the normal way.
Data saved to tape can also be encrypted – the majority of save and restore commands do not decrypt encrypted data before saving to tape, and tape devices can be configured to encrypt data before saving.
The DataBasic ENCRYPT and DECRYPT functions have been extended to allow encryption using DES:CBC or the Triple DES, with keys either from the encryption key file or specified explicitly.
The Disaster Recovery (DR) feature has been enhanced as follows:
The HTML from English feature allows you to embed an English report in a web page for display in a browser. You must provide a web page template that includes a marker to show where to embed the data and generate the report using the GENML or SGENML TCL command.
The data is formatted as a table. If required, you can format the column text by using the XT conversion code in the data definition items used when generating the report.
This feature consists of an ActiveX DLL that can be used from Microsoft Visual Basic or Office VBA to call DataBasic subroutines on a Reality database. The DLL exposes a single object that provides the necessary properties, methods, etc.
This feature is now available on AIX.
On previous versions of Reality the frame size was fixed at 1Kb. V12.0 allowed a single exception to this – AIX platforms could use 4Kb frames.
V14.0 extends this by allowing the frame size to be set to 1, 2, 4 or 8Kbytes. A new option to mkdbase allows the frame size to be set when creating or rebuilding a partition database and a new configuration file parameter allows you to set the default frame size for new databases on your host.
Two new utilities are available to help choose a frame size for a particular database and to calculate new modulos for database files:
A new configuration file parameter allows you to use automatic file sizing as the default for a database. This parameter is set in the master configuration file, so that all new databases are created with automatic file sizing enabled.
The ACCOUNT-RESTORE and M-A-R commands now create automatically sized files if automatic file sizing is selected. A new option (E), available with both these commands, allows you to choose whether or not automatically sized file are expanded immediately when they are restored.
The dbsave utility has been enhanced to increase the restore speed and reduce fragmentation of the restored data.
This optional feature increases the maximum size of a clean log from 2 Gigabytes to 200 Gigabytes. However, since the current limit is adequate for most customers, the default value remains unchanged at 1.5 Gigabytes. V14.0 clean logs that are smaller than 2 Gigabytes are fully compatible with Reality V12.0.
On UNIX, partition database using standard host files with all the files on the same file system is now the default (that is, the type of database created if there is no entry in the file realfstab and you have not specified which type you require). The filestore database type is now deprecated, but a new option to mkdbase allows you to create a filestore database if required.
A new command, ANALYZE, is provided to display information about processes being executed on a specified port.
Reality V14.0 has been further enhanced to improve compatibility with other MultiValue systems. In addition, the following features simplify migration to Reality from other MultiValue systems.
TANDEM enhancements:
POINTER-FILE – each account can now have its own local pointer file to hold saved lists, instead of using the global pointer file. Using a local file has the following benefits:
See also DataBasic compiler enhancements,
A new tool is available in SSM to make it easier to configure the Reality environment settings (previously set using the SET-OPTION command). This can be used to select settings that emulate different MultiValue systems (such as mvEnterprise, mvBase and D3) and for backwards compatibility with earlier versions of Reality. The chosen settings can be saved and associated with user profiles so that each user is given a suitable profile at log on, or applied when required with a new SET-ENVIRONMENT TCL command.
Environment settings can also be defined with the new DEFINE-ENVIRONMENT command.
The following new environment settings (custom options) are available:
$<.FORMAT
2DIGIT.DATE
ALT.MT
BSELECT.NULL
CATALOG.COMP
DEL.FILE.EXEC
EXEC.BASIC.OBJ
INHIB.MLMR
INHIBIT!SYS
LITERAL.MASK
MCT.SQUOTE
MFILL.FORMAT
RPLTERM
For details of the effect of these, refer to the Environment Options topic.
The DataBasic compiler (the BASIC command) can now be configured to generate an executable (platform-specific) item in the dictionary of the file containing the source item, instead of a deliverable (platform-independent) item in the data section (there are options to generate both). This replaces the previous R option, which generated both deliverable and executable items in the data section.
The new option can be selected in three ways: by including a configuration statement in your source code; by setting a custom option in your Environment; or by specifying the R option when compiling (as before). A second source code configuration statement allows you to generate both executable and deliverable items.
If you use the new option, it is only necessary to catalog your program once, because the MD entry will already reference the executable generated by the BASIC command. The CATALOG command does not regenerate an executable found in the dictionary unless this is specifically requested.
The new feature is fully backwards compatible with earlier versions of Reality; all commands that access deliverable and/or executable items (RUN, DEBUG, etc.) support both the old and new compiler features.
In programs that use mvEnterprise mode (set with the $OPTIONS statement), the following are available:
Reality now allows certain system utilities to function without a user licence; instead, they use reserved ports that do not require user licences. This allows critical operations to be carried out when there are no user licences available.
You will now be warned when your user licences are about to expire by means of messages in the daemon log – it is strongly recommended that you configure system alerts so that your administrators will be notified when these warnings are logged. If your user licences should expire, you can extend them for a short period so that your users can continue working while you obtain new ones.
The Licence Special File generated by MAKE-SPECIAL now includes the reserved ports and licence expiry dates. In addition, this information is available in the file REALITY‑LICENCE in the SYSMAN account.
Reality V14.0 adds support for AIX 5.3 and Windows Vista.
Support for Solaris 2.6 and 7, and Windows NT Server has been discontinued:
Reality Explorer is no longer available.
Reality client components are no longer supported on Windows NT 4.0.
The Reality on-line documentation is now supported only on Internet Explorer 6.0 and 7.0, and Firefox 2.0. Netscape, Mozilla and earlier versions of Firefox are no longer supported.
The TCL Dot Processor (command stacker) has been enhanced to allow the following:
Files can now be marked for exclusion from transactions by including a new option (T) in attribute 1 of the file definition item. For files configured in this way, changes are not rolled back if a transaction is aborted. It is recommended that this code is used for application log files.
Note: These features are only available if the new compiler has been selected. See Restrictions.
The NEWAC file (SYSFILES account) now contains a USER data section in which you can place items to be added to an account's master dictionary. You can also specify items to be deleted.
The Reality daemons/services are normally started automatically when the host starts. If required, this can be prevented by setting the REALNOAUTOSTART host environment variable.
On UNIX, the default behaviour when a process aborts has been changed to always generate a core dump. This results in more accurate diagnostic information than was previously available, making it easier for Northgate support to analyse and fix problems.
The LISTFILES command now includes additional information for automatically sized files (whether automatic sizing is suspended). Also, a new option (T) allows you to filter the output to include only specified types of file.
A new LIST-INDEXES option (T) is available to remove empty nodes from an index. These are normally removed automatically when no longer needed, but under some circumstances may remain in the index, thus impairing index efficiency.
The realload host command now displays the tape label and prompts the user to confirm that they want to continue. This can be overridden with the -v and -y options and the -l option displays tape label without restoring.
New P and W formatting codes allow you to include the port number in an error message. For details, see ERRMSG File (SYSFILES Account).
The REALCIP_RLOGSPACECRITICAL host environment variable allows you to specify the threshold at which the oldest outstanding transaction is removed from the raw log.