Notable changes and additions

Complete implementation of fetch size.

CONJ-26
JDBC allows to specify the number of rows fetched for a query, and this number is referred to as the fetch size
Before version 1.4.0, query were loading all results or row by row using Statement.setFetchSize(Integer.MIN_VALUE).
Now it's possible to set fetch size according to your need.
Loading all results for large result sets is using a lot of memory. This functionnality permit to save memory without having performance decrease.

Memory footprint improvement

CONJ-125
Buffers have been optimized to reduced memory footprint

CallableStatement performance improvement.

CONJ-209
Calling function / procedure performance is now optimized according to query. Depending on queries, difference can be up to 300%.

Authentication evolution

CONJ-251 Permit now new authentication possibility : [[https://mariadb.com/kb/en/mariadb/pam-authentication-plugin/|PAM authentication]], and GSSAPI/SSPI authentication.

GSSAPI/SSPI authentication authentication plugin for MariaDB permit a passwordless login.

On Unix systems, GSSAPI is usually synonymous with Kerberos authentication. Windows has slightly different but very similar API called SSPI, that along with Kerberos, also supports NTLM authentication.
See more detail in [[https://github.com/MariaDB/mariadb-connector-j/blob/master/documentation/plugin/GSSAPI.md|GSSAPI/SSPI configuration]]

Connection attributes

CONJ-217
Driver information informations are now send to [[https://mariadb.com/kb/en/mariadb/performance-schema-session_connect_attrs-table/|connection attributes tables]](performance_schema must be activated).
A new option "connectionAttributes" permit to add client specifics data.

For example when connecting with the following connection string {{{"jdbc:mysql://localhost:3306/testj?user=root&connectionAttributes=myOption:1,mySecondOption:'jj'"}}},
if performance_schema is activated, information about this connection will be available during the time this connection is active :

select * from performance_schema.session_connect_attrs where processList_id = 5
+----------------+-----------------+---------------------+------------------+
| PROCESSLIST_ID | ATTR_NAME       | ATTR_VALUE          | ORDINAL_POSITION |
+----------------+-----------------+---------------------+------------------+
|5               |_client_name     |MariaDB connector/J  |0                 |
|5               |_client_version  |1.4.0-SNAPSHOT       |1                 |
|5               |_os              |Windows 8.1          |2                 | 
|5               |_pid             |14124@portable-diego |3                 |
|5               |_thread          |5                    |4                 |
|5               |_java_vendor     |Oracle Corporation   |5                 |
|5               |_java_version    |1.7.0_79             |6                 |
|5               |myOption         |1                    |7                 |
|5               |mySecondOption   |'jj'                 |8                 |
+----------------+-----------------+---------------------+------------------+

Minor evolution

• CONJ-210 : adding a "jdbcCompliantTruncation" option to force truncation warning as SQLException.
• CONJ-211 : when in master/slave configuration, option "assureReadOnly" will ensure that slaves are in read-only mode ( forcing transaction by a query "SET SESSION TRANSACTION READ ONLY").
• CONJ-213 : new option "continueBatchOnError". Permit to continue batch when an exception occur : When executing a batch and an error occur, must the batch stop immediatly (default) or finish remaining batch before throwing exception.

Bugfix

• CONJ-236 : Using a parametrized query with a smallint -1 does return the unsigned value
• CONJ-250 : Tomcat doesn't stop when using Aurora failover configuration
• CONJ-260 : Add jdbc nString, nCharacterStream, nClob implementation
• CONJ-269 : handle server configuration autocommit=0
• CONJ-271 : ResultSet.first() may throw SQLDataException: Current position is before the first row