microsoft/mssql-python 0.10.0-preview

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Release Notes - Version 0.10.0

Features

• Linux SUSE Support (#210)

  What changed: Added support for SUSE and openSUSE Linux distributions with automatic driver detection
  Who benefits: Developers using SUSE-based systems and containers
  Impact: Broader enterprise Linux deployment compatibility

• Context Manager Support (#160)

  What changed: Added with statement support for Connection and Cursor classes with automatic transaction handling
  Who benefits: Developers wanting cleaner resource management
  Impact: Automatic commit/rollback behavior and improved code reliability

• Large Text Streaming (#176, #206)

  What changed: Implemented Data At Execution (DAE) for streaming large text.
  Who benefits: Applications handling large data exceeding parameter limits
  Impact: Eliminates memory constraints for bulk data operations

• Connection Encoding API (#172)

  What changed: Added setencoding() and getencoding() methods with configurable text encoding
  Who benefits: Applications requiring specific character encoding control
  Impact: Enhanced internationalization and encoding flexibility

• Cursor Navigation APIs (#178 , #180, #181, #162)

  What changed: Introduced navigation methods including next(), __iter__(), scroll(), skip(), and fetchval()
  Who benefits: Developers needing fine-grained cursor traversal
  Impact: More intuitive row access and flexible result set navigation

• Cursor Attributes (#184, #163)

  What changed: Added attributes rownumber and messages to cursor objects
  Who benefits: Applications requiring better debugging and row tracking
  Impact: Simplifies state inspection and enhances transparency during query execution

• Additional Cursor and Table Methods (#179 , #190, #185)

  What changed: Added cursor.commit(), cursor.rollback() and table() helper method for simplified workflows
  Who benefits: Developers seeking more convenience methods for cursor and schema interaction
  Impact: Streamlined database operations and table discovery

Improvements

• Enhanced Unicode Support (#166)

  What changed: Improved emoji and special character handling using UTF-16 code unit length calculation
  Who benefits: Applications processing international content and social media data
  Impact: Reliable Unicode content handling without corruption

• Parameter Type Detection (#208)

  What changed: Added SQLDescribeParam API integration for automatic type inference of None parameters
  Who benefits: Developers working with dynamic queries and NULL values
  Impact: More accurate parameter binding with automatic type detection

• DB-API 2.0 Compliance (#164)

  What changed: Added standard exception classes as Connection attributes (e.g., connection.Error)
  Who benefits: Developers migrating from other Python database drivers
  Impact: Improved standards compliance and intuitive exception handling

• Execute Return Value (#161)

  What changed: Fixed execute() to return cursor object correctly
  Who benefits: All applications using execute method
  Impact: Proper method chaining and consistent API behavior

Bug Fixes

• Binary Data Handling Improvements (#218) → Fixes Issue #226

  What changed: Enhanced binary data (bytes/bytearray) handling by standardizing on VARBINARY type mapping, improved empty binary value processing, and fixed mixed type handling in columns
  Who benefits: Applications working with binary data, BLOBs, or mixed binary content types
  Impact: More reliable binary data storage and retrieval, proper handling of empty binaries vs NULL values, and better support for variable-length binary data

• Executemany String Corruption (#217) → Fixes Issue #227

  What changed: Fixed string data corruption in batch operations on Unix systems with proper UTF conversion
  Who benefits: Applications using executemany on Linux/macOS
  Impact: Eliminates data corruption in batch string operations

• Empty Data Handling (#212) → Fixes Issue #205

  What changed: Proper handling of empty strings/binary values to distinguish from NULL
  Who benefits: Applications dealing with empty data columns
  Impact: Prevents crashes and ensures correct empty value representation

• Cursor Lifecycle (#183) → Fixes Issue #182

  What changed: Improved cursor cleanup during garbage collection
  Who benefits: All cursor usage patterns
  Impact: Enhanced stability during cursor destruction

This release significantly improves platform compatibility, Unicode handling, and overall robustness while maintaining backward compatibility.