This document covers the following topics:
The system requirements for the current version of Natural are now listed in the Installation documentation.
With Natural for Windows Version 9.1.1, a different compiler version was used to build and test Natural: Microsoft Visual Studio 2015. See also Compiler Used to Build Natural in the Installation documentation.
Applications that were created with Natural for Windows Version 3.1 and above can be executed with Version 9.1.
The following system variables are now available:
| Variable | Description |
|---|---|
*EDITOR |
The new *EDITOR system
variable returns information on whether the Natual program, data area and map
editors are enabled (activated).
|
The behavior of an ESCAPE in an AT
BREAK statement has been changed due to compatibility reasons with
Natural for Mainframe.
When an ESCAPE ROUTINE or ESCAPE BOTTOM
is processed in an AT BREAK statement, the AT BREAK
processing is stopped. If there are multiple AT BREAK blocks in
the processing loop, no further AT BREAK statement is executed for
the current processing loop.
When the processing loop is terminated and an ESCAPE
ROUTINE or ESCAPE BOTTOM is processed in the final AT
BREAK processing, the AT BREAK processing is stopped and no
further AT BREAK block is executed.
Refer to AT
BREAK in the Statements documentation
for further details.
The syntax of the EXAMINE statement has been enhanced
with the following effects:
An EXAMINE statement with a
multi-character wild character (* or %) at the beginning or at the end of the
search-pattern, matches now only to the next delimiter (if delimiters are
used). This can lead to a different result.
In general, a mirrored EXAMINE now
delivers the mirrored result. That means, if you swap the characters (first to
last, etc.) of the inspected field and of the search-pattern, and change the
direction from FORWARD to BACKWARD, the resulting
field contains the swapped value of the non-mirrored
EXAMINE.
Refer to EXAMINE in the
Statements documentation for further details.
The behavior of the ETID parameter has been
changed. If the ETID is not specified, neither in NATPARM nor dynamically,
Natural uses the setting of *INIT-USER to fill the ETID. This also applies now,
if Natural Security is used.
If you want to use the ETID from Natural Security, you have to set
the ETID parameter to OFF.
Refer to ETID - Adabas User Identification in the Parameter Reference documentation for further details.
The option to automatically renumber the source-code lines of
sources that were saved or stowed is now deactivated by default. If you want to
use automatic renumbering, you now have to activate this option. Refer to
CATALL in the
System Commands documentation for further details.
When using the command line version of the
Buffer Pool Monitor (NATBPMON), additional statistics
(hot fix level, read-only and swap status) are displayed when issuing the
STATUS command in NATBPMON. Refer to
Statistical
Information About the Buffer Pool in the
Operations documentation for details.
- Summary of Executed Source Lines
The Natural Profiler utility now provides the option to generate a summary of source lines executed in a Natural object. The summary shows how many events occurred during execution of a source line and the CPU and elapsed time spent executing the line.
For more information, see Line Summary in the section Using the Profiler Utility in Batch Mode.
- Transaction Response Time Evaluation
The Natural Profiler utility now provides the option to evaluate transactions and generate a transaction summary. The summary shows how many events occurred during execution of the transaction and the response time used by the transaction.
For more information, see Transaction Summary in the section Using the Profiler Utility in Batch Mode.
Natural Development Server is released with the same version number as Natural for Windows.
Natural RPC (Remote Procedure Call) is available as a separate subcomponent of Natural. It has its own version number. This measure takes into account that Natural RPC is a cross-platform component and makes it possible to provide new Natural RPC versions independent of new Natural versions for the various platforms supported.
With Natural Version 9.1.1, an enhanced Natural RPC Version 9.1.1 is delivered. This version contains error corrections. New functionality is not provided.
The following enhancements are provided with Natural Security Version 9.1.1:
The menu structure of Administrator Services has been revised slightly. In particular, User Preset Values and Library Preset Values are now two separate menu items.
User Preset Values provide a new option Automatically unlock users after nn hours, nn minutes. If you use the Lock User Option, you had to unlock every locked user manually. With this option, you can specify a time interval after which locked users are unlocked automatically: A locked user ID will then be unlocked nn hours and nn minutes after which the locking occurred.
In addition to "regular" passwords of up to 8 characters, Natural Security now also supports the use of password phrases, that is, passwords which are longer than 8 characters. The use of password phrases is activated by the new option Password phrases active in the User Preset Values section of Administrator Services.
Several Password Phrase Options are available to control the use password phrases.
In conjunction with password phrases, the new logon-related user
exit LOGONEX0 is used instead of LOGONEX1; see
Logon-Related User
Exits.
See also Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) below.
In the Password Options section of User Preset Values, the option Minimum no. of non-alphabetical characters has been replaced by the two new options Minimum no. of numeric characters and Minimum no. of special characters.
A new option Pass Natural User ID (*USER) to Adabas is available in the Libary Preset Values section of Administrator Services. It determines which user ID is passed to Adabas to be used as Adabas login ID: the value of the Natural system variable *USER or that of the Natural system variable *INIT-USER.
User authentication via an LDAP server is now also possible with
AUTO=ON: If technical user support is defined and the Natural
session is started with the Natural profile parameter AUTO=ON, the
user ID is LDAP-verified.
The following components of the LDAP security profile have been changed:
LDAP Options 1: The field Log level, which could be set to 0 (logging not active) and 1 (logging active), now provides a value range of 0 to 6 for selective logging of various items.
LDAP Options 2: The Technical user support fields Credential and Key value have been renamed to Path to output file and Path to key file respectively.
LDAP Options 3: The field Default separator has been removed.
For the handling of password phrases, two new APIs are available:
NSC--PH can be used to check password phrases.
NSC--PHS can be used to check and change password phrases.
The existing API
NSC-US has
been enhanced: The parameter PPARM4 can be used to set a password
phrase in a user security profile (see example program
PGMUS001).
To set the user ID and password phrase for an Natural RPC service
request, you use the new API USR9171 provided in the library
SYSEXT.
It is planned to change the compiler used to build Natural in the upcoming version of Natural for Windows. A switch to Microsoft Visual Studio 2017 as the build compiler is intended. It may be possible that this change influences the behavior of customer programs written in language C.