Databases - MySQL 5.0 Release Candidate Available

"Dear user of MySQL,

I'm proud and excited to announce the first Release Candidate of MySQL 5.0. This milestone signals that we are nearing what is certainly the most important release in MySQL's history.

MySQL 5.0 has new functionality that I hope will be welcomed, adopted, and put to productive use by the community of MySQL users -- you. On the commercial side, MySQL AB is getting a lot of good vibes from new enterprise customers who are beginning to understand the impact MySQL can have on their IT infrastructure and costs of running mission-critical applications. "

Key new features of MySQL 5.0 come in three groups:

a) ANSI SQL standard features formerly unknown to MySQL
b) ANSI SQL standard compliance of existing MySQL features
c) New MySQL Storage Engines, Tools and Extensions

The new ANSI SQL features include:

     * Views (both read-only and updatable views)
     * Stored Procedures and Stored Functions, using the SQL:2003 syntax, which is also used by IBM's DB2
     * Triggers (row-level)
     * Server-side cursors (read-only, non-scrolling)

Implementing ANSI SQL standard ways of using existing MySQL features means there will be fewer unpleasant surprises ("gotchas") for those migrating to MySQL from other database systems:

     * Strict Mode: MySQL 5.0 adds a mode that complies with standard SQL in a number of areas in which earlier versions did not; we now do strict data type checking and issue errors for all invalid dates, numbers and strings as expected
     * INFORMATION_SCHEMA: An ANSI SQL-compliant Data Dictionary for accessing metadata, in parallel to the MySQL specific SHOW commands
     * Precision Math: A new library for fixed-point arithmetic, giving high accuracy for financial and mathematical operations
     * VARCHAR Data Type: The maximum effective length of a VARCHAR column has increased to 65,532 bytes; also, stripping of trailing whitespace no longer occurs

New MySQL Storage Engines, Tools and Extensions are:

     * XA Distributed Transactions
     * ARCHIVE Storage Engine for storing large amounts of data without indexes in a very small footprint, intended for historical data that may be needed for future audit compliance (Sarbanes Oxley or otherwise)
     * FEDERATED Storage Engine for accessing data ín tables of remote databases rather than in local tables (only in MAX version)
     * Instance Manager: a tool to start and stop MySQL Server, even remotely

http://www.mysql.com/news-and-events/news/article_959.html