MySQL 5.1.5-alpha has been released

Hi,


MySQL 5.1.5-alpha, a new version of the popular Open Source Database
Management System, has been released. The Community Edition is now
available in source and binary form for a number of platforms from our
download pages at
    http://dev.mysql.com/downloads/ and mirror sites.

Note that not all mirror sites may be up to date at this point in time -
if you can't find this version on some mirror, please try again later or
choose another download site.


This is a new alpha development release, adding new features and fixing
recently discovered bugs.

NOTE: This Alpha release, as any other pre-production release, should
not be installed on ``production'' level systems or systems with
critical data.


Please refer to our bug database at http://bugs.mysql.com/ for more
details about the individual bugs fixed in this version.


We welcome and appreciate your feedback!


News from the ChangeLog:

Functionality added or changed:
   * Added the XML functions ExtractValue() and UpdateXML().
     ExtractValue() returns the content of a fragment of XML matching a
     given XPath expression. UpdateXML() replaces the element selected
     from a fragment of XML by an XPath expression supplied by the user
     with a second XML fragment (also user-supplied), and returns the
     modified XML. See Section 12.9, "XML Functions."
   * Added the --base64-output option to mysqlbinlog to print all binary
     log entries using base64 encoding. This is for debugging only. Logs
     produced using this option should not be applied on production
     systems.
   * Added the --port-open-timeout option to mysqld to control how many
     seconds the server should wait for the TCP/IP port to become free if
     it cannot be opened. (Bug #15591 (http://bugs.mysql.com/15591))
   * Two new Hungarian collations are included: utf8_hungarian_ci and
     ucs2_hungarian_ci. These support the correct sort order for
     Hungarian vowels. However, they do not support the correct order for
     sorting Hungarian consonant contractions; this issue will be fixed
     in a future release.
   * Plugins can now have status variables, that are shown in SHOW
     STATUS.


Bugs fixed:
   * InnoDB: Comparison of indexed VARCHAR CHARACTER SET ucs2 COLLATE
     ucs2_bin columns using LIKE could fail.
     (Bug #14583 (http://bugs.mysql.com/14583))
   * Creating a trigger caused a server crash if the table or trigger
     database was not known because no default database had been
     selected. (Bug #14863 (http://bugs.mysql.com/14863))
   * Issuing a DROP USER command could cause some users to encounter a
     hostname is not allowed to connect to this MySQL server error.
     (Bug #15775 (http://bugs.mysql.com/15775))
   * The --plugin_dir option was not working. Also fix error with
     specifying parser name for fulltext.
     (Bug #16068 (http://bugs.mysql.com/16068))
   * Attempting to insert into a table partitioned by LIST a value less
     than any specified in one of the table's partition definitions
     resulted in a server crash. In such cases, mysqld now returns ERROR
     1500 (HY000): Table has no partition for value v , where v is the
     out-of-range value. (Bug #15819 (http://bugs.mysql.com/15819))


Additional notes:
   * The Windows package, "mysql-noinstall-5.1.5-alpha-win32.zip",
     contains just the "mysqld-max.exe" and "mysqld-max-nt.exe" binaries;
     because "mysqld.exe", "mysqld-nt.exe", and "mysqld-debug.exe" have
     not been built for this version. If you previously used one of the
     latter binaries, you may need to adapt your settings.


Enjoy!
Joerg

-- 
Joerg Bruehe, Senior Production Engineer
MySQL AB, www.mysql.com