Is there more information available on particular bugfixes than in the EBF readme docs?

[VolkerBarth]

The EBF readme files list all those "Engineering Case" numbers, such as "#563839", with a short description of what problem is fixed.

Is there any public website to get more background information on these fixes?

AFAIk, one can quest them on the following Sybase website (adding the appropriate case number), such as http://search.sybase.com/kbx/changerequests?bug_id=563839. But this shows primarily the notes from the EBF, in conjunction with the build numbers of the corresponding code line.

So, is there even more information publicly available?

(I'm not asking for a particular fix, just out of interest.)

[Breck_Carter]

There are internal databases with vast amounts of information. Once upon a time, as member of Team Powersoft, I regularly received a CD containing one of those databases and it was overwhelmingly wonderful. Sadly, the interweb replaced the CD, and with the interweb came VPN, and draconian legal agreements, and both of those don't fit my Luddite disposition. I think the bottom line is yes, it is something you would really like (I know I would), and no, you'll never get it... it would be too much work and too fraught with error to redact all the secret stuff including customer information.

[johnsmirnios]

Whenever a developer makes a change, we write both a "customer" and "engineering" description or, effectively, a public and private description. Rarely is there anything secret in the engineering description unless, for example, we patch something that might let virtually any user crash the server on demand. Usually, it contains gory technical details that won't mean anything to most users. If you want the technical details, I'm pretty sure can get them from tech support. If the public description is lacking, let us know and we can probably update that for the next set of release notes too.

[VolkerBarth]

@John: That's interesting to know. I don't know if there's anything lacking in the public description - it's difficult to know what's missing if one doesn't have the details... Besides that, it seems we could ask for more details on particular fixes, and that's good to know (and possibly more useful than a description of all that stuff).

[VolkerBarth]

@John: The question has come up based on Siger's current question (cf. http://sqlanywhere-forum.sap.com/questions/1177), and there seems to be a change of behaviour Breck and me could not manifest in the EBF docs. So there might be a missing description, or just a misinterpretation on my behalf.

[johnsmirnios]

Some changes can be unintentional side effects of other changes and therefore would not be documented as a change. I think that's the case with Siger's question about exception handling. The behaviour changed due to fixes for issue 560044 ("Errors generated for some constant expressions that were not needed"). I've sent information to the developer who made the original change.

[Breck_Carter]

@John: OK, so "bug" is now "unintentional side effect", I can handle that, I am fluent in "Management" :)... but just so you know, that particular unintentional side effect is stopping me from applying EBFs to Version 11 or upgrading to 12. BTW, what is the Management word for "showstopper"? 🙂

[johnsmirnios]

I'm just explaining why you didn't see an explicit mention of the change in behaviour. I'm not trying to find weasel words. 🙂

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

As well as John Smirnios' reply, if the bug fix resulted in a behavior change or new feature, the docs for the next release of the software contain the information. These are provided as bullets in the "SQL Anywhere® 12 - Changes and Upgrading > What's new in version XX.XX.XX" section, and include links leading off to the appropriate topics in the docs. These changes are also indexed in the docs for context searching. For example, if you type 'http' in the index, you'll see a secondary index entry called 'version 11.0.0 behavior change'.