SQL Server Driver for PHP 2.0 CTP2 is now released

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It is our pleasure to announce the release of Community Technology Preview 2 (CTP2) of the SQL Server Driver for PHP 2.0!

We would like to thank all who provided feedback and bug reports on our CTP1 release (April 19th) the SQLSRV (our native API) and PDO_SQLSRV drivers. Last week we shared our plans for our next CTP in our blog, and today we are happy that we were able to achieve our release criteria earlier than we anticipated.

To recap, here are the changes in this release:

  • Code completely re-architected with the functional core layer and the API layers
  • SQLSRV driver is rebuilt with the code re-architected (no new features)
  • PDO::__construct(): a design change from CTP1, Connection Options now need to be specified in the DSN string instead of the driver_options[] array
  • PDO::SQLSRV_ATTR_DIRECT_QUERY: new custom driver attribute to provide more flexibility to the developer
    • Ability to execute two queries within the same context or different contexts, useful when using temporary tables or other circumstances
    • Ability to bind parameters for queries within the same context
  • Errors are now encoded per the setting of CharacterSet / PDO::SQLSRV_ATTR_ENCODING
  • Bug fixes to SQLSRV as well as PDO_SQLSRV drivers
  • Our documentation now includes a new example application using the PDO_SQLSRV driver

We will always include both drivers in our releases from now onwards, and our CTP2 package is available for download on MSDN Download Center. As we blogged yesterday on what we mean by a CTP release, this CTP is the last one for this version as we have made the design changes required. We are working thru our internal processes to publish the source code, and we plan to release it with our final version.

At this point, we anticipate a relatively short feedback period of 4 to 6 weeks. We want these drivers to meet your needs and expectations, so we invite you to download it to give both drivers a good workout and report any issues you run into!

As always, we continue to actively monitor our MSDN forum and this blog to listen and respond to your feedback.