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Rational Business Developer 8.5

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Abstract

IBM Rational Business Developer 8.5 has been made generally available on the IBM Passport Advantage website.

Download Description

Table of Contents
Sections Description
This section provides an overview on what is new in this release with a description of any new functions or enhancements when applicable.
This section provides information related to the impact of this release to allow you to assess how your environment may be affected.
This section provides important information to review prior to the installation of this release.
This section provides the direct link to obtain the download package for installation in your environment.
This section provides the installation instructions necessary to apply this release into your environment.
This section contains a link to the known problems (open defects) identified at the time of this release.
Supporting Documentation
Document Description
Click the link to navigate to the system requirement report page. To run the report, select your Product, Version and Operating System. 
Note: Choose the parent version of your product to see the system requirements for fix pack releases.
Click to browse for the version of your product knowledge center available on the product information library page.
Click to review a complete list of the defects (APARs) resolved in this release including a list of resolved defects for the entire version family.

Prerequisites

No prerequisites are required for this release.

Installation Instructions

For complete documentation, including installation instructions, review the Knowledge Center.

Download Package

Download options
Access type Description
Passport Advantage Passport Advantage and Passport Advantage Express clients are required to sign in to download the software package.
IBM OEM software IBM Software Group OEM offerings are designed for partners who develop and sell business solutions with embedded or bundled IBM middleware software. Clients with Flexible Contract Type (FCT) license purchases and IBM Business Partners must sign in to download the software package.

How critical is this fix?

Impact Assessment
Impact Description
This release is a service release of Rational Business Developer. It contains new features as well as fixes for client reported and internally found defects.

Problems Solved

Click the Fix List link in the table of contents above to review a list of the problems solved in this release.

Known Side Effects

There are no open defects to report at this time.

Change History

Rational Business Developer version 8.5 includes the following enhancements:
Increased security for EGL REST-RPC services

Version 8.5 introduces a new Java runtime property: egl.service.rest.exception.debug. The property specifies whether the exceptions returned by EGL REST-RPC services include the greatest possible level of detail.

In the development environment, the default value is true, and the previous runtime behavior is unaffected.

In a deployed application, the default value is false, which results in the following change in runtime behavior: an exception will return only a timestamp, a message ID, and a reference to the application server log. The following statements apply:

  • The change is present in new applications and in applications that migrate to the new version of the EGL runtime code.
  • Consider setting the property value to true if the details that might be returned are free of security violations, especially if your processing is dependent on the content of error messages.

For details on the application server log, see the entry for egl.service.rest.exception.debug inDescription of Java runtime properties.

EGL support for other technologies


Version 8.5 introduces support for
  • WebSphere® Application Server version 8.0 and 8.5.
  • Apache Tomcat version 7.x.
  • JavaServer Faces (JSF) version 1.1, in the following situation: your JSF applications are running with the JSF 1.1 or 1.2 jar files on Tomcat 6 or greater.
  • 64-bit Linux platform.
  • 64-bit Windows platform.

The product is tolerant of platforms that were upgraded to the Java™ Runtime Environment version 1.7. The product also coexists with IBM® Rational Team Concert™ version 4.0.

In addition, Rich UI support for Dojo is now based on Dojo toolkit version 1.7.

Rich UI


By default, the following Rich UI system projects are in use:
  • For EGL widgets that are not based on Dojo: com.ibm.egl.rui_4.1.0
  • For EGL Dojo widgets: com.ibm.egl.rui.dojo.widgets_2.1.1
  • For EGL Dojo samples: com.ibm.egl.rui.dojo.samples_2.1.1
  • For the local Dojo runtime access: com.ibm.egl.rui.dojo.runtime.local_1.7.2
The following projects support use of Content Delivery Network (CDN):
  • For Dojo 1.6.1:
  • Google Dojo runtime access: com.ibm.egl.rui.dojo.runtime.google_1.6.1
  • AOL Dojo runtime access: com.ibm.egl.rui.dojo.runtime.aol_1.6.0

Those projects are available only if you import them from the product installation directory.
  • For Dojo 1.7.2:
  • Google Dojo runtime access: com.ibm.egl.rui.dojo.runtime.google_1.7.2
  • Yandex Dojo runtime access: com.ibm.egl.rui.dojo.runtime.yandex_1.7.2

For instructions on importing the Rich UI system projects, see Importing product-supplied projects.

If you are upgrading to a new Dojo runtime project from one of your existing Rich UI projects, you must upgrade the EGL build path in your project. For details, see the section named "Outline of widget-upgrade tasks" here: Overview of EGL Rich UI.

Please note that version 8.5 does not support Rich UI development on a 64-bit Linux platform. Restrictions in external software prevent that support, for now.

Changes to build descriptor options


EGL now includes the following build descriptor options:
  • For Java code, the validateBlankDateFields option tells whether to identify an error in the following case: the dateFormat property is in effect for a field in a text form, but the user set the field to blank. For details, see validateBlankDateFields.
  • For Java code, the byteArrayOperationsForStructuredRecords option provides a performance benefit in some cases, by defining how generated Java code handles fields in structured records. For details, see byteArrayOperationsForStructuredRecords.
  • For Java and COBOL code, the v60NumWithDateBehavior build descriptor option specifies whether the behavior of assignments from Num fields to Date fields fulfills the behavior that was in effect in EGL version 6. For details, see v60NumWithDateBehavior.
  • For COBOL code, the leftAlign, fillWithNulls, and setFormItemFull options now affect data in text form fields, as was the case in VisualAge® Generator. Previously in EGL, the options affected only print form fields. For details on the options, see fillWithNulls, leftAlign, and setFormItemFull.

If you have reason to regenerate your text forms and want to retain the field characteristics that were in effect previously in EGL, set the following symbolic parameters to NO: ALLOWTUILEFTALIGN, ALLOWTUISETFORMITEMFULL, and ALLOWTUIFILLWITHNULLS. For details, see Predefined symbolic parameters that can be set by the user.
  • For COBOL code, the v71AddBehavior option states whether, in a specific case, the effect of the plus (+) sign is determined by the type of variable to which an expression is assigned. The purpose is to maintain code that was written for EGL versions after 6.0 and through 7.1. For details, see v71AddBehavior.
Also, you can set existing build descriptor options with new values if you are using a newly supported version of WebSphere Application Server or Apache Tomcat:
  • The serverType build descriptor option identifies the type of web application server in which your output will be deployed. For details, see serverType.
  • For Java code, the j2eeLevel build descriptor option specifies the level of Java Enterprise Edition in the application server to which an EGL web service is deployed. For details, see j2eeLevel.
COBOL processing

The new DUALMODE symbolic parameter lets you generate an EGL program once and create a prepared load module that runs on z/OS® batch and CICS®. For details, see Generating once for z/OS batch and CICS.

Potential change to a linkage properties file

Consider this section if you own a generated Java application for which a callLink element (in a linkage options part) includes the following property setting: remoteBind=runtime.

You might need to check whether the entries in an existing linkage properties file are related to the value of a linkageKey property and not to the name of the program being called. The situation arises in the following case:

  • A call statement includes the linkageKey property;
  • You are using a linkage properties file to specify the linkage details for that statement; and
  • You upgrade to the latest version of the EGL runtime code.
For details, see the entry-specific details in Linkage properties file; specifically, the details for programName and wildProgramName.

Off
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Problems (APARS) fixed
PM43858;PM50387;PM54210;PM54823;PM55507;PM55644;PM56017;PM56042;PM56178;PM56430;PM56436;PM56733;PM56764;PM56953;PM56956;PM57361;PM57376;PM57386;PM57798;PM57923;PM58181;PM58676;PM58687;PM58973;PM59025;PM59030;PM59195;PM59534;PM59578;PM59610;PM59730;PM59859;PM60241;PM60656;PM60862;PM60863;PM61085;PM61463;PM61501;PM61507;PM61773;PM61921;PM62080;PM62168;PM62478;PM62867;PM62891;PM62948;PM63075;PM63341;PM63443;PM63489;PM63543;PM63703;PM63907;PM64032;PM64478;PM64951;PM65055;PM65222

Document Information

Modified date:
02 August 2018

UID

swg24032883