What is the latest stable release?

[Rich B]

Hi there

Just wondering what the latest stable release is?

http://www.h2database.com/html/download.html

^

Says "Last Stable" is 1.4.197 (2018-03-18) - seems a long time ago.

I don't need bleeding edge, but I want the best new one on from 1.4.196 which I'm currently using.

Cheers

Rich

[Noel Grandin]

We don't really have a stable vs bleeding edge anymore, the 1.4 series are all pretty stable.

What I would suggest you do is 

(*) take a look at the commits since the last release and the comments on the mailing list, and decide if any of them constitute show stoppers for you

(*) run your unit tests on the latest version

(*) depending on what kind of application you have, run it internally in beta for a while before letting it hit production

(*) make sure you do regular backups in case anything goes south

[Evgenij Ryazanov]

Hello.

If your database is in PageStore format you need to export it to SQL script with 1.4.196, create a new database with a new version and populate it with this script due to issue #1247.
https://github.com/h2database/h2database/issues/1247
https://h2database.com/html/tutorial.html#upgrade_backup_restore

If your database is in MVStore format you need to do the same if you want to upgrade H2 to 1.4.197.

If you want to upgrade directly to 1.4.199 it is not really required, because that issue was resolved (for MVStore only), but you may run into some other incompatibility, so you should have a backup copy of your database anyway.

1.4.197 and 1.4.199 have different known regressions that affect only some users. It's possible that one of these versions doesn't suitable for your application.

Also there were many changes since 1.4.196. H2 is more standard-compliant now and has many new features. Some old tricks and workarounds may not work any more and should be replaced with correct syntax.

For example, IN with row value was reimplemented properly for 1.4.198:

https://github.com/h2database/h2database/issues/1760

You may need to change something in your application if you used some of such tricks.

[Rich B]

Thanks Noel and Evgenij

Can I ask - how does H2 deal with database files made in old formats? Has the file format changed at all? Do later versions always open all older versions? And convert to newer version? (If there's any file format change, of course)

Kind regards

Rich