Sphinx 0.9.9 branch is officially feature-frozen and we are making
0.9.9-rc2 available. As those who've been following 0.9.x releases
should be accustomed to, despite a modest rc1 to rc2 tag change it
adds about 30 new features once again.
(Wonder if we'll be able to
break the spell in 1.x and be less greedy about the version
increments.)
The ultimate new feature couple is MySQL binary protocol and SphinxQL
query language. Meaning that searchd can now pretend it's mysqld.
Meaning that you can use ye good olde mysql command-line client to
connect to searchd and fire your queries using regular SELECT syntax!
More details are available via that link above.
But wait, there's more. We added ODBC support both on Windows and
Linux (through UnixODBC) so you now can connect directly to that
Oracle or MS SQL database. We added a bunch of performance counters,
IMO they look especially nice when viewed using SHOW STATUS via mysql
client program. Strict order operator (aaa << bbb) and field-start and
field-end keyword modifiers (^hello world$) were added to full-text
query language. GROUP BY now supports aggregate functions (AVG, MAX,
MIN, and SUM), accessible both through newly added SphinxQL interface
and SetSelect() API call.
Other 20+ features are smaller and these 7 most major ones should be
enough to encourage you to get and try it anyway. For the curious,
0.9.9-rc2 change log lists them all along with the bug fixes.
How safe is it to upgrade? Generally, both API and indexes are
backwards compatible (for about 2 years now); early adopters roll out
intermediate non-public releases on production systems on a rather
regular basis; and we never publish releases with known major general
issues. And 0.9.9-rc2 is no exception. Of course nobody (except Donald
Knuth) can guarantee that his software is absolutely bug free. But
what we can guarantee to our customers is that we'll priority fix all
bugs that you can repeat. (The keyword here is "priority" as we're
gradually fixing all the bugs reports we receive.) So if you're
looking for safer production deployment of all the shiny new features,
consider support packages. They perfectly cover 0.9.9-rc2.
What's next? We will be fixing issues discovered in rc2 for about
1-2 months from now on before announcing stable release - depending
on *your* feedback. Do send us some! In the meantime, the work on real
time updates is progressing, we'll be showing those at MySQL UC 2009.
That said, next two planned releases are 0.9.9-release and 1.10.1-alpha,
with the one which is the le... the bigger of two goods coming out first.