HPCC Systems 7.2.x Releases

Welcome to the Red Book for HPCC Systems^® 7.2.x series. There are several sections in this Red Book as follows:

• General HPCC Systems core platform 
• Significant new features core platform
• ECL IDE

Users may benefit from glancing at other Red Book entries when making a large jump between releases.

Here's how to contact us if you find an issue or want to add something to the Red Book:

• To raise an issue, use our Community Issue Tracker. Please create yourself an account if you don't already have one, to get automatic updates as your issue progresses through the workflow.
• To ask a developer a technical question about something you are doing or have encountered, post in the Developer Forum.

General HPCC Systems core platform

New - Encountering an issue where embedded Java fails

The platform does not currently always enforce a Java Development Kit (JDK) dependency and the embedded Java plugin (javaembed) can fail if a JDK is not available. If you encounter this error, install the appropriate JDK for your Ubuntu distro or the openjdk-devel package for Centos. 

https://track.hpccsystems.com/browse/HPCC-25879

HPCC Systems now supports OpenSSL Version 1.1 on Windows

Updated version of the library to support OpenSSL 1.1.

https://track.hpccsystems.com/browse/HPCC-20970

New option to disallow code in a manifest

This new security option allows you to disallow JAR, C and C++ files or only allow them when signed. This is controlled using the allow=cpp option when configuring the eclccserver (as shown in eclcc help):

Features controlled by --allow, --allowsigned and --deny:

all                Indicates all features not specifically overridden using one of the below.
userECL     User-supplied ECL code. If disallowed, only checked in code is allowed.
datafile      Access to datafilee
extern        Ability to define external code via SERVICE
cpp            Ability to embed non-ECL code (C++, Java etc)

More information is available in the ECL Programmers Guide.

https://track.hpccsystems.com/browse/HPCC-21371

envgen now supports Spark

You can now create an environment.xml file with Spark support from the command line. 

https://track.hpccsystems.com/browse/HPCC-20802

Changes to Std.Date in HPCC Systems 7.2.x (see also the HPCC Systems 7.0.x RedBook)

New ISO 'week dates' helper function

Calculates the 1-based week number of a date starting from a reference date.

https://track.hpccsystems.com/browse/HPCC-20900

New 'datetime' difference function
Returns the difference in seconds between two datetime stamps.

https://track.hpccsystems.com/browse/HPCC-20951

Significant new features core platform

Embedded Java enhancements

HPCC Systems 7.2.0 includes improvements that make it much simpler to call simple Java code from ECL. You can now use EMBED and IMPORT so that your code can be placed right in your ECL file and the relevant classes will be compiled and distributed within the workunit and loaded as needed on demand.

For more detailed information read this blog, which includes code examples and usage guidance. See also the following related JIRA issues:

• Support inline embedded Java codeAdd persistence objects to Java embed
• Support passing Java objects to embedded code
• Allow JAR files required by a workunit to be passed in a manifest
• Specify CPP sources via manifest file
• Manifest support for signed code

Datasets passed to R dataframes now use vectors rather than lists

This allows for simpler R code and is more compatible with expected R behaviour.

https://track.hpccsystems.com/browse/HPCC-21222

Streaming write support and JSON request handling

HPCC Systems now includes support for streaming write interface (including indexes and pluggable file formats) to dafilesrv. This includes a generic JSON handler so JSON commands can proceed data.

https://track.hpccsystems.com/browse/HPCC-20996