What's New

Wednesday 25th October 2017

• Added a brief page about the new NodeJS binding.

Tuesday 28th July 2009

• Added a brief page about the new Squeak binding.

Thursday 9th March 2006

• Changed description of the Perl binding so that the sample program corresponds to the AAPI-compatible concrete API implemented by the new Index Data implementation (ZOOM-Perl) of the Perl Binding.
• Noted that the old Net::Z3950 implementation of the Perl binding is now obsolete, having been superseded by Perl-ZOOM.

Wednesday 16th November 2005

• Added new stable URL for the current version of the Abstract API, zoom.z3950.org/api/zoom-current.html. This is currently a copy of v1.4 of the AAPI, but when the in-progress v1.5 is completed and ratified, it will become a copy of that.

Thursday 7th July 2005

• Added a brief page about the new and long-awaited .NET binding.
• Removed all links to the old, deprecated C# binding and changed that page to be merely a link to the .NET binding.

Friday 20th May 2005

• Add a link to Ashley Sanders' zstream to the C++ binding page.

Wednesday 23rd March 2005

• Add information about Laurent Sansonetti's new Ruby binding.
• Add information about Laurent's Ruby/ZOOM implementation of the Ruby binding.
• Relegate the C# binding into the ``not yet implemented'' group, since its implementation seems to have gone away.

Wednesday 4th February 2004

• Add new sections with new Connection methods 3.2.8. Create Without Connecting and 3.2.9. Connect to version 1.4 of the Abstract API.
• Release version 1.4 of the Abstract API as the current standard, and start work on version 1.5 (IN PROGRESS).

Friday 14th November 2003

• Add a new section 3.8, Standard Options to the current work-in-progress version 1.4 of the Abstract API.

Friday 16th May 2003

• Re-arrange the way the Bindings area is laid out, so that fully-implemented bindings are listed first and work-in-progress ones are clearly described as such. This should make things clearer for people browsing the site, as well as prodding the maintainers of in-progress bindings to get moving on upgrading their work to ``implemented'' status.
• Add information about Eric Willman's C# binding.
• Add information about Eric's implementation of the C# binding. This brings the total number of implemented bindings up to nine!
• Reorder the entries in the ``Hello World'' Zoo to reflect the division between implemented an in-progress bindings.

Friday 9th May 2003

• From the page about the JZKit implementation of the Java binding, belatedly add a link to the FAQ that's actually been there for six months or so.

Tuesday 28th January 2003

• Added an initial page about Johannes Leveling's Scheme binding, and his BZoom implemention of it.

  We now have ten implemented bindings (Perl, C++, C, Java, Tcl, Visual Basic, Python, Ada, Scheme and shell commands). Go, us!

Saturday 14th December 2002

• Release version 0.1 [changes] of the JZKit implementation of the Java binding. Hurrah!

Monday 25th November 2002

• Added version 1.3b of the C++ binding, and its changes file, mostly reflecting decisions made at the November 11th meeting at Manchester University.
• Add information on Ashley's Sudz implementation of the C++ binding.
• Add an grouchy admission of defeat to the commentary on the use of char* vs. STL string to represent strings in the C++ binding.

Monday 4th November 2002

• Added version 1.3a of the C++ binding, and its changes file, mostly reflecting work done for the C++ Binding implementation included in YAZ++.

Thursday 24th October 2002

• Finally, there's some proper documentation for the C++ binding! The documentation itself is off-site, but there's a link to it from the C++ binding page.
• Added a page about the new YAZ++ implementation of the C++ binding.

Friday 18th October 2002

• Added Martin Dowie's embryonic ADA binding.

Friday 11th October 2002

• Added information about two new implementations, both due to Rob Sanderson:
  • The Cheshire Tcl implementation.
  • Cheshire's ChZoom Python implementation.

Saturday 24th August 2002

• Added the ``Hello World'' Zoo, containing a sample program in each of the bindings.

Thursday 15th August 2002

• Added a stub page about the new, not-really-existent PHP binding.

Friday 9th August 2002

• Officially released version 1.3 of the abstract API, less than a month after version 1.2. This release conentrates on simplifying areas in which what was described was either impractical or inelegant.

Wednesday 17th July 2002

• Added a speculative outline to the Web Services binding.
• Added ``Hello World'' programs for the Web Services and Shell Commands bindings.

Tuesday 16th July 2002

• Added ``Hello World'' programs to the pages describing the Tcl and C++ bindings.

Monday 15th July 2002

• Officially released version 1.2 of the abstract API.

  People have been implementing against the preview version of v1.2 for a while already, so rather than leave all those implementations hanging on an officially still-in-progress version of the API, I have cut off work on it, released it as it stands (essentially with just the addition of Scan support) and deferred the other new material to the forthcoming version 1.3

• Added ``Hello World'' programs to the pages describing the C and Visual Basic bindings.
• Updated (about time!) the C binding page to point to the current C-binding specification included in the YAZ documentation, which long ago superseded the API sketch from the original ZOOM API document.

Friday 12th July 2002

• Added a page about Aaron Lav's Python binding, and his implemention of it.

  This brings the total number of implemented bindings to a healthy seven - Perl, C++, C, Java, Tcl, Visual Basic and Python - with some work having been done on three others: a Web Service, CORBA IDL and shell commands.

• Added trivial ``Hello World'' programs to the pages describing the Perl, Java and Python bindings; the rest will hopefully be added soon, courtesy of the various bindings' maintainers.

Tuesday 21st May 2002

• I'm delighted to add notes about a new Visual Basic binding, which comes together with an alpha-level implementation, VB-ZOOM.

Tuesday 26th February 2002

• Improved the documentation of version 1.1b of the Java binding, primarily by including a small sample program in the package overview page and brief synopses to each class.

Friday 22nd February 2002

• Moved version 1.1a of the Java Binding into its own area rather than having all the 1.1a-specific stuff clogging up the main Java Binding area.
• Added the new version 1.1b of the Java Binding.

Wednesday 13th February 2002

• For anyone who might care (almost certainly not you) I've added a Java binding commentary describing the music that I listened to as I was putting it together.
• Added a table of contents to the Java binding area.
• Added a first-draft specification of the Scan service (provided by Rob Sanderson <azaroth@liverpool.ac.uk>) to the in-progress version 1.2 of the Abstract API. See sections 3.2.7 (Scan) and 3.6 (Scan Set).

Tuesday 12th February 2002

After a long fallow period, the Java binding springs to life with the addition of:

• A single file containing all the interfaces.
• Lots of small files containing the separate interfaces: Global.java, Connection.java, Query.java, PrefixQuery.java, CCLQuery.java, ResultSet.java, Record.java, Error.java, SystemError.java and Bib1Error.java.
• Not one, not two, but six commentaries, on the subjects of constant arguments, constant methods, abstract interfaces, no enumerations, static methods in interfaces and constructors in interfaces.

Friday 8th February 2002

• Added Dan Ancona's unsolicited testimonial to the home page.

Thursday 6th December 2001

• Released the definitive version 1.1 of the Abstract API.
• Added the new version 1.2 for those who wish to track work in progress.

Friday 23rd November 2001

• Added version 1.0g of the C++ binding, and its changes file.

Tuesday 13th November 2001

• Added a discussion of why the C++ binding uses Boring Old char* throughout instead of a string class.

Friday 9th November 2001

• Added Sebastian Hammer's exposition of why the API doesn't discuss ``super-connection'' objects which transparently fan out searches to multiple servers and merge the results.

Thursday 1st November 2001

• Added a second, binding-level navigation bar to all the pages in the bindings area.

• Added version 1.0f of the C++ binding, and its changes file.

Thursday 25th October 2001

• In response to several people's comments, I've merged in the old implementations area into the bindings area - the implementations are implementations of the bindings, and the distinction seemed arbitrary. This means that any old zoom.z3950.org URLs that had /impl/ in them now have /bind/ instead.

Wednesday 24th October 2001

• Added background prose to the Implementations area.
• Added material on Perl Implementations, including the Net::Z3950 module.
• Various changes to the work-in-progress version 1.1 of the API.
• Added version 1.0d of the C++ binding, and its changes file.
• Added version 1.0e of the C++ binding, and its changes file.

Tuesday 23rd October 2001

• Added version 1.0c of the C++ binding, and its changes file.
• Updated the description of OCLC's interest in doing a Java binding.

Thursday 18th October 2001

• Added the C binding's header file from version 1.0 of the API document.

Wednesday 17th October 2001

• Added an embryonic page on the Shell-Commands binding.
• Well, that didn't take long. After less than 24 hours, I moved the pages on the Perl, C++, C, Java, Tcl, ``Web Services'', Corba IDL and Shell Commands bindings into their own directories, so that there's somewhere for associated files to live.
• Added the C++ binding's header file from version 1.0 of the API document.
• Added version 1.0a of the C++ binding's header file, as supplied by Ashley Sanders, and its changes file.
• Added version 1.0b of the C++ binding, and its changes file.

Tuesday 16th October 2001

• Created the bindings area.
• Created initial pages for the Perl, C++ and C bindings, closely based on section 4 of the original ZOOM document.
• Removed all but a stub of section 4 from the work-in-progress version 1.1 of the ZOOM API specification.
• Created initial pages for the Java, Tcl, ``Web Services'' and Corba IDL bindings - skeletons briefly describing what work is currently happening, and who to contact for more information.

Monday 15th October 2001

• Added an automatically generated site map

Friday 12th October 2001

• First public version of this site.