New version of JSON UDF functions has been just released. This version introduces two new features.

1. Escape characters in results of JSON_SEARCH function. In previous version if you had document @doc = '{"foo:bar": "baz"}' or '{"foo": {"bar": "baz"}}' return value of JSON_SEARCH(@doc, '"baz"'); was 'foo:bar::' for both. There was no way to distinguish two search paths. Now for the first document JSON_SEARCH returns 'foo\:bar::'
2. Second feature is much bigger. Now JSON functions accessing elements by a key (JSON_CONTAINS_KEY, JSON_EXTRACT, JSON_REPLACE, JSON_REMOVE, JSON_APPEND, JSON_SET, JSON_COUNT) can use alternate keypath syntax: $.key1.key2[arr_index] where $ is root element, .key is key name, [arr_index] is array index. JSON_SEARCH can also return path in this format with escaped $, . and [] symbols.

New version of JSON UDF functions has been just released. This is maintenance release which only contains fix for 4 bugs:

74090/19821398 `INSTALL_JSONUDFS` ISSUES A WARNING DUE TO TRUNCATION OF `VERSION_COMPILE_OS`
74091/19692634 `JSON_DEEP_MERGE`: DEEP CRASH IN `MERGE_TREE`
74092/19692628 CRASH WITH SECOND-HAND NULL IN PARAMETERS
74097/19693198 `CREATE_NEW_VALUE`: STACK BUFFER OVERFLOW, %LLD CAN'T FIT IN CHAR[20]

Also 0.3 branch becomes stable branch and no new features will be pushed to this branch in future. Previous stable branch (0.2) removed from MySQL Labs website.

…

Today new version of JSON UDF functions: 0.3.2 was released. This is development release which contains new functionality. You can download functions from the MySQL Labs website.

What is new?

New function `JSON_COUNT` added. This function returns number of children of the key path specified. If no key path specified, number of children of the root element is returned. Bug #70580/17584692 ADD FUNCTION `JSON_COUNT` TO COUNT SIZE OF JSON DOCUMENT

mysql> select json_count('{"MySQL Central": ["conference", 2014]}') as 'root count',
    ­> json_count('{"MySQL Central": ["conference", 2014]}', 'MySQL Central') as 'first element count'\G     
                                                   
************************ 1. row ************************
         root count: 1
first element count: 2
1 row in set …

Today new version of JSON UDF functions: 0.3.1 was released. This is development release which contains new functionality. You can download functions from the MySQL Labs website.

What is new?

Default value for compile option `WITH_PCRE` now is `bundled` independently from the
platform (Bug #71265/18081332 Library name mismatch for PCRE on Ubuntu)

New values, passed to functions `JSON_APPEND`, `JSON_REPLACE`, `JSON_SET` as numbers, empty strings or `NULL`s are converted to JSON objects. Objects, passed as strings are not converted: you are still responsible to put quotes around string values. Also these functions check if element which needs to be inserted is valid JSON value. (Bug #70394/17491708 MySQL JSON UDFs: …

When I presented JSON UDF functions at MySQL Connect last year attendees asked me to implement few features. I quickly wrote their wishes in my notepad. I also created feature requests at bugs.mysql.com  when I was home.

During following months I fixed bugs in the functions and implemented feature requests, including those which I got from MySQL Connect. I started from most important and affecting users, such as wrong results bugs of features for which I got more than one request.

But today all such requests finished and I am working on bug #70580  This feature request says: "Add function JSON_COUNT which will go through the JSON document and count number of childs of the root element." Well, I wrote it myself, but I don't exactly remember if the user wanted to know depth of the JSON …

New version of JSON UDF functions 0.2.2 have been just released. It is last maintenance release of 0.2 series. However it contains two new features:

JSON_VALID now accepts array as a root element of the JSON document (Bug#70567/17583282)

JSON functions can now be installed and uninstalled using a script (Bug#71263/18022788 Easy installation sql script).

This feature is Community contribution. Thank you, Daniel van Eeden!

This release also contains following bug fixes:

71050/17882710 json_extract returning same column twice if key names are not fully distinct. (Fixed for JSON_EXTRACT, JSON_CONTAINS_KEY, JSON_APPEND, JSON_REMOVE, JSON_REPLACE, JSON_SET) …

Today new version of JSON UDF functions: 0.3.0 was released. This is major release which contains new functionality. You can download functions from the MySQL Labs website.

What was added?

Functions JSON_EXTRACT, JSON_CONTAINS_KEY, JSON_APPEND, JSON_REMOVE, JSON_REPLACE, JSON_SET now accept both string and integer arguments as array indexes. (Bug #70393/17491709)

Now syntax JSON_EXTRACT(doc, 'key', 1); is accepted.

New function JSON_SAFE_MERGE checks JSON documents for validity before merging them. In addition JSON_MERGE now merges valid documents, having array as root element. (Bug #70575/17583568)

JSON_VALID now accepts array as a root element of the JSON document (Bug #70567/17583282)

Also this release contains following bug fixes:

71050/17882710 …

Yesterday Ulf Wendel created great blog post with deep analysis of JSON UDF functions which I presented at MySQL Connect at September, 21.

Ulf found few bugs in these functions, I reported them all at bugs.mysql.com. You can find numbers in my comment to his blog post. But he also raised concerns, which can not be considered pure bugs, rather feature requests, or even design especiallities.

* First concern, of course, is the documentation. Ulf writes: "Here’s what the README, the only documentation available apart from the *.c[omment]/*.h[elp] files".

I agree single README file is not enough, but this is still Labs project for which I can not abuse MySQL documentation team for making proper documentation for me. But you still can find more information, than single README file. And these are slides from …

I'm pleased to announce the release of Memcached Functions for MySQL version 1.1. I realized in the past few weeks, while writing my latest book "Expert PHP and MySQL", that there was no way to obtain the CAS value of a cached item in order to successfully use the function memc_cas(). So, I decided to create a new function, memc_get_cas(), which obtains the CAS value for an item so you can subsequently use this value in a memc_cas() call, which is shown in the example below:

mysql> select memc_get_cas('t1');
+--------------------+
| memc_get_cas('t1') |
+--------------------+
|                  3 | 
+--------------------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)

mysql> select memc_get('t1');
+----------------+
| memc_get('t1') |
+----------------+
| new value      | 
+----------------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec) …

I have a talk scheduled tonight, for anyone who's in the Southern New Hampshire area (or greater Northern New England area): http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.org.user-groups.linux.gnhlug.announce/743

I'll be going over a number of things, time permitting:

* memcached (in general)
* NorthScale's memcached Amazon Machine Images and Virtual Appliance
* moxi - memcached proxy
* memcached Functions for MySQL

I'll run a couple demonstrations with each, first simple memcached usage, then using two memcached instances through moxi, then I'll throw in using them with the UDFs.

I intend to see if the Boston MySQL Users Group would be interested in this talk soon as well.