As many of you have already discovered, Connector/Net 5.0.5 does not work correctly with Tools for Visual Studio.  The symptom is that when the plugin tries to enumerate all the tables in the database, it reports that it gets back an improper data type.  The cause of this problem is somewhat involved so I thought I would blog on it.

Since the early days of the connector, binary data was not always handled correctly.  Specifically, columns that were reported to the connector as CHAR and VARCHAR were returned as System.String.  This is, of course, not always correct.  The case that prompted the changes was a bug report that SELECT _binary "foo" would return foo as a System.String instead of System.Byte[] as it should.

The fix is to always respect the binary markers that the server sends, which 5.0.5 does.  The problem is that MySQL incorrectly reports some columns as binary such as the name column from …

MySQL Connector/Net 5.0.5 a new version of the all-managed .NET driver for MySQL has been released.

This is a bug fix release for the current production branch of Connector/Net.
Version 5.0.5 is suitable for use with any MySQL version including MySQL-4.1, MySQL-5.0, MySQL-5.1 beta or the MySQL-5.2 Falcon "Preview".

It is now available in source and binary form from the Connector/Net download pages at http://dev.mysql.com/downloads/connector/net/5.0.html and mirror sites (note that not all mirror sites may be up to date at this point of time - if you can't find this version on some mirror, please try again later or choose another download site.)

What happened to 5.0.4?
We had 5.0.4 packaged up and ready to go and then discovered that a previous bug fix was not complete.  Rather …

I was feeling pretty ill on Monday but I managed to recover enough to present today's webinar on developing applications for MySQL with Visual Studio.  We had a terrific turnout of +150 people and I've been told the presentation came off pretty well.  As a reminder, if you attended the webinar and have any question that you were not able to ask during the session, please email me directly and I'll get you an answer.

Even more exciting is the community feedback.  I received an email just a couple of hours ago from Jeffrey McManus who blogs about MySQL and .NET (among other things).  He wrote up a nice little article on installing MySql.Data into the GAC.  You can read it here.  Thanks Jeffrey, and keep them coming!

MySQL Connector/Net 1.0.9 has been released. MySQL Connector/Net is an all-managed ADO.Net provider for MySQL. This release is suitable for use in production environments and with any version of MySQL.

It is now available in source and binary form from the Connector/Net download pages at http://dev.mysql.com/downloads/connector/net/1.0.html and mirror sites (note that not all mirror sites may be up to date at this point of time - if you can't find this version on some mirror, please try again later or choose another download site.)

This release includes many bug fixes along with the following enhancements/changes:

* Implemented a stored procedure cache. By default, the connector caches the metadata for the last 25 procedures that are seen. You can change the number of procedures that are cached by using the 'procedure …

Today we have released MySQL Tools for Microsoft Visual Studio 1.1.2 -- a downloadable plug-in for Visual Studio 2005 that allows Windows developers to quickly build MySQL data-driven applications with Visual Studio. With this plug-in, developers will be able to create, modify and manage MySQL database objects with an easy-to-use interface from within the Visual Studio IDE. This product is delivered as a package compatible with Visual Studio 2005.

This release is identical to 1.1.0 in functionality. We identified and corrected some problems with the installers for 1.1.0 and the unreleased 1.1.1.

The 1.1 series plugin adds support for using the DataSource wizard and the DataSet designer in Visual Studio 2005. The Data Source wizard can be found by choosing Data|Add Data Source from the Visual Studio menu. It provides a way to connect the generic data-handling capabilities of Visual Studio to our provider. Once a data source is …

Today we have released the first build of MySQL Tools for Microsoft Visual Studio 1.1 -- a downloadable plug-in for Visual Studio 2005 that allows Windows developers to quickly build MySQL data-driven applications with Visual Studio. With this plug-in, developers will be able to create, modify and manage MySQL database objects with an easy-to-use interface from within the Visual Studio IDE.  This product is delivered as a package compatible with Visual Studio 2005 and delivers the following features:

This release builds on the original 1.0 plugin by adding support for using the DataSource wizard and the DataSet designer in Visual Studio 2005.  The Data Source wizard can be found by choosing Data|Add Data Source from the Visual Studio menu.  It provides a way to connect the generic data-handling capabilities of Visual Studio to our provider.  Once a data source is added then custom datasets can be created using the …

I downloaded and setup the VPC image for the new January CTP "Orcas" of Visual Studio.  I plan to use these bits to better integrate our provider into the new Entity Framework.  But before that can happen, what is any self-respecting developer going to do with a fresh install of the next version of Visual Studio?  Why try to build MySQL with it!

We use CMake as our project file generation tool and so the first step was to install it and a couple other items into the VPC.  That done, I tried to generate the project files.  CMake errored out saying that it could not find Visual Studio 8.  A quick edit of the VS8 template file for CMake and that was fixed. 

Ten minutes after booting the VPC for the first time, I'm …

MySQL Connector/Net 5.0.3 GA has been released. MySQL Connector/Net is an all-managed ADO.Net provider for MySQL. This release is suitable for production use with MySQL versions 4 and higher.

It is now available in source and binary form from the Connector/Net download pages at [dev.mysql.com] and mirror sites (note that not all mirror sites may be up to date at this point of time - if you can't find this version on some mirror, please try again later or choose another download site.)

Changes since 5.0.2

Bugs fixed
Bug #23687 Deleting a connection to a disconnected server causes a failed assertion
Bug #24565 Inferring DbType fails when reusing commands and the first time the value is null
Bug #24661 mysql-connector-net-5.0.2-beta Driver.IsTooOld() Error....
Bug #23905 Stored procedure usages …

Today we have released MySQL Tools for Microsoft Visual Studio 1.0.2 GA --a downloadable plug-in for Visual Studio 2005 that allows Windows developers to quickly build MySQL data-driven applications with Visual Studio. With this plug-in, developers will be able to create, modify and manage MySQL database objects with an easy-to-use interface from within the Visual Studio IDE. This product is delivered as a package compatible with Visual Studio 2005 and delivers the following features:

• DDEX (Data Designer Extensibility) compatibility
• Ability to work with MySQL objects (tables, views, stored procedures, etc) from within Server Explorer
• Support for MySQL versions 4.1 and higher

IMPORTANT
This product will only work correctly with Connector/Net 5.0.2 and higher.

This release does not include the ability to work with the DataSet designer but we will be making a beta …

MySQL Connector/Net 5.0.2 Beta has been released.  MySQL Connector/Net is an all-managed ADO.Net provider for MySQL.  While this release is suitable for any version of MySQL, it is strongly encouraged that this release not be used on any production data. 

It is now available in source and binary form from the Connector/Net download pages at http://dev.mysql.com/downloads/connector/net/5.0.html and mirror sites (note that not all mirror sites may be up to date at this point of time - if you can't find this version on some mirror, please try again later or choose another download site.)

Changes in this release (changelog):

Bugs fixed

• Bug #23268 System.FormatException when invoking procedure with ENUM input parameter
• Bug #23538 Exception thrown when GetSchemaTable is called and …