Xaira / News: Recent posts

Version 1.26 enables 64-bit compilation and completes the php mapping of the API. A new web-based client has been added but will be developed further.

This is a minor release addressing a number of issues that have arisen in testing including multiple entries for forms.

Release 1.21 of Xaira contains a complete redesign of the corpus header, aimed at making it possible for users to edit the header directly. Please read TN0010 before trying to re-index a corpus!

This release also introduces a rudimentary user/password protection system for servers. Please email tony.dodd@btinternet.com if you want to use this.

Release 1.18 of Xaira consists mostly of bug fixes, but it is also the first version in which the new xml rpc-based remote protocol is supported. Users may, for example, set up a server on a Unix server using xaira_daemon and use the Windows client to submit queries. Full instructions can be found by following the link in NEWS.

Release 1.17 contains the first version of the client to use the new open Xaira API rather than the old text string server. The old mechanism will be retained in parallel until testing of the new client is more advanced and various known limitations have been addressed. The query language, renamed xxql, is not finalised but users may use this release to test the current spec and are encouraged to comment on the language's usability.

The latest release of Xaira (1.16) adds a complete binding of the Xaira Objects API for PHP5. This makes development of web access to a corpus a much simpler process; moreover any HTML server that supports PHP can be used to host Xaira pages. The interface allows simultaneous access to multiple indexed corpora. Use of PHP's multibyte string support means that Unicode-encoded corpora can be displayed in any browser that has suitable fonts enabled.

The current release (1.15) of Xaira comes in two flavours: source for Unix or executable for Windows. One of the project aims is to develop a Windows source release, and as a first step the Windows source will be placed in a new CVS module. The Windows components are more complex to build because they include the client and xaira-tools programs.

We are looking for users who have access to Visual Studio to test the Windows build process and help get it to a stage where we can add Windows source to distributions. Please contact the project admin louburnard for more information.

Release 1.15 of Xaira is the software used to index and search the new BNC Baby CD (see http://www.natcorp.ox.ac.uk/babyinfo.html\). Most of the changes are bug fixes, and many gaps in context help have been plugged.

Release 1.14 has been posted and is tagged in CVS. Its main changes affect the indexer; there are no changes to the client. Windows users should note that collocations are broken in this release but will be restored in 1.15.

Version 1.13 brings several major enhancements: the Xaira SOAP server, a test harness for CQL queries and lots of bug fixes. It has been tested on the BNC and various memory leaks so revealed have been fixed.