The MPE 6.5 Communicator 3000 just got dropped on my
desk.  In it on pages 132-137 inclusive James Overman has
a nice piece on two major new functionality enhancements to
Transact/iX (thanks, James (who woulda thunk Transact would
still be getting six full pages in the Communicator) ):

(1)   Expanded (full) support of TurboIMAGE B-trees.
(2)   Ability to pass database and file IDs to Transact.

A couple footnotes:

(1)   Under the description for the new FINDMODE option,
James included the following: "Performs optimized searching
of an index by using TurboIMAGE's B-Tree index functionality
or Third Party Indexing".  I believe it is correct that Transact
now supports ALL B-Tree and TPI FIND modes..  *and*
(expect James will correct me if I got this wrong) Transact
should now be able to support additional new IMAGE FIND
modes if any such new modes are added in the future (if
LIST register set-up is done correctly);  i.e.:  Transact data
access verbs with the CHAIN and RCHAIN modifier should
from now on automatically "keep up" with IMAGE on FIND
modes;  any valid IMAGE FIND mode will be accepted.

(2)   The ability to pass database and file IDs to a Transact
program from a calling program written in another language
(by using TL_CALL_TRANSACT) is the end result of an
enhancement request that was originally proposed by former
SIGRAPID Chairman Steve Dirickson.  This makes it much
easier and more efficient to call Transact programs to do
IMAGE I/O from things like server programs written in C....


....  and for those who say 4GLs are dead or at least dying
fast ??...:   Well....  my answer is:  Transact is not really a
4GL:  It is a better, fully-procedural 3.5 GL....    :-)

Ken Sletten