[13.6.0] Stable Release

[Mahendra Chavan (machavan)]

Added

• Add FLOAT16 Vector Version Negotiation to the TVP Write Path #2997

  • What was added: Negotiated vector-version validation before writing VECTOR column metadata for table-valued parameters.
  • Who benefits: Applications sending vector columns through table-valued parameters.
  • Impact: Rejects all vectors on version 0 and FLOAT16 vectors on version 1 before data is written to the wire, with a clear driver error.

• Port Legacy FX Non-AE Test Scenarios to JUnit #3008

  • What was added: Forty-eight legacyFx-tagged JUnit tests covering previously unported non-Always-Encrypted functional scenarios.
  • Who benefits: Contributors and CI validation pipelines.
  • Impact: Improves regression coverage while advancing retirement of the legacy FX test suite.

• Add Cross-Driver Connection String Aliases for Unification #3011

  • What was added: Case-insensitive aliases for uid, trusted_connection, app, connectTimeout, columnEncryption, and quotedId, mapped to their canonical JDBC properties.
  • Who benefits: Applications sharing connection-string configuration across Microsoft data drivers.
  • Impact: Improves portability while preserving all existing JDBC property names and aliases.

• Add getCurrentApplicationName to PerformanceLogCallback #3018

  • What was added: A default getCurrentApplicationName() method that exposes the publishing connection's applicationName to performance callbacks.
  • Who benefits: Applications using connection pools and performance-event correlation.
  • Impact: Allows events to be associated with a pool or application without breaking existing callback implementations.

Changed

• Optimize MONEY, DECIMAL, and String Processing in the ResultSet Read Path #2991

  • What was changed: Removed intermediate allocations from MONEY/SMALLMONEY decoding, common BigDecimal encoding, short synchronous string reads, and NBCROW initialization.
  • Who benefits: Applications reading high-volume or wide result sets.
  • Impact: Reduces garbage-collection pressure and improves throughput while preserving decoded values and existing fallback behavior.

• Validate Reflective Class Names for Connection Properties #3004

  • What was changed: Added Java binary class-name validation before reflectively loading classes specified by properties such as socketFactoryClass and accessTokenCallbackClass.
  • Who benefits: Applications configuring custom callback, socket-factory, or related reflective classes.
  • Impact: Malformed class names now fail early with a dedicated driver error instead of producing confusing reflective-loading failures.

• Update Vector Tests for Server-Side FLOAT16/FLOAT32 Conversion #3005

  • What was changed: Updated and expanded vector tests for implicit and explicit conversion between FLOAT16 and FLOAT32 vector subtypes.
  • Who benefits: Contributors validating vector interoperability against servers supporting vector version 2.
  • Impact: Covers assignments, casts, conversions, bulk copy, routines, precision loss, nulls, and dimension mismatch behavior.

• Adjust License File to Enable GitHub Detection #3010

  • What was changed: Normalized the MIT license text formatting.
  • Who benefits: Repository users and automated tooling.
  • Impact: Enables GitHub to detect and display the repository license; there is no runtime impact.

• Suppress CodeQL False Positive for Protocol-Mandated MD5 #3014

  • What was changed: Documented and suppressed the CodeQL SM05136 finding for MD5 used by NTLM channel binding as required by MS-NLMP.
  • Who benefits: Contributors and security-scanning pipelines.
  • Impact: Reduces false-positive security findings without changing authentication behavior.

• Remove the Legacy sqljdbc_xa.dll Distribution #3017

  • What was changed: Removed references to and distribution of the legacy server-side sqljdbc_xa.dll and updated XA setup guidance.
  • Who benefits: Applications using supported SQL Server versions and maintainers of XA deployments.
  • Impact: XA now relies on the built-in procedures in SQL Server 2017 CU16 and later, enabled with sp_sqljdbc_xa_install.

• Cache sp_columns_170 Availability Per Connection in getColumns() #3019

  • What was changed: Cached sp_columns_170 availability as a per-connection tri-state and refined fallback handling.
  • Who benefits: Applications repeatedly calling getColumns(), especially on SQL Server versions earlier than 2025.
  • Impact: Avoids one failed procedure call per metadata request on unsupported servers while retaining sp_columns_100 fallback behavior.

• Enhance Table-Name Validation for Bulk Copy and Batch Insert #3020

  • What was changed: Added multi-part identifier escaping before destination table names are embedded in Bulk Copy and useBulkCopyForBatchInsert SQL.
  • Who benefits: Applications using Bulk Copy or the PreparedStatement bulk-copy batch path.
  • Impact: Valid identifiers remain supported while adversarial or malformed table-name input fails safely.

• Bump BouncyCastle to 1.84 and Pin azure-core-http-netty to 1.16.6 #3021

  • What was changed: Upgraded BouncyCastle from 1.79 to 1.84 and pinned azure-core-http-netty to 1.16.6.
  • Who benefits: Users of optional BouncyCastle and Azure SDK integrations.
  • Impact: Resolves Component Governance CVEs and selects patched Netty 4.1.137.Final without API or behavior changes.

• Pin GitHub Actions to Full-Length Commit SHAs #3022

  • What was changed: Replaced mutable action tags with full commit SHAs and configured a seven-day Dependabot cooldown for GitHub Actions.
  • Who benefits: Contributors and CI maintainers.
  • Impact: Improves CI supply-chain security and reproducibility without changing action behavior.

• Make setObject scaleOrLength an Advisory Hint #3026

  • What was changed: Character and binary setObject(..., scaleOrLength) hints now widen when too small; non-positive hints are ignored. defineParameterType() remains enforced.
  • Who benefits: Applications that pass string or binary length values to setObject().
  • Impact: Restores compatibility by preventing hint-related failures or truncation and validates byte-counted varchar/char lengths in server units.

• Update GitHub Actions Dependencies #3027

  • What was changed: Updated actions/checkout from 4.4.0 to 7.0.1 and github/codeql-action from 3.37.8 to 4.37.7.
  • Who benefits: Contributors and CI maintainers.
  • Impact: Keeps the repository's GitHub Actions dependencies current.

• Revert DateTimeOffset Deprecation for GA Compatibility #3035

  • What was changed: Restored microsoft.sql.DateTimeOffset and the existing getDateTimeOffset(), setDateTimeOffset(), and updateDateTimeOffset() APIs as non-deprecated, and removed the driver-specific OffsetDateTime APIs introduced in the 13.5.0 preview.
  • Who benefits: Existing applications that depend on the Microsoft-specific type and established datetimeoffset handling in prepared statements, callable statements, result sets, bulk copy, Always Encrypted, and metadata.
  • Impact: Preserves the established public API and prevents GA compatibility changes for applications expecting microsoft.sql.DateTimeOffset rather than OffsetDateTime or TIMESTAMP_WITH_TIMEZONE. Standard JDBC getObject(..., OffsetDateTime.class) support and existing conversions remain available.
  • Note: Migration toward OffsetDateTime will be reconsidered in the next preview release with a dedicated compatibility and migration plan.

Fixed

• Fix Closed-Statement NullPointerException in buildParamTypeDefinitions #2995

  • What was fixed: Checked the statement's closed state before accessing a null parameter array in buildParamTypeDefinitions().
  • Who benefits: Applications that invoke parameter-related methods after a prepared or callable statement is closed.
  • Impact: Produces the standard closed-statement SQLServerException instead of a NullPointerException.

• Return an Empty ResultSet When No Generated Key Exists #3002

  • What was fixed: Filtered the null SCOPE_IDENTITY() row returned after inserting into a table without generated keys.
  • Who benefits: Applications calling getGeneratedKeys() for inserts into tables without an identity column.
  • Impact: Returns an empty ResultSet instead of a one-row result containing NULL.

• Recover from Failed Cached Managed Identity Credentials #3003

  • What was fixed: Evicted a failed cached ManagedIdentityCredential or DefaultAzureCredential after token acquisition errors or empty results.
  • Who benefits: Applications using ActiveDirectoryManagedIdentity or ActiveDirectoryDefault, especially with connection pools.
  • Impact: Allows subsequent authentication attempts to build a fresh credential and recover without restarting the JVM.

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This discussion was created from the release [13.6.0] Stable Release.