OpenADS for MLS 2026

This branch is the OpenADS build that MLS 2026 (MasterLink Software) runs in production testing. It is fivetechsoft/openads main at f41738d3 (1.09.74) plus the fixes below. Everything here was tested against a real MLS 2026 installation:

• DBF/CDX tables and ADT tables
• OpenADS REMOTE (openads_serverd) and OpenADS LOCAL
• a 64-bit Harbour 3.2 / FiveWin client built with MSVC

The binaries are attached to this fork’s Release v1.09.74-mls1.

Fixes on top of f41738d3

#	Where	Problem	Fix
1	src/network/session.cpp	The server applied SetAOF only to the engine table. Ordered navigation runs on the ABI twin handle (tbls_h_), so filtered, indexed browses showed wrong or partial rows.	Mirror SetAOF/ClearAOF onto the twin, including a twin created after the AOF was set.
2	src/network/session.cpp	The server acknowledged an AOF it could not optimise (e.g. substr(glscod,1,4)=...). Stock rddads only filters on the client when AdsSetAOF fails, so SET FILTER did nothing under REMOTE.	Reply AE_INVALID_EXPRESSION, as local AdsSetAOF does. The reply frame is built by hand, so the expected refusal stays out of the error log.
3	src/engine/table.cpp	goto_record did not update sequence_idx_, so DbGoto(n) + DbSkip(-1) under an AOF gave BOF. This affects LOCAL too.	Re-anchor the sequence index on the row.
4	src/abi/ace_exports.cpp (AdsSkip)	A pair-certified GoTop/GoBottom moved only the client, so the next index Skip walked from the wrong server row.	Anchor the server cursor with goto_record when pair_local_position is set.
5	src/abi/ace_exports.cpp (adt_spec_for)	ADT numeric fields with decimals were created as DOUBLE (type 10), which stores no decimal count. DbStruct reported 0 decimals, so values displayed rounded (7.75 showed as “8”).	N with dec > 0 is created as ADT type 2 (numeric as ASCII digits), keeping the declared width and scale.

The full source change is the commit on this branch. It is also in mls-patches-on-f41738d3.diff in the Release.

Build (MSVC only)

Visual Studio 2022 with CMake. The tested builds’ CMake cache has generator “Visual Studio 17 2022” (x64 / Win32), tests off, HTTP and SQLite on, every other optional backend off. An equivalent configure:

cmake -S . -B build\mls-x64 -G "Visual Studio 17 2022" -A x64 ^
  -DOPENADS_BUILD_TESTS=OFF -DOPENADS_WITH_HTTP=ON -DOPENADS_WITH_SQLITE=ON
cmake --build build\mls-x64 --config Release

rem 32-bit client DLL: same, with -A Win32 into build\mls-x86

Outputs:

• src\Release\openace64.dll / openace32.dll and the matching .lib
• tools\serverd\Release\openads_serverd.exe

The .lib files are name-based import libraries. An application linked against them can swap in a newer OpenADS DLL without relinking.

Known problems with GCC/MinGW builds (do not use with MSVC apps)

A Winlibs GCC 10.2 build of the same code failed in two ways with an MSVC-built Harbour application:

1. Error 7079 “Connect: path outside data directory”.
   • path_has_prefix() in src/platform/path.cpp compares case-sensitively.
   • MSVC’s std::filesystem::weakly_canonical() returns the on-disk case of an existing folder. GCC 10’s libstdc++ keeps the caller’s case.
   • So a client path C:\mls2026s\Data\ against --data C:\MLS2026s is accepted by the MSVC server and refused by the GCC one.
   • On Windows the jail check should compare case-insensitively.
2. Every number formats as stars. With the GCC openace64.dll loaded into the MSVC-built exe:
   • All numeric output in the host program became ****, even the exe’s own file size in its error log.
   • It happened with plain DBFCDX too, where the DLL is loaded but not called.
   • Saves then wrote ********** into DBF numeric fields, which corrupted tables.
   • Swapping only that DLL back to the MSVC build fixed it.

Open items (not fixed here)

• IndexKey(n) / OrdName(n) past the last tag return tag 1 instead of "". Code that walks tags with while ! Empty( IndexKey( j ) ) (the standard FiveWin/Harbour error handler) loops until it runs out of memory. Bound such loops with OrdCount().
• REMOTE writes to DBF N fields are left-aligned and keep float digits ("500 ", "199.449999" in an N(10,2)) instead of right-aligned with the declared decimals. Harbour reads them, but they are not standard DBF numerics.
• REMOTE DbCreate() without an extension creates a .dbf even in ADT mode.
• SQL CREATE TABLE [x.adt] writes a VFP DBF named .adt.
• A value read right after DbCommit() + DbUnlock() under REMOTE was stale once (client row cache suspected).

License

OpenADS is Apache License 2.0 (see LICENSE). These changes are released under the same license.