Informix often adds features in fixpacks and xC2 and xC3 are no exception. I strongly suggest that you take a look at the list of new features that are listed in the release notice. You can find it at:

Release notice 11.70.xC3

In my next few blog entries I will not cover all the new features. I will limit myself to two main areas:

• Compatibility functions
• TimeSeries improvements

For anything else, see the release notice and the Informix documentation. The easier way to do this is to use the information center that can be found at:

Information center 11.70

Compatibility functions

This release added a few compatibility function that makes it easier to move application to informix. They include:

• CHARINDEX(substring, source_string, [start_position])
  
  Search for a string in another one and return its starting position. You can start at an offset (start_position) in the source string
  
• DEGREES(value)
  
  Convert a radian value to degrees
  
• INSTR(source_string, substring [,start [,count]])
  
  Search for an occurence of a substring starting at a specific offset
  
• LEFT(source_string, len)
  
  Return the "len" leftmost characters
  
• LEN(string)
  
  Synonym for LENGTH
  
• RADIANS(value)
  
  Convert a degrees value to radians
  
• REVERSE(string)
  
  Return a string in reverse order
  
• RIGHT(source_string, len)
  
  Reverse the "len" rightmost characters
  
• SPACE(len)
  
  Return a string of "len" spaces
  
• SUBSTRING_INDEX(string, delimiter [, occurence])
  
  Returns the substring that ends at a specific occurence of a delimiter
  

Take a look at the details of these functions. I'm sure you will find a good use for them.