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Using the same boost version meant that different version versions of ecflow 4.X.X releases had client/server that could be used interchangeably.
However, this caused problems when we wanted to upgrade to a newer boost version , since it broke the client/server apiAPI.
This has been addressed in ecflow 5, we now use JSON for the client/server communication.
Hence the future release of ecflow 5 series can be done with different boost releases.
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For the stats command in 4 series version, the server returns a struct for the the statistics, the client then formats this.
However, this meant we would break client/server api, API if the struct was changed between releases. When we added new statistics.
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Whenever the server checkpoints(i.e. saves the definition state), the full definition is written to disk.
The checkpoint uses ecFlow definition format , when writing to disk and reading it back into memory. (ecflow check pointing checkpointing is faster than boost or even Json serialisation)
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If any user requests the full definition, we can return the cached string really fast.
Synchronizing/GUI
In ecflow 4.0 the status change times were not accurate, especially for short-lived tasks. This was because the server to client sync only passed the state change.
This has been improved in ecflow 5.0, where we now also sync for each state change the duration. This is duration is relative to the suite clock.
As a result, the status change time is more accurate.
Generic Attribute
A new generic attribute has been added to the definition in ecflow 5 series.
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