Release v2.9.0

This is a minor release of Doctrine DBAL that aggregates over 40 fixes and improvements developed by 18 contributors over the last 5 months.

This release includes all changes of the 2.8.x series, as well as feature additions and improvements that couldn't land in patch releases.

## Backwards Compatibility Breaks

This doesn't contain any intentional Backwards Compatibility (BC) breaks.

## Deprecations

* The usage of `NULL` to specify the absence of an offset in `LIMIT`ed queries is deprecated. Use `0` instead.
* It's not recommended to rely on the default length specified by implementations of `Type`. These values are not used by the library and will be removed.
* It's not recommended to rely on the string representation of `Type` objects.
* Regular-expression based asset filters are deprecated in favor of callback-based as more extensible.
* Calling `Statement::fetchColumn()` with an invalid column index is deprecated.
* The `dbal:import` CLI command is deprecated. Please use other database client applications for import.

Please see details in the [UPGRADE.md](UPGRADE.md) documentation.

## New Features

* Added support for MariaDB 10.3.
* Added support for Windows authentication for SQL Server.
* Added support for column length in index definitions on MySQL.

## Improvements and Fixes

* Implemented handling BLOB objects represented as streams in the MySQL (`mysqli`) driver.
* Implemented handling BLOB objects represented as streams in the IDM DB2 driver.
* DBAL is now continuously tested with the PDO driver for Oracle.
* Implemented handling of URLs in master-slave and pooling-shard connection configuration.
* The codebase is now fully compatible with the Doctrine Coding Standard v5.0.

Total issues resolved: **45**

**Deprecations:**

- [3244: Deprecated dbal:import CLI command](doctrine#3244) thanks to @morozov
- [3253: Deprecated usage of the NULL offset in LIMITed queries](doctrine#3253) thanks to @morozov
- [3256: Deprecate Doctrine\DBAL\Types\Type::getDefaultLength()](doctrine#3256) thanks to @Majkl578
- [3258: Deprecate Doctrine\DBAL\Types\Type::&doctrine#95;&doctrine#95;toString()](doctrine#3258) thanks to @Majkl578
- [3316: Deprecated regex-based asset filters](doctrine#3316) thanks to @morozov
- [3359: Removed DataAccessTest::testFetchColumnNonExistingIndex() since it covers a bug in PDO](doctrine#3359) thanks to @morozov

**New Features:**

- [2412: Add mysql specific indexes with lengths](doctrine#2412) thanks to @bburnichon
- [3278: Add support for MariaDB 10.3](doctrine#3278) thanks to @javiereguiluz
- [3283: MariaDB improvements, support 10.3](doctrine#3283) thanks to @sidz
- [3333: Allow windows (userless/passwordless) authentication for SQL Server](doctrine#3333) thanks to @odinsey

**Bug Fixes:**

- [3355: Implemented comparison of default values as strings regardless of their PHP types](doctrine#3355) thanks to @morozov and @Majkl578

**Improvements:**

- [3201: Fix support for URL to account for master-slave and pooling-shard connections](doctrine#3201) thanks to @stof
- [3217: Fix that MysqliStatement cannot handle streams](doctrine#3217) thanks to @mpdude
- [3235: Use PSR-4 autoloader](doctrine#3235) thanks to @Majkl578
- [3254: Throw ConversionException when unserialization fail for array and object types](doctrine#3254) thanks to @seferov
- [3259: Update export ignores](doctrine#3259) thanks to @Majkl578
- [3309: Implemented handling BLOBs represented as stream resources for IBM DB2](doctrine#3309) thanks to @morozov and @mpdude
- [3331: Fetch all should use the driver statement's fetchAll method](doctrine#3331) thanks to @michaelcullum

**Documentation Improvements:**

- [3223: GitHub template grammar/spelling fixes](doctrine#3223) thanks to @GawainLynch
- [3232: Removed NOW() from QueryBuilder usage examples](doctrine#3232) thanks to @morozov
- [3239: 2.8 in README & branch alias to 2.9](doctrine#3239) thanks to @Majkl578
- [3269: Fixed type hints in DockBlocks](doctrine#3269) thanks to @marforon
- [3275: Add .doctrine-project.json to root of the project.](doctrine#3275) thanks to @jwage
- [3276: Update homepage](doctrine#3276) thanks to @Majkl578
- [3280: Use behaviuor instead of  behavior](doctrine#3280) thanks to @BackEndTea
- [3285: Remove old comment from MysqliStatement](doctrine#3285) thanks to @mpdude
- [3318: Removed link to www.doctrine-project.org from doc blocks](doctrine#3318) thanks to @morozov
- [3319: remove ClassLoader](doctrine#3319) thanks to @garak
- [3337: Fix of links in documentation](doctrine#3337) thanks to @SenseException
- [3350: Remove pdo&doctrine#95;sqlsrv from known vendor issues list](doctrine#3350) thanks to @ostrolucky
- [3357: Fix typo](doctrine#3357) thanks to @BenMorel
- [3370: Removed 2.7 from README](doctrine#3370) thanks to @morozov

**Code Quality Improvements:**

- [3252: Replaced call&doctrine#95;user&doctrine#95;func&doctrine#95;array() of a fixed method with the usage of variadic arguments](doctrine#3252) thanks to @morozov
- [3306: Fixed coding standard violations in the codebase](doctrine#3306) thanks to @morozov
- [3303: Updated doctrine/coding-standard to 5.0, ](doctrine#3303) thanks to @morozov
- [3317: Implemented proper escaping of string literals in platforms and schema managers](doctrine#3317) thanks to @morozov
- [3363: Remove redundant implements](doctrine#3363) thanks to @BenMorel

**Continuous Integration Improvements:**

- [3307: Test against the latest stable sqlsrv extension](doctrine#3307) thanks to @morozov
- [3320: Trying to fix failing DB builds](doctrine#3320) thanks to @morozov
- [3325: Updated PHPUnit to 7.4](doctrine#3325) thanks to @morozov
- [3339: ContinuousPHP configuration for PDO Oracle driver](doctrine#3339) thanks to @morozov
- [3365: Reorganize Travis build matrix](doctrine#3365) thanks to @BenMorel

# gpg: Signature made Tue Dec  4 05:44:06 2018
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# Conflicts:
#	README.md
#	lib/Doctrine/DBAL/Driver/AbstractOracleDriver.php
#	lib/Doctrine/DBAL/Version.php