ecl/src/CHANGELOG

ECL 0.9i
========

* New platforms:

 - Patches in assembler code and GC headers to build ECL on Mac OSX/Intel
   contributed by Brad Beveridge. This port relies on the version of the
   GNU MP library shipped with DarwinPorts.

 - ECL compiles and passes tests in OpenBSD/x86.

* Visible changes:

 - Many functions have got now the prefix "ecl_" so as to avoid namespace
   collisions with C/C++ code.

 - Several functions with duplicate functionality (make_two_way_streams,
   make_string_output_stream_from_string, close_stream, etc) have been removed.

 - A new global variable EXT:*ACTION-ON-UNDEFINED-VARIABLE* controls whether
   the interpreter complains when you try to assign a value to a symbol that
   has not been defined as variable. An example

	> (SETQ S 1)	; No complain
	1
	> (SETQ EXT:*ACTION-ON-UNDEFINED-VARIABLE* 'ERROR)
	ERROR
	> (SETQ X 1)	; Ooops, X had not been defined before!
	Undefined variable referenced in interpreted code.
	Name: X
	>> :q
	> (DEFVAR X 1)
	X
	> (SETQ X 1)
	1

 - Adding a new method to a generic function does no longer result in a warning
   when the function belongs to a locked package.

 - Trying to change the function definition of a symbol in a locked package
   results in a correctable error.

 - All filesystem operations (opening files, checking directories, etc), now
   merge the pathname not only with *default-pathname-defaults*, but also with
   the output of SI:GETCWD. This way we ensure that all filenames are absolute
   pathnames. [1]

 - *LOAD-PATHNAME* contains the pathname as passed to LOAD, merged with
   *DEFAULT-PATHNAME-DEFAULTS* but not with SI:GETCWD. In other words, according
   to ANSI, it does not get the pathname as seen by the operating system.

 - C:BUILDER, C:BUILD-PROGRAM, etc, now accept :EPILOGUE-CODE to be a lisp
   form. This form is read and evaluated at run time after initializing the
   lisp core. A call to cl_shutdown() is automatically included afterwards for
   simplicity.

 - COMPILE-FILE-PATHNAME now accepts both :FASL and :FAS as type. They are
   synonyms.

 - cl_safe_eval() can now be used to invoke #'TOP-LEVEL because it uses a safer
   way to intercept errors, based on rebinding *debugger-hook*. The actual
   implementation is in top.lsp and made in lisp and can be used from lisp code
	> (si::safe-eval '(cos 'A) 'nil '2)
   Notice, though, that SAFE-EVAL ignores all enclosing handlers!
	> (handler-case (si:safe-eval '(cos 'A) nil 12)
	  (error (c) c))

 - When passed the option --help, -h or -?, ECL no longer loads the rc file
   (which is typically ~/.ecl or ~/.eclrc)

 - Header files are now included with a prefix, as in #include <ecl/ecl.h>
   or #include <ecl/config.h> to avoid collisions with other system files.

 - The function SI:PROCESS-COMMAND-ARGS has now a more flexible interface and
   can be used by standalone programs with user supplied rules.

 - Symbols in the core library are now referenced with a self-explanatory
   macro, as in ECL_SYM("SI::*EXIT-HOOKS*",1379) (Thanks to Douglas R. Miles
   for the idea).

 - The symbols from the AMOP are now exported from the CLOS package. This does
   not mean that everything has been implemented, but it makes the implemented
   options accessible.

 - Included support for multithreading under Windows/Cygwin (Thanks to Arthur
   Smyles for pointing out the differences from Linux's pthreads)

 - New manual file for 'ecl-config' contributed by Peter Van Eynde.

 - NIL is no longer a valid specializer in a method.

 - New SOCKET-SEND function, compatible with the SBCL one (contributed by
   Dmitri Hrapof).

* MOP compatibility:

 - SLOT-VALUE, SLOT-BOUNDP, etc, together with MOP SLOT*-USING-CLASS generic
   functions now rely entirely on slot-definition objects.

 - Effective slot definitions now have a "location" slot. Around methods for
   COMPUTE-SLOTS assign a location to each slot definition that has allocation
   :INSTANCE or :CLASS.

 - A new defclass option, :OPTIMIZE-SLOT-ACCESS, which defaults to the value of
   CLOS:*OPTIMIZE-SLOT-ACCESS*, controls whether the slots accessors should
   address directly the values in the class or use SLOT-VALUE. It should be set
   to NIL when one intends to redefine the SLOT-*-USING-CLASS methods, and
   to T when trying to get the most of the speed.

 - Implemented [FUNCALLABLE-]STANDARD-INSTANCE-ACCESS. They are synonyms for
   SI:INSTANCE-REF and are, as such, inlined and _very_ unsafe. Use with care.

 - Two nonstandard slots have been removed from standard-methods. Keeping track
   of which methods were in a defgeneric function is done using the property
   list of the methods.

* Errors fixed:

 - The intermediate output of the compiler is written in the directory in which
   the output will reside. [1]

 - ENSURE-GENERIC-FUNCTION relies on ENSURE-GENERIC-FUNCTION-USING-CLASS for
   doing the real work of (re)defining generic functions. This means E-G-F now
   handles :METHOD-CLASS and :GENERIC-FUNCTION-CLASS properly.

 - Implemented the standard behavior of NO-APPLICABLE-METHOD. Formerly, ECL
   expected this function to simply fail and never return.

 - --disable-shared works again in Mingw. The header file external.h has to be
   modified at build time to remove a declaration "dllimport" which mingw does
   not support in the statically linked code. MSVC++ does not seem to have a
   problem with it, though.

 - It is now possible to define subclasses of STANDARD-CLASS. Before, some
   slots were not properly inherited by subclasses, causing errors when doing
   something like
	> (defclass foo (standard-class) ())
	> (defclass faa () () (:metaclass foo))

 - Callback functions are now 'static' so that the same names can be used
   in different files.

 - New method for DOCUMENTATION to operate on slot-definition objects.

 - New slot options are now allowed, as well as new metaclass options.

 - SLOT-{VALUE,BOUNDP,MAKUNBOUND}-USING-CLASS now are also specialized for
   standard-effective-slot-definition (Thanks to D. Corkill)

 - Constants are now implicitely declared global in the file in which they are
   defined, so that the compiler no longer issues warnings when they are
   referenced.

 - The slot GENERIC-FUNCTION of a method is initially set to NIL instead of
   left unbound.

 - The old conservative garbage collector works again. It now supports 64-bit
   architectures, though the memory is still limited to 32Mb of lisp data. In
   any case, this collector is only intended for small setups and OpenBSD.

 - The compiler transformed &AUX variables into a LET* form. In doing so, all
   declarations were propageted to the body of the LET* form, even those for
   non-&AUX variables. This could lead to spurious warnings about IGNORE
   declarations.

 - Fix the scope of special declarations in lambda forms so that they do not
   affect the initialization forms of optional, keyword and aux variables.
   Sample code:
	(defun foo (y)
	  (flet ((faa (&key (x y))
		   (declare (special y))
		   x))
	    (let ((y 4))
	      (declare (special y))
	      (faa))))
   A form (FOO 3) produced 4 before the bug was fixed.

* Documentation:

 - The HTML manuals now use CSS for a more appealing look.

* Notes:

 [1] Both bugs are related.

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