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<!DOCTYPE chapter SYSTEM "chapter.dtd">
<chapter>
<header>
<copyright>
<year>2004</year><year>2010</year>
<holder>Ericsson AB. All Rights Reserved.</holder>
</copyright>
<legalnotice>
The contents of this file are subject to the Erlang Public License,
Version 1.1, (the "License"); you may not use this file except in
compliance with the License. You should have received a copy of the
Erlang Public License along with this software. If not, it can be
retrieved online at http://www.erlang.org/.
Software distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS"
basis, WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. See
the License for the specific language governing rights and limitations
under the License.
</legalnotice>
<title>Erl_interface Release Notes</title>
<prepared>otp_appnotes</prepared>
<docno>nil</docno>
<date>nil</date>
<rev>nil</rev>
<file>notes.xml</file>
</header>
<p>This document describes the changes made to the Erl_interface application.</p>
<section><title>Erl_Interface 3.7.2</title>
<section><title>Fixed Bugs and Malfunctions</title>
<list>
<item>
<p>
erl_call: remove get_hostent</p>
<p>
get_hostent does not properly handle IPv4 addresses on
little endian platforms and fails with hostnames
beginning with a number. Remove get_hostent and use
ei_gethostbyname directly since gethostbyname supports
IPv4 addresses.</p>
<p>
(Thanks to Michael Santos)</p>
<p>
Own Id: OTP-8890</p>
</item>
<item>
<p> teach ei_x_format to handle unary - and + (Thanks to
Steve Vinoski)</p>
<p>
Own Id: OTP-8891</p>
</item>
<item>
<p>Fix zero byte allocation in registry. (Thanks to
Michael Santos)</p>
<p>
Own Id: OTP-8893</p>
</item>
<item>
<p> Check the length of the node name to prevent an
overflow. Memory error control of ei_alloc_big. (Thanks
to Michael Santos) </p>
<p>
Own Id: OTP-8943</p>
</item>
<item>
<p>
erl_term_len() in erl_interface could returned too large
values for integers (since R14B) and too small values for
refs (since R9B).</p>
<p>
Own Id: OTP-8945</p>
</item>
</list>
</section>
</section>
<section><title>Erl_Interface 3.7.1.1</title>
<section><title>Fixed Bugs and Malfunctions</title>
<list>
<item>
<p>
The <c>erl_interface</c> tracelevel for erlang messages was incorrect. This has now been fixed.
</p>
<p>
Own Id: OTP-8874</p>
</item>
</list>
</section>
</section>
<section><title>Erl_Interface 3.7.1</title>
<section><title>Fixed Bugs and Malfunctions</title>
<list>
<item>
<p>
Removed unused variable in <c>ei_decode_term.c</c>.</p>
<p>
Fixed faulty deallocation in <c>erl_call</c>.</p>
<p>
Own Id: OTP-8748</p>
</item>
<item>
<p>ei_connect: correct man page examples (Thanks to
Michael Santos)</p>
<p>
Own Id: OTP-8813</p>
</item>
<item>
<p>ei: prevent overflow in <c>ei_connect_init</c> and
<c>ei_xconnect</c></p> <p>Add length check of the buffer
before copying. (Thanks to Michael Santos)</p>
<p>
Own Id: OTP-8814</p>
</item>
<item>
<p>Remove DECLSPEC feature which fails on Windows Vista
and use the fallback implementation instead.</p>
<p>
Own Id: OTP-8826</p>
</item>
<item>
<p>erl_call: fix multiple buffer overflows (Thanks to
Michael Santos)</p>
<p>
Own Id: OTP-8827</p>
</item>
</list>
</section>
<section><title>Improvements and New Features</title>
<list>
<item>
<p>Fix incorrect writev iovec buffer handling in
<c>erl_interface</c> (Thanks to Steve Vinoski)</p>
<p>
Own Id: OTP-8837</p>
</item>
</list>
</section>
</section>
<section><title>Erl_Interface 3.7</title>
<section><title>Improvements and New Features</title>
<list>
<item>
<p>compact IEEE 754 double encoding in external binary
format for ei</p> <list><item><p>Implement the compact
IEEE 754 double encoding in external binary format for
ei. Encoding for ei now always produces the NEW_FLOAT_EXT
format. Decoding and term printing handle both the old
ERL_FLOAT_EXT encoding and the new NEW_FLOAT_EXT
encoding. </p></item> <item><p>Legacy erl_interface code
also handles the new encoding, but still produces the
ERL_FLOAT_EXT encoding by default.</p></item>
<item><p>Also enable the DFLAG_NEW_FLOATS distribution
flag.</p></item> <item><p>ei_get_type() will return
ERL_FLOAT_EXT regardless if the external format is
encoded with ERL_FLOAT_EXT or NEW_FLOAT_EXT for
doubles.</p></item> <item><p>Reduce the number of copies
of the code for encoding and decoding doubles throughout
ei and erl_interface by instead calling the ei encoding
and decoding functions wherever possible.</p></item>
<item><p>Restore commented-out float tests in
ei_decode_SUITE and ei_encode_SUITE in
lib/erl_interface/test. Modify them to make them match
the style of other tests in the same suites.</p></item>
</list> <p>These changes are based on an ei float patch
from Serge Aleynikov originally submitted against R12B-2
in July 2008 and reworked by Steve Vinoski May 2010.</p>
<p>
*** POTENTIAL INCOMPATIBILITY ***</p>
<p>
Own Id: OTP-8684</p>
</item>
</list>
</section>
</section>
<section><title>Erl_Interface 3.6.5</title>
<section><title>Improvements and New Features</title>
<list>
<item>
<p>
Document debug support.</p>
<p>
Debug trace output for connection activity could be
enabled setting the trace level as an integer to the
EI_TRACELEVEL environment variable. This option could
also be read and set from a running program using
ei_get_tracelevel(void) and ei_set_tracelevel(int).</p>
<p>
Own Id: OTP-5037</p>
</item>
<item>
<p>Cross compilation improvements and other build system
improvements.</p>
<p>Most notable:</p> <list><item> Lots of cross
compilation improvements. The old cross compilation
support was more or less non-existing as well as broken.
Please, note that the cross compilation support should
still be considered as experimental. Also note that old
cross compilation configurations cannot be used without
modifications. For more information on cross compiling
Erlang/OTP see the <c>$ERL_TOP/INSTALL-CROSS.md</c> file.
</item><item> Support for staged install using <url
href="http://www.gnu.org/prep/standards/html_node/DESTDIR.html">DESTDIR</url>.
The old broken <c>INSTALL_PREFIX</c> has also been fixed.
For more information see the <c>$ERL_TOP/INSTALL.md</c>
file. </item><item> Documentation of the <c>release</c>
target of the top <c>Makefile</c>. For more information
see the <c>$ERL_TOP/INSTALL.md</c> file. </item><item>
<c>make install</c> now by default creates relative
symbolic links instead of absolute ones. For more
information see the <c>$ERL_TOP/INSTALL.md</c> file.
</item><item> <c>$ERL_TOP/configure --help=recursive</c>
now works and prints help for all applications with
<c>configure</c> scripts. </item><item> Doing <c>make
install</c>, or <c>make release</c> directly after
<c>make all</c> no longer triggers miscellaneous
rebuilds. </item><item> Existing bootstrap system is now
used when doing <c>make install</c>, or <c>make
release</c> without a preceding <c>make all</c>.
</item><item> The <c>crypto</c> and <c>ssl</c>
applications use the same runtime library path when
dynamically linking against <c>libssl.so</c> and
<c>libcrypto.so</c>. The runtime library search path has
also been extended. </item><item> The <c>configure</c>
scripts of <c>erl_interface</c> and <c>odbc</c> now
search for thread libraries and thread library quirks the
same way as <c>erts</c> do. </item><item> The
<c>configure</c> script of the <c>odbc</c> application
now also looks for odbc libraries in <c>lib64</c> and
<c>lib/64</c> directories when building on a 64-bit
system. </item><item> The <c>config.h.in</c> file in the
<c>erl_interface</c> application is now automatically
generated in instead of statically updated which reduces
the risk of <c>configure</c> tests without any effect.
</item></list>
<p>(Thanks to Henrik Riomar for suggestions and
testing)</p>
<p>(Thanks to Winston Smith for the AVR32-Linux cross
configuration and testing)</p>
<p>
*** POTENTIAL INCOMPATIBILITY ***</p>
<p>
Own Id: OTP-8323</p>
</item>
<item>
<p>
Change erroneous "\\0" in documentation files
<c>erl_notes.xml</c> and <c> erl_eterm.xml</c>.</p>
<p>
Own Id: OTP-8326</p>
</item>
<item>
<p>
Allow <c>erl_match()</c> to match <c>ERL_LONGLONG</c> and
<c>ERL_U_LONGLONG</c> terms (Thanks to Scott Lystig
Fritchie).</p>
<p>
Own Id: OTP-8400</p>
</item>
</list>
</section>
</section>
<section><title>Erl_Interface 3.6.4</title>
<section><title>Improvements and New Features</title>
<list>
<item>
<p>
The documentation is now built with open source tools
(xsltproc and fop) that exists on most platforms. One
visible change is that the frames are removed.</p>
<p>
Own Id: OTP-8201</p>
</item>
</list>
</section>
</section>
<section><title>Erl_Interface 3.6.3</title>
<section><title>Fixed Bugs and Malfunctions</title>
<list>
<item>
<p>
The manual states that erl_receive() return the reason in
the <c>ErlMessage</c> struct. This was not the case and
the function is now corrected.</p>
<p>
*** POTENTIAL INCOMPATIBILITY ***</p>
<p>
Own Id: OTP-4969</p>
</item>
<item>
<p>
In <c>send_exit.c</c> an errorneous size of memory
allocation could occur when reallocating a buffer.</p>
<p>
In <c>ei_decode_trace.c</c> the index could be updated
when the decoding failed.</p>
<p>
In <c>ei_printterm.c</c> the index could be updated when
the decoding failed in lists and tuples.</p>
<p>
In <c>ei_decode_term.c</c> when decoding a double
(ERL_FLOAT_EXT) no check was done to ensure that the last
of the 31 bytes was null terminated.</p>
<p>
In <c>ei_decode_term.c</c> when decoding references, only
the first 3 bytes are read, but the index did not
increment by the total size.</p>
<p>
In <c>ei_decode_fun.c</c> no check of correct buffer
allocation or data length was done.</p>
<p>
In <c>ei_decode_string.c</c> the integer list string case
did not decode the NIL tail correctly.</p>
<p>
These errors has now been fixed. (Thanks to Romain
Lenglet, Paul Mineiro and Paul Guyot).</p>
<p>
Own Id: OTP-6117</p>
</item>
<item>
<p>
<c>ei_decode_big</c> could be decoded with a garbage
byte.</p>
<p>
<c>ei_encode_big</c> and <c>ei_x_encode_big</c> is now
available.</p>
<p>
Own Id: OTP-7554</p>
</item>
<item>
<p>
The function <c>erl_init_resolve()</c> did not conform to
C99 standard which caused a build error on some
platforms. This has now been fixed.</p>
<p>
Own Id: OTP-8093</p>
</item>
<item>
<p>
<c>Makefile.in</c> has been updated to use the LDFLAGS
environment variable (if set). (Thanks to Davide
Pesavento.)</p>
<p>
Own Id: OTP-8157</p>
</item>
</list>
</section>
<section><title>Improvements and New Features</title>
<list>
<item>
<p>
Added support for 64-bit integers in encoding/decoding.</p>
<p>
Added support for better printouts of binaries.</p>
<p>
Own Id: OTP-6091</p>
</item>
</list>
</section>
</section>
<section><title>Erl_Interface 3.6.2</title>
<section><title>Fixed Bugs and Malfunctions</title>
<list>
<item>
<p>
A problem with <c>gethostbyname</c> in <c>erl_start.c</c>
could cause a buffer overflow. This has now been fixed.</p>
<p>
Clean up of code and removed compiler warnings.</p>
<p>
Own Id: OTP-7978</p>
</item>
</list>
</section>
</section>
<section><title>Erl_Interface 3.6.1</title>
<section><title>Fixed Bugs and Malfunctions</title>
<list>
<item>
<p>A faulty validation in <c>ei_reg_getpval</c> caused it
to never return the key-value. This has now been fixed.
(Thanks to Matt Stancliff)</p>
<p>
Own Id: OTP-7960</p>
</item>
</list>
</section>
<section><title>Improvements and New Features</title>
<list>
<item>
<p>Minor update to the <c>configure</c> script.</p>
<p>
Own Id: OTP-7959</p>
</item>
</list>
</section>
</section>
<section><title>Erl_Interface 3.6.1</title>
<section><title>Improvements and New Features</title>
<list>
<item>
<p>Minor update to the <c>configure</c> script.</p>
<p>
Own Id: OTP-7959</p>
</item>
</list>
</section>
</section>
<section><title>Erl_Interface 3.6</title>
<section><title>Improvements and New Features</title>
<list>
<item>
<p>
Nodes belonging to different independent clusters can now
co-exist on the same host with the help of a new
environment variable setting ERL_EPMD_PORT.</p>
<p>
Own Id: OTP-7826</p>
</item>
</list>
</section>
</section>
<section><title>Erl_Interface 3.5.9</title>
<section><title>Fixed Bugs and Malfunctions</title>
<list>
<item>
<p>
A type-casting bug in ei_skip_term and ei_printterm on
64bit platforms rendering undefined results is now
corrected.</p>
<p>
Own Id: OTP-7577</p>
</item>
<item>
<p>
A bug in the hostent copying code of erl_interface on
MacOS X/Darwin is now corrected.</p>
<p>
Own Id: OTP-7593</p>
</item>
<item>
<p>A problem with building <c>erl_interface</c> on
FreeBSD has been fixed (Thanks to Akira Kitada).</p>
<p>
Own Id: OTP-7611</p>
</item>
</list>
</section>
</section>
<section><title>Erl_Interface 3.5.8</title>
<section><title>Fixed Bugs and Malfunctions</title>
<list>
<item>
<p>
Fixed bug in erl_interface when decoding broken data</p>
<p>
Own Id: OTP-7448</p>
</item>
</list>
</section>
</section>
<section><title>Erl_Interface 3.5.7</title>
<section><title>Fixed Bugs and Malfunctions</title>
<list>
<item>
<p>
An erroneous freeing of memory could occur when using
<c>ei_x_format_wo_ver</c> in erl_interface, resulting in
a segmentation fault.</p>
<p>
Own Id: OTP-6795</p>
</item>
<item>
<p>
A faulty compare in <c>erl_marshal</c> has now been
fixed. (Thanks to Simon Cornish and Paul Mineiro)</p>
<p>
Own Id: OTP-7368</p>
</item>
</list>
</section>
</section>
<section><title>Erl_Interface 3.5.6</title>
<section><title>Fixed Bugs and Malfunctions</title>
<list>
<item>
<p>
Minor documentation fixes.</p>
<p>
Own Id: OTP-7183 Aux Id: OTP-7118 </p>
</item>
</list>
</section>
</section>
<section><title>Erl_Interface 3.5.5.4</title>
<section><title>Fixed Bugs and Malfunctions</title>
<list>
<item>
<p>
The symbol __erl_errno was undefined in the single thread
version of the ei library, but is now defined.</p>
<p>
Own Id: OTP-6887</p>
</item>
<item>
<p>
Corrected FreeBSD build error.</p>
<p>
Own Id: OTP-7093</p>
</item>
</list>
</section>
</section>
<section>
<title>Erl_Interface 3.5.5.3</title>
<section>
<title>Improvements and New Features</title>
<list type="bulleted">
<item>
<p>Calls to alloca in erl_marshal.c have been removed. A
static buffer is now used instead to store node names
temporarily.</p>
<p>Own Id: OTP-6331 Aux Id: seq10468 </p>
</item>
<item>
<p>ei_print_term interprets a list of integers with values
from 0 to 255 as a string. If the original list contains
the integer 0, this is considered terminator of the
string. This is incorrect. The function has now been
modified to not look for '\0' in a string, but always
print all characters.</p>
<p>Own Id: OTP-6339 Aux Id: seq10492 </p>
</item>
</list>
</section>
</section>
<section>
<title>Erl_Interface 3.5.5.2</title>
<section>
<title>Fixed Bugs and Malfunctions</title>
<list type="bulleted">
<item>
<p>The combination of xeon processors with 64bit x86
extensions and a 32bit linux could cause ei_decode_long
and ei_decode_longlong to fail for the value LONG_MIN and
LONGLONG_MIN. The conversion is now made more portable.</p>
<p>Own Id: OTP-6216</p>
</item>
</list>
</section>
</section>
<section>
<title>Erl_Interface 3.5.5.1</title>
<section>
<title>Improvements and New Features</title>
<list type="bulleted">
<item>
<p>Portability enhancements.</p>
<p>Own Id: OTP-6132</p>
</item>
</list>
</section>
</section>
<section>
<title>Erl_Interface 3.5.5</title>
<section>
<title>Fixed Bugs and Malfunctions</title>
<list type="bulleted">
<item>
<p>Different (and old) <c><![CDATA[config.guess]]></c> files in the
<c><![CDATA[erts]]></c> and <c><![CDATA[erl_interface]]></c> applications would
cause build problems on the new Intel-based iMacs.
(Thanks to Sebastion Strollo.)</p>
<p>Own Id: OTP-5967</p>
</item>
<item>
<p>pthread header and library mismatch on linux systems (at
least some SuSE and Debian) with both NPTL and
Linuxthreads libraries installed.</p>
<p>Own Id: OTP-5981</p>
</item>
</list>
</section>
<section>
<title>Improvements and New Features</title>
<list type="bulleted">
<item>
<p>Support for a C node to connect to an Erlang node on a
standalone host has been added.</p>
<p>Own Id: OTP-5883 Aux Id: seq10170 </p>
</item>
</list>
</section>
</section>
<section>
<title>Erl_interface 3.5.2</title>
<section>
<title>Improvements and New Features</title>
<list type="bulleted">
<item>
<p>A configuration test error caused erl_interface to be
built without support for threads. This has been
corrected.</p>
<p>Own Id: OTP-5456</p>
</item>
</list>
</section>
</section>
<section>
<title>Erl_interface 3.5.1</title>
<section>
<title>Improvements and New Features</title>
<list type="bulleted">
<item>
<p>Changes and improvements have been made to the build and
test environment to solve problems with failing
erl_interface test cases.</p>
<p>Own Id: OTP-5295 Aux Id: OTP-5387 </p>
</item>
</list>
</section>
</section>
<section>
<title>Erl_interface 3.5</title>
<section>
<title>Improvements and New Features</title>
<list type="bulleted">
<item>
<p>Process identifiers and port identifiers have been
made more unique. Previously 18 bits were used as id in
the internal representation of process and port
identifiers. Now 28 bits are used. </p>
<p>The maximum
limit on the number of concurrently existing processes
due to the representation of pids has been increased to
268435456 processes. The same is true for ports. This
limit will at least on a 32-bit architecture be
impossible to reach due to memory shortage. </p>
<p><em>NOTE:</em> By default, the <c><![CDATA[ERTS]]></c>, and the
<c><![CDATA[erl_interface]]></c>, <c><![CDATA[ei]]></c>, and <c><![CDATA[jinterface]]></c>
libraries are now only guaranteed to be compatible with
other Erlang/OTP components from the same release. It is
possible to set each component in compatibility mode of
an earlier release, though. See the documentation for
respective component on how to set it in compatibility
mode. </p>
<p>*** POTENTIAL INCOMPATIBILITY ***</p>
<p>Own Id: OTP-4968 Aux Id: OTP-4196 </p>
</item>
</list>
</section>
</section>
<section>
<title>Erl_interface 3.4.5</title>
<section>
<title>Fixed Bugs and Malfunctions</title>
<list type="bulleted">
<item>
<p>Corrections for mistakes done for patch erl_605/OTP-4874.</p>
<p>Own Id: OTP-4995 Aux Id: OTP-4874 </p>
</item>
</list>
</section>
</section>
<section>
<title>Erl_interface 3.4.4</title>
<section>
<title>Fixed Bugs and Malfunctions</title>
<list type="bulleted">
<item>
<p>A small optimization in ei_rpc*() was added and a bug in
ei_decode_longlong() was corrected.</p>
<p>Own Id: OTP-4784</p>
</item>
</list>
</section>
</section>
<section>
<title>Erl_interface 3.4.2</title>
<section>
<title>Fixed Bugs and Malfunctions</title>
<list type="bulleted">
<item>
<p>Strings longer than 65535 bytes were encoded wrong in
ei/erl_interface.</p>
<p>Own Id: OTP-4865 Aux Id: EABln07451 </p>
</item>
</list>
</section>
</section>
<section>
<title>Erl_interface 3.4.1</title>
<section>
<title>Fixed Bugs and Malfunctions</title>
<list type="bulleted">
<item>
<p>erl_call -a parsed erlang terms incorrectly due to a bug
in ei_format, which is now corrected.</p>
<p>Own Id: OTP-4777 Aux Id: seq8099 </p>
</item>
</list>
</section>
</section>
</chapter>
