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</header>
<p>This document describes the changes made to the ERTS application.</p>
+<section><title>Erts 5.8.3</title>
+
+ <section><title>Fixed Bugs and Malfunctions</title>
+ <list>
+ <item>
+ <p>
+ The scroll wheel now scrolls the werl window on Windows.</p>
+ <p>
+ Own Id: OTP-8985</p>
+ </item>
+ <item>
+ <p>
+ Some malformed distribution messages could cause VM to
+ crash, this is now corrected.</p>
+ <p>
+ Own Id: OTP-8993</p>
+ </item>
+ <item>
+ <p>
+ The OS function getifaddrs() can return NULL in some
+ address fields for e.g PPP and tunnel devices which
+ caused the emulator to segfault. This bug has now been
+ corrected.</p>
+ <p>
+ Own Id: OTP-8996</p>
+ </item>
+ <item>
+ <p>
+ The expression &lt;&lt;A:0&gt;&gt; would always produce
+ an empty binary, even if <c>A</c> was not an integer.
+ Corrected to cause a <c>badarg</c> exception if the type
+ of <c>A</c> is invalid. (Thanks to Zvi.)</p>
+ <p>
+ Own Id: OTP-8997</p>
+ </item>
+ <item>
+ <p>
+ A bug that potentially could cause an emulator crash when
+ deleting an ETS-table has been fixed. A resource leak
+ when hitting the maximum amount of ETS-tables allowed has
+ also been fixed.</p>
+ <p>
+ Own Id: OTP-8999</p>
+ </item>
+ <item>
+ <p>
+ A bug in the <c>exit/2</c> BIF could potentially cause an
+ emulator crash.</p>
+ <p>
+ Own Id: OTP-9005</p>
+ </item>
+ <item>
+ <p>
+ Due to a bug in glibc the runtime system could abort
+ while trying to destroy a mutex. The runtime system will
+ now issue a warning instead of aborting.</p>
+ <p>
+ Own Id: OTP-9009</p>
+ </item>
+ <item>
+ <p>
+ A bug in epmd could create strange behaviour when
+ listen() calls failed. This is now corrected thanks to
+ Steve Vinoski.</p>
+ <p>
+ Own Id: OTP-9024</p>
+ </item>
+ <item>
+ <p>When setting file_info the win32_driver will now
+ correctly set access and modified time. Previously these
+ entities were swapped.</p>
+ <p>
+ Own Id: OTP-9046</p>
+ </item>
+ <item>
+ <p>
+ Setting scheduler bind type to <c>unbound</c> failed if
+ binding of schedulers wasn't supported, or if CPU
+ topology wasn't present. This even though the
+ documentation stated that it is possible to set the bind
+ type to <c>unbound</c>.</p>
+ <p>
+ Own Id: OTP-9056 Aux Id: Seq11779 </p>
+ </item>
+ <item>
+ <p>Two problems were fixed in crash dump: The time left
+ for timers are now shown as unsigned integers and the
+ contents of ordered_set ETS tables is no longer
+ included.</p>
+ <p>
+ Own Id: OTP-9057</p>
+ </item>
+ <item>
+ <p>
+ The VM could fail to set IP_TOS and SO_PRIORITY in
+ certain situations, either because sockets were supplied
+ as open file descriptors, or because SO_PRIORITY by
+ default was set higher than the user can explicitly set
+ it to. Those situations are now handled.</p>
+ <p>
+ Own Id: OTP-9069</p>
+ </item>
+ <item>
+ <p>
+ Wx on MacOS X generated complains on stderr about certain
+ cocoa functions not beeing called from the "Main thread".
+ This is now corrected.</p>
+ <p>
+ Own Id: OTP-9081</p>
+ </item>
+ <item>
+ <p>
+ Fix a couple typos in driver_entry(3) (thanks to Tuncer
+ Ayaz).</p>
+ <p>
+ Own Id: OTP-9085</p>
+ </item>
+ <item>
+ <p>
+ Mention that "-detached" implies "-noinput"</p>
+ <p>
+ Clarify that specifying "-noinput" is unnecessary if the
+ "-detached" flag is given. (thanks to Holger Wei�)</p>
+ <p>
+ Own Id: OTP-9086</p>
+ </item>
+ <item>
+ <p>
+ A potential problem (found by code inspection) when
+ calling a fun whose code was not loaded has been fixed.</p>
+ <p>
+ Own Id: OTP-9095</p>
+ </item>
+ <item>
+ <p>
+ The emulator could get into a state where it didn't check
+ for I/O.</p>
+ <p>
+ Own Id: OTP-9105 Aux Id: Seq11798 </p>
+ </item>
+ <item>
+ <p>
+ Attempting to create binaries exceeding 2Gb (using for
+ example <c>term_to_binary/1</c>) would crash the emulator
+ with an attempt to allocate huge amounts of memory.
+ (Thanks to Jon Meredith.)</p>
+ <p>
+ Own Id: OTP-9117</p>
+ </item>
+ <item>
+ <p>
+ Fix erlang:hibernate/3 on HiPE enabled emulator (Thanks
+ to Paul Guyot)</p>
+ <p>
+ Own Id: OTP-9125</p>
+ </item>
+ </list>
+ </section>
+
+
+ <section><title>Improvements and New Features</title>
+ <list>
+ <item>
+ <p>From this release, the previously experimental
+ halfword emulator is now official. It can be enabled by
+ giving the <c>--enable-halfword-emulator</c> option to
+ the <c>configure</c> script.</p>
+ <p>The halfword emulator is a 64-bit application, but
+ uses halfwords (32-bit words) for all data in Erlang
+ processes, therefore using less memory and being faster
+ than the standard 64-bit emulator. The total size of all
+ BEAM code and all process data for all processes is
+ limited to 4Gb, but ETS tables and off-heap binaries are
+ only limited by the amount of available memory.</p>
+ <p>
+ Own Id: OTP-8941</p>
+ </item>
+ <item>
+ <p>
+ 32-bit atomic memory operations have been introduced
+ internally in the run time system, and are now used where
+ appropriate. There were previously only atomic memory
+ operations of word size available. The 32-bit atomic
+ memory operations slightly reduce memory consumption, and
+ slightly improve performance on 64-bit runtime systems.</p>
+ <p>
+ Own Id: OTP-8974</p>
+ </item>
+ <item>
+ <p>
+ Performance enhancements for looking up timer-entries and
+ removing timers from the wheel.</p>
+ <p>
+ Own Id: OTP-8990</p>
+ </item>
+ <item>
+ <p>
+ Write accesses to ETS tables have been optimized by
+ reducing the amount of atomic memory operations needed
+ during a write access.</p>
+ <p>
+ Own Id: OTP-9000</p>
+ </item>
+ <item>
+ <p>
+ Strange C coding in the VM made the -D_FORTIFY_SOURCE
+ option to gcc-4.5 react badly. The code is now cleaned up
+ so that it's accepted by gcc-4.5.</p>
+ <p>
+ Own Id: OTP-9025</p>
+ </item>
+ <item>
+ <p>
+ The memory footprint for loaded code has been somewhat
+ reduced (especially in the 64-bit BEAM machine).</p>
+ <p>
+ Own Id: OTP-9030</p>
+ </item>
+ <item>
+ <p>
+ The maximum number of allowed arguments for an Erlang
+ function has been lowered from 256 to 255, so that the
+ number of arguments can now fit in a byte.</p>
+ <p>
+ Own Id: OTP-9049</p>
+ </item>
+ <item>
+ <p>
+ Dependency generation for Makefiles has been added to the
+ compiler and erlc. See the manual pages for
+ <c>compile</c> and <c>erlc</c>. (Thanks to Jean-Sebastien
+ Pedron.)</p>
+ <p>
+ Own Id: OTP-9065</p>
+ </item>
+ </list>
+ </section>
+
+</section>
+
+<section><title>Erts 5.8.2</title>
+
+ <section><title>Fixed Bugs and Malfunctions</title>
+ <list>
+ <item>
+ <p> Fix format_man_pages so it handles all man sections
+ and remove warnings/errors in various man pages. </p>
+ <p>
+ Own Id: OTP-8600</p>
+ </item>
+ <item>
+ <p>
+ The <c>configure</c> command line argument <seealso
+ marker="doc/installation_guide:INSTALL#How-to-Build-and-Install-ErlangOTP_A-Closer-Look-at-the-individual-Steps_Configuring">--enable-ethread-pre-pentium4-compatibility</seealso>
+ had no effect. This option is now also automatically
+ enabled if required on the build machine.</p>
+ <p>
+ Own Id: OTP-8847</p>
+ </item>
+ <item>
+ <p>
+ Windows 2003 and Windows XP pre SP3 would sometimes not
+ start the Erlang R14B VM at all due to a bug in the cpu
+ topology detection. The bug affects Windows only, no
+ other platform is even remotely affected. The bug is now
+ corrected.</p>
+ <p>
+ Own Id: OTP-8876</p>
+ </item>
+ <item>
+ <p>
+ The HiPE run-time in the 64-bit emulator could do a
+ 64-bit write to a 32-bit struct field. It happened to be
+ harmless on Intel/AMD processors. Corrected. (Thanks to
+ Mikael Pettersson.)</p>
+ <p>
+ Own Id: OTP-8877</p>
+ </item>
+ <item>
+ <p>
+ A bug in <seealso
+ marker="erl_driver#erl_drv_tsd_get">erl_drv_tsd_get()</seealso>
+ and <seealso
+ marker="erl_nif#enif_tsd_get">enif_tsd_get()</seealso>
+ could cause an emulator crash. These functions are
+ currently not used in OTP. That is, the crash only occur
+ on systems with user implemented NIF libraries, or
+ drivers that use one of these functions.</p>
+ <p>
+ Own Id: OTP-8889</p>
+ </item>
+ <item>
+ <p>
+ Calling <c>erlang:system_info({cpu_topology,
+ CpuTopologyType})</c> with another <c>CpuTopologyType</c>
+ element than one of the documented atoms <c>defined</c>,
+ <c>detected</c>, or <c>used</c> caused an emulator crash.
+ (Thanks to Paul Guyot)</p>
+ <p>
+ Own Id: OTP-8914</p>
+ </item>
+ <item>
+ <p>
+ The ERTS internal rwlock implementation could get into an
+ inconsistent state. This bug was very seldom triggered,
+ but could be during heavy contention. The bug was
+ introduced in R14B (erts-5.8.1).</p>
+ <p>
+ The bug was most likely to be triggered when using the
+ <c>read_concurrency</c> option on an ETS table that was
+ frequently accessed from multiple processes doing lots of
+ writes and reads. That is, in a situation where you
+ typically don't want to use the <c>read_concurrency</c>
+ option in the first place.</p>
+ <p>
+ Own Id: OTP-8925 Aux Id: OTP-8544 </p>
+ </item>
+ <item>
+ <p>
+ Tracing to port could cause an emulator crash when
+ unloading the trace driver.</p>
+ <p>
+ Own Id: OTP-8932</p>
+ </item>
+ <item>
+ <p>
+ Removed use of CancelIoEx on Windows that had been shown
+ to cause problems with some drivers.</p>
+ <p>
+ Own Id: OTP-8937</p>
+ </item>
+ <item>
+ <p>
+ The fallback implementation used when no native atomic
+ implementation was found did not compile. (Thanks to
+ Patrick Baggett, and Tuncer Ayaz)</p>
+ <p>
+ Own Id: OTP-8944</p>
+ </item>
+ <item>
+ <p>
+ Some integer values used during load balancing could
+ under rare circumstances wrap causing a load unbalance
+ between schedulers.</p>
+ <p>
+ Own Id: OTP-8950</p>
+ </item>
+ <item>
+ <p>
+ The windows VM now correctly handles appending to large
+ files (> 4GB).</p>
+ <p>
+ Own Id: OTP-8958</p>
+ </item>
+ <item>
+ <p>
+ Name resolving of IPv6 addresses has been implemented for
+ Windows versions that support it. The use of ancient
+ resolver flags (AI_V4MAPPED | AI_ADDRCONFIG) to the
+ getaddrinfo() function has been removed since e.g FreeBSD
+ regard mapped IPv4 addresses to be a security problem and
+ the semantics of the address configured flag is
+ uncertain.</p>
+ <p>
+ Own Id: OTP-8969</p>
+ </item>
+ </list>
+ </section>
+
+
+ <section><title>Improvements and New Features</title>
+ <list>
+ <item>
+ <p>
+ The help texts produced by the <c>configure</c> scripts
+ in the top directory and in the erts directory have been
+ aligned and cleaned up.</p>
+ <p>
+ Own Id: OTP-8859</p>
+ </item>
+ <item>
+ <p>
+ When the runtime system had fewer schedulers than logical
+ processors, the system could get an unnecessarily large
+ amount reader groups.</p>
+ <p>
+ Own Id: OTP-8861</p>
+ </item>
+ <item>
+ <p>
+ <c>run_rel</c> has been updated to support Solaris's
+ /dev/ptmx device and to load the necessary STREAMS
+ modules so that <c>to_erl</c> can provide terminal echo
+ of keyboard input. (Thanks to Ryan Tilder.)</p>
+ <p>
+ Own Id: OTP-8878</p>
+ </item>
+ <item>
+ <p>
+ The Erlang VM now supports Unicode filenames. The feature
+ is turned on by default on systems where Unicode
+ filenames are mandatory (Windows and MacOSX), but can be
+ enabled on other systems with the '+fnu' emulator option.
+ Enabling the Unicode filename feature on systems where it
+ is not default is however considered experimental and not
+ to be used for production. Together with the Unicode file
+ name support, the concept of "raw filenames" is
+ introduced, which means filenames provided without
+ implicit unicode encoding translation. Raw filenames are
+ provided as binaries, not lists. For further information,
+ see stdlib users guide and the chapter about using
+ Unicode in Erlang. Also see the file module manual page.</p>
+ <p>
+ *** POTENTIAL INCOMPATIBILITY ***</p>
+ <p>
+ Own Id: OTP-8887</p>
+ </item>
+ <item>
+ <p>Buffer overflows have been prevented in <c>erlc</c>,
+ <c>dialyzer</c>, <c>typer</c>, <c>run_test</c>,
+ <c>heart</c>, <c>escript</c>, and <c>erlexec</c>.</p>
+ (Thanks to Michael Santos.)
+ <p>
+ Own Id: OTP-8892</p>
+ </item>
+ <item>
+ <p>
+ The runtime system is now less eager to suspend processes
+ sending messages over the distribution. The default value
+ of the distribution buffer busy limit has also been
+ increased from 128 KB to 1 MB. This in order to improve
+ throughput.</p>
+ <p>
+ Own Id: OTP-8901</p>
+ </item>
+ <item>
+ <p>
+ The distribution buffer busy limit can now be configured
+ at system startup. For more information see the
+ documentation of the <c>erl</c> <seealso
+ marker="erl#+zdbbl">+zdbbl</seealso> command line flag.
+ (Thanks to Scott Lystig Fritchie)</p>
+ <p>
+ Own Id: OTP-8912</p>
+ </item>
+ <item>
+ <p>
+ The inet driver internal buffer stack implementation has
+ been rewritten in order to reduce lock contention.</p>
+ <p>
+ Own Id: OTP-8916</p>
+ </item>
+ <item>
+ <p>
+ New ETS option <c>compressed</c>, to enable a more
+ compact storage format at the expence of heavier table
+ operations. For test and evaluation, <c>erl +ec</c> can
+ be used to force compression on all ETS tables.</p>
+ <p>
+ Own Id: OTP-8922 Aux Id: seq11658 </p>
+ </item>
+ <item>
+ <p>
+ There is now a new function inet:getifaddrs/0 modeled
+ after C library function getifaddrs() on BSD and LInux
+ that reports existing interfaces and their addresses on
+ the host. This replaces the undocumented and unsupported
+ inet:getiflist/0 and inet:ifget/2.</p>
+ <p>
+ Own Id: OTP-8926</p>
+ </item>
+ <item>
+ <p>
+ Support for detection of CPU topology and binding of
+ schedulers on FreeBSD 8 have been added. (Thanks to Paul
+ Guyot)</p>
+ <p>
+ Own Id: OTP-8939</p>
+ </item>
+ <item>
+ <p>
+ Several bugs related to hibernate/3 and HiPE have been
+ corrected. (Thanks to Paul Guyot.)</p>
+ <p>
+ Own Id: OTP-8952</p>
+ </item>
+ <item>
+ <p>
+ Support for soft and hard links on Windows versions and
+ filesystems that support them is added.</p>
+ <p>
+ Own Id: OTP-8955</p>
+ </item>
+ <item>
+ <p>
+ The win32 virtual machine is now linked large address
+ aware. his allows the Erlang VM to use up to 3 gigs of
+ address space on Windows instead of the default of 2
+ gigs.</p>
+ <p>
+ Own Id: OTP-8956</p>
+ </item>
+ </list>
+ </section>
+
+</section>
+
<section><title>Erts 5.8.1.2</title>
<section><title>Fixed Bugs and Malfunctions</title>