path: root/lib/stdlib/doc/src/notes_history.xml

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<chapter>
  <header>
    <copyright>
      <year>2006</year><year>2009</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>STDLIB Release Notes</title>
    <prepared></prepared>
    <docno></docno>
    <date></date>
    <rev></rev>
  </header>

  <section>
    <title>STDLIB 1.13</title>

    <section>
      <title>Fixed Bugs and Malfunctions</title>
      <list type="bulleted">
        <item>
          <p>For the bit syntax, when matching with a size field that
            is bound during the same matching, a warning for unused
            variable was emitted. This bug has been fixed.</p>
          <p>Own Id: OTP-4858</p>
        </item>
        <item>
          <p>When parsing a badly formed file <c>epp</c> hangs. This
            problem has been fixed.</p>
          <p>Own Id: OTP-4871 Aux Id: OTP-4870 </p>
        </item>
        <item>
          <p>Bugs concerning guards have been fixed in the Erlang
            interpreter.</p>
          <p>Own Id: OTP-4885</p>
        </item>
        <item>
          <p>The linter now checks the record name when calling the
            function <c>erlang:is_record/2</c>.</p>
          <p>Own Id: OTP-4886</p>
        </item>
        <item>
          <p>Guards of mach specifications are corrected to resemble
            the semantics of guards in real code more closely. The
            implementation now corresponds to the documentation in
            ERTS User's Guide. The following things are corrected:</p>
          <list type="bulleted">
            <item>Guard semantics was wrong when it came to logical
             operators and exceptions.
            <c>{'or', {'is_integer','$1'}, {'or', '$1', '$1'}}</c>
             evaluated to <c>true</c> with <c>'$1'</c> bound to an
             integer.</item>
            <item>Unary + and - was not implemented</item>
            <item>Calling operators as Bif's was not supported by
            <c>ets/dbg:fun2ms</c> (<c>erlang:'or'(A,B)</c> etc)</item>
            <item>Old typetests (like <c>integer(X)</c> instead of
            <c>is_integer(X)</c>) was not supported by
            <c>ets/dbg:fun2ms</c></item>
            <item>Semicolon (;) in guards was not supported by
            <c>ets/dbg:fun2ms</c></item>
          </list>
          <p>*** POTENTIAL INCOMPATIBILITY ***</p>
          <p>Own Id: OTP-4927</p>
        </item>
        <item>
          <p>A bug that could cause a crash has been fixed in the
            <c>file_sorter</c> module. The crash could only occur
            when sorting or merging to a file and the input function
            returned <c>{end_of_input, Value}</c>.</p>
          <p>Own Id: OTP-5009</p>
        </item>
        <item>
          <p>A function clause exit in <c>filelib:fold_files/5</c> has
            been fixed.</p>
          <p>Own Id: OTP-5137</p>
        </item>
        <item>
          <p><c>filelib:fold_files/5</c> has been fixed to not include
            directories that match the regular expression in the
            result. In this process, <c>filelib:is_regular/1</c> has
            been added to the module.</p>
          <p>WARNING the behaviour of <c>filelib:fold_files/5</c> has
            also been changed so the regexp match is tried not on
            the full name, but locally in each traversed directory.</p>
          <p>Own Id: OTP-5171 Aux Id: OTP-5128 </p>
        </item>
      </list>
    </section>

    <section>
      <title>Improvements and New Features</title>
      <list type="bulleted">
        <item>
          <p>The initial shell process started in parallel with the
            <c>init</c> boot process. This made it possible to pipe
            commands to the shell that got evaluated before the system
            had booted properly. Also the shell was normally accessible
            before <c>.erlang</c> had been evaluated and this caused
            problems especially related to code loading. This has now
            been fixed so that the initial shell is not accessible
            until after the init boot routine has finished and
            <c>.erlang</c> has been evaluated. Note that the shell
            starts before any <c>-s</c> arguments are executed.</p>
          <p>Own Id: OTP-4877</p>
        </item>
        <item>
          <p>It is now possible to compile files with <c>erlc</c> without
            getting a lot of (for compilation) unnecessary code
            loaded and executed (like distribution, inet config,
            etc). <c>erlc</c> now also calls <c>erl</c> with <c>-boot start_clean</c> (so that SASL is not started even if
            <c>start_sasl</c> is default boot script).</p>
          <p>Own Id: OTP-4878</p>
        </item>
        <item>
          <p>Dets tables can now be opened or closed in parallel. In
            particular, if some table is being repaired, other tables
            can still be opened or closed.</p>
          <p>Own Id: OTP-4908</p>
        </item>
        <item>
          <p>The new STDLIB module <c>qlc</c> implements a query
            language with a list comprehension syntax completely
            embedded in Erlang. There is support for reading data
            from ETS, Dets, and Mnesia tables as well as for defining
            other sources of data. For easy testing queries can be
            stated in the Erlang shell. The <c>qlc</c> module aims at
            replacing Mnemosyne. See <c>qlc(3)</c> for details and
            examples.</p>
          <p>Own Id: OTP-5043</p>
        </item>
        <item>
          <p>Some support for records has been added to the Erlang
            shell. There are commands for reading record definitions
            from files and for manipulating record definitions in the
            shell. The record syntax can be used in the shell and
            return values are printed as records when possible using
            the records definitions known to the shell. New commands
            in the shell are <c>rd/2</c>, <c>rf/0,1</c>,
            <c>rl/0,1</c>, <c>rp/1</c>, and <c>rr/1,2,3</c>. Existing
            functions in <c>user_default.erl</c> with any of these
            names need to be renamed. See <c>shell(3)</c> for further
            details.</p>
          <p>*** POTENTIAL INCOMPATIBILITY ***</p>
          <p>Own Id: OTP-5063</p>
        </item>
        <item>
          <p>A new function, <c>string:to_integer/1,</c> has been added.</p>
          <p>Own Id: OTP-5081 Aux Id: OTP-5136 </p>
        </item>
        <item>
          <p>The new function <c>dets:repair_continuation/2</c> can be
            used for restoring an opaque continuation returned by
            <c>dets:select/1</c> or <c>dets:select/3</c> if the
            continuation has passed through the external term format
            (been sent between nodes or stored on disk).</p>
          <p>Own Id: OTP-5126</p>
        </item>
        <item>
          <p>A new function, <c>string:to_float/1,</c> has been added.</p>
          <p>Own Id: OTP-5136 Aux Id: OTP-5081 </p>
        </item>
        <item>
          <p>Test cases have been added for <c>string</c>.</p>
          <p>Own Id: OTP-5138</p>
        </item>
      </list>
    </section>
  </section>

  <section>
    <title>STDLIB 1.12.8</title>

    <section>
      <title>Improvements and New Features</title>
      <list type="bulleted">
        <item>
          <p>The functions <c>ets:insert_new/2</c> and
            <c>dets:insert_new/2</c> are added. Please consult
            the manual pages for details.</p>
          <p>Own Id: OTP-5075</p>
        </item>
        <item>
          <p>New function: <c>proc_lib:hibernate/3.</c> Processes spawned
            using <c>proc_lib</c> (also indirectly, such as
            <c>gen_server</c> process), should use this function
            instead of the BIF <c>erlang:hibernate/3</c> directly to
            ensure that the exception handler for the process continues
            to work when the process is awaken.</p>
          <p>Own Id: OTP-5077</p>
        </item>
      </list>
    </section>
  </section>

  <section>
    <title>STDLIB 1.12.6</title>

    <section>
      <title>Fixed Bugs and Malfunctions</title>
      <list type="bulleted">
        <item>
          <p>If many files or sockets were open (more than 256),
            <c>beam_lib</c> operations could fail. Corrected.</p>
          <p>Own Id: OTP-5046 Aux Id: OTP-4997, seq8590 </p>
        </item>
      </list>
    </section>
  </section>

  <section>
    <title>STDLIB 1.12.5</title>

    <section>
      <title>Fixed Bugs and Malfunctions</title>
      <list type="bulleted">
        <item>
          <p>When opening a Dets table read only an attempt was made
            to re-hash the table resulting in an error message. This
            problem has been fixed.</p>
          <p>Own Id: OTP-4989 Aux Id: seq8536 </p>
        </item>
      </list>
    </section>

    <section>
      <title>Improvements and New Features</title>
      <list type="bulleted">
        <item>
          <p>If a <c>gen_server</c>, <c>gen_event</c> or <c>gen_fsm</c>
            process exits with <c>{undef,[{M,F,A}|...]}</c>, the error
            report will now state if the function call failed because
            the module could not be loaded or because the function was
            not exported.</p>
          <p>Own Id: OTP-4952 Aux Id: OTP-4925 </p>
        </item>
      </list>
    </section>
  </section>

  <section>
    <title>STDLIB 1.12.4</title>

    <section>
      <title>Fixed Bugs and Malfunctions</title>
      <list type="bulleted">
        <item>
          <p>The shell function <c>c:regs()</c> did crash if there was
            a registered port among the registered names. This is now
            corrected.</p>
          <p>Own Id: OTP-4890</p>
        </item>
        <item>
          <p>A bug has been fixed in <c>dets</c>: not all objects were
            always visible in tables with more than 131072 keys.</p>
          <p>Own Id: OTP-4906</p>
        </item>
        <item>
          <p>A bug has been fixed in <c>dets</c>: when trying to
            repair a version 9 table, a <c>not_a_dets_file</c> error
            message was returned unnecessarily often.</p>
          <p>Own Id: OTP-4907</p>
        </item>
      </list>
    </section>

    <section>
      <title>Improvements and New Features</title>
      <list type="bulleted">
        <item>
          <p>Starting Erlang with the <c>+Bi</c> flag (to ignore ^C), now
            also disables the quit ('q') option in the JCL menu.</p>
          <p>Own Id: OTP-4897</p>
        </item>
      </list>
    </section>
  </section>

  <section>
    <title>STDLIB 1.12.3</title>

    <section>
      <title>Fixed Bugs and Malfunctions</title>
      <list type="bulleted">
        <item>
          <p>A bug in <c>erl_scan</c> caused the compiler to hang when
            end-of-file in a comment was encountered. This is now
            corrected.</p>
          <p>Own Id: OTP-4787</p>
        </item>
        <item>
          <p>The linter now reports errors for unsafe variables when
            the option <c>nowarn_unused_vars</c> is given.</p>
          <p>Own Id: OTP-4831 Aux Id: seq8202 </p>
        </item>
        <item>
          <p><c>gen_server:cast/2</c> now crashes for invalid
            arguments.</p>
          <p><c>gen_server:abcast/2-3</c> now crashes for invalid
            arguments. The behaviour when casting to the name
            <c>global</c> has been corrected. Previously,
            <c>gen_server:abcast(global,[node@host])</c> tried to
            cast to the globally registered name <c>node@host</c>,
            which is more of a bug than less. Now such a call will
            cast to the registered name <c>global</c> at the node
            <c>node@host</c> as (probably) expected.</p>
          <p>An <c>rpc:call/5</c> and <c>rpc:block_call/5</c> having a
            timeout argument has been added.</p>
          <p><c>rpc:abcast/2-3</c> has been improved not to get stuck
            waiting for connection setup if the remote node is not
            connected. In this case the send is spawned off to a
            temporary process.</p>
          <p>Two typos in the docs for module <c>calendar</c> has
            been corrected thanks to Bengt Kleberg.</p>
          <p>*** POTENTIAL INCOMPATIBILITY ***</p>
          <p>Own Id: OTP-4844 Aux Id: seq8226 </p>
        </item>
      </list>
    </section>

    <section>
      <title>Improvements and New Features</title>
      <list type="bulleted">
        <item>
          <p>The <c>f/1</c> shell command did not work correctly with
            restricted shell.</p>
          <p>Own Id: OTP-4818</p>
        </item>
      </list>
    </section>
  </section>

  <section>
    <title>STDLIB 1.12.2</title>

    <section>
      <title>Fixed Bugs and Malfunctions</title>
      <list type="bulleted">
        <item>
          <p><c>gen_server</c>: the internal function <c>get_parent,</c>
            called by <c>gen_server:enter_loop/[4,5],</c> now returns
            the pid of parents that are registered processes, instead of
            returning their name. The reason for this is that
            <c>gen_server</c> relies on that the parent is represented
            as a pid. This error in <c>get_parent/0</c> had the effect
            that the terminate function of the child was not run when
            it was shutdown.</p>
          <p>Own Id: OTP-4820 Aux Id: seq8170 </p>
        </item>
      </list>
    </section>
  </section>

  <section>
    <title>STDLIB 1.12.1</title>

    <section>
      <title>Fixed Bugs and Malfunctions</title>
      <list type="bulleted">
        <item>
          <p>The code server could hang if invoked early in the startup.
            For example if the emulator was started with
            "<c>-s file eval Filename</c> and <c>Filename</c> contained
            a call to <c>code:add_patha/1</c> the code server
            accidentally tried to execute code in an unloaded module
            from inside the code that loaded a module - hence hangup.
            This bug has now been fixed.</p>
          <p>Note! Starting Erlang through code loading from a remote
            Erlang boot server will not work after this patch. It will
            be fixed in a later patch. Rumours has it that remote boot
            server code loading did not work before this patch either.
            It is not a commonly used feature.</p>
          <p>*** POTENTIAL INCOMPATIBILITY ***</p>
          <p>Own Id: OTP-4802 Aux Id: seq8314 </p>
        </item>
      </list>
    </section>
  </section>
</chapter>