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[DotGNU]Portable.NET 0.3.8 and pnetlib 0.2.2 released


From: Rhys Weatherley
Subject: [DotGNU]Portable.NET 0.3.8 and pnetlib 0.2.2 released
Date: Mon, 10 Jun 2002 14:56:44 +1000

Portable.NET 0.3.8 and pnetlib 0.2.2 have been released:

Web Page: http://www.southern-storm.com.au/portable_net.html
Download: http://www.southern-storm.com.au/download/pnet-0.3.8.tar.gz
Library:  http://www.southern-storm.com.au/download/pnetlib-0.2.2.tar.gz

It's been a month since the last release, and a busy month too.
The runtime engine has quadrupled in speed on x86 platforms, and is
also now fully working on MacOSX.

The interpreter is now 4 interpreters in one:

    - Simple switch loop.
    - Token threaded interpreter.
    - Direct threaded interpreter.
    - Direct threaded interpreter with x86 acceleration.

The build system will detect the most appropriate interpreter for
your platform.  Most systems will get the direct threaded interpreter
by default, except for x86, which will get the accelerated interpreter.

You can adjust the style of interpretation in "engine/cvm_config.h"
if you wish to compare and contrast the different approaches.

See the appended NEWS entries for details on other changes.

Cheers,

Rhys.

Portable.NET 0.3.8 (10 June 2002)

Runtime engine:

* Use gcc's computed goto facility to speed up the interpreter.
* Implement a code unrolling facility to translate common CVM
  instruction sequences into x86 machine code.
* Combine "call" and "call_extern" into a single instruction.
* Convert "frame" and "exceptHeight" values in call frames into
  pointers, to reduce the overhead of method calls.
* Don't reset "exceptHeight" on entry to a method, because it will
  be overwritten anyway if it is needed, and ignored if not.
* Optimise loads and stores of bool/byte local varaibles.
* Profile variable usage.
* Modifications to allow internalcalls to work without libffi.
* Variable argument support.
* Throw "System.Security.VerificationException" when the verifier fails.
* Handle type expansion (e.g. char->int) in internalcalls and PInvokes.
* Code generation and interpreter problems with branches and switches.
* Abstract the details of generating and unpacking CVM instructions
  to make it easier to switch between threaded interpreter types.
* Fixes to subclass relationship testing in the verifier, when multiple
  execution paths are coalesced.
* Centralise CVM configuration into "engine/cvm_config.h".
* Convert the "tail/call" sequence into a separate "tail_call" instruction.
* Begin implementing indirect method calls (incomplete).
* Use the "raw" libffi mode if it is available, because it is faster.
* Short-cut the execution of method call instructions to avoid an
  unnecessary call to "_ILConvertMethod" if the method is already
  converted.
* New rules for PInvoke parameter and return type marshalling.
* Internalcall for "Assembly.GetTypes" (Gopal V).
* Add the "-P" debug option to ilrun, which dumps the method cache
  and GC heap sizes on program exit.
* Begin integrating thread support (incomplete).

C# Compiler:

* Local constant declarations (Gopal V). 
* "-fsave-asm" will save the output even if the assembler fails.
* Semantic analysis and code generation for "base" expressions (Gopal V).
* Special-case "foreach" for string iteration.
* Rewrite "ILNodeEndsInReturn" so that it uses a treecc operation
  instead of hard-coded node testing.
* Fixes to code generation for "switch" statements.

Documentation and Samples:

* Add ilrun.1 to the build system.
* Document the "direct" format for CVM instructions.
* Document the new PInvoke marshal rules in "doc/pinvoke.html".
* HTTP server sample - httpsrv (Gopal V).
  
Assembler: 
  
* Fixes to assembly of "switch" instructions.

Diassembler:

* Remove "// unsafe" reporting, as it was not strictly accurate.
  
Loader and Metadata:

* Fix the handling of "vararg" call sites throughout the stack.
* Use the "secure" bit in loaded images to determine if explicit
  class layout is allowed.


Platform Support:

* MacOSX portability problems in IL_WRITE_XXX macros in "il_values.h"
  (Glen Chambers).
* MacOSX patches to libffi (Glen Chambers).
* Removed bogus option from libgc that broke hpux (James Mc Parlane).
* Use "isfinite" on hpux (James Mc Parlane).
* Ported entire stack to MacOSX.
* Detect missing CODESET on NetBSD.
* Turn off -O2 in "tests" because it causes compiler lock-ups on
  platforms with insufficent memory.
* Implement true mmap-based page allocation for ILPageAlloc and friends.
* Begin implementing "wait handles" in the threading sub-system.

Other:

* Removed "ilrun_opt", because "ilrun" is now just as fast.
* Move some lesser used utility programs to "noinst" to prevent
  cluttering of install directories.
* Updates to the build system to be more friendly to automake 1.5.
* Added debian packaging support (Andrew Mitchell).

pnetlib 0.2.2 (10 June 2002)

* Extra internalcalls for DirMethods (Abhaya Agarwal).
* System.IO.MemoryStream (Stephen Compall, Haran Shivanan).
* System.Net, System.Xml (Peter Minten).
* System.Uri (Stephen Compall).


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