[DotGNU]Portable 0.3.4 and pnetlib 0.1.8 released

[Rhys Weatherley]

Portable.NET 0.3.4, pnetlib 0.1.8, and treecc 0.1.0 have been released:

Web Page: http://www.southern-storm.com.au/portable_net.html
Download: http://www.southern-storm.com.au/download/pnet-0.3.4.tar.gz
Library:  http://www.southern-storm.com.au/download/pnetlib-0.1.8.tar.gz

Treecc:   http://www.southern-storm.com.au/download/treecc-0.1.0.tar.gz

A lot of work on the runtime engine and pnetlib in this release.

The internalcall system has been overhauled in the engine to
simplify the process of generating the method tables.

The method cache, used by the CVM coder to store translated
methods, has also been overhauled.  It should be a lot more
efficient, and thread-safe, than the previous version.

Lots of other bug fixes in the engine.  It is getting more stable
by the week.

I think I've also fixed some of the Cygwin automake 1.5 problems
by setting up "maintainer mode" in the .tar.gz source files.  The
CVS version may still have problems with automake 1.5, but hopefully
the release versions will build cleanly now.

The biggest change to pnetlib is a new internationalization (I18N)
framework, which splits the locale-sensitive material into separate
plug-in assemblies.  I've implemented 80+ code page based character
sets, covering most of the world except some parts of Asia (I'll be
working on CJK soon).  Special thanks to Gopal and Arun for pointing
me in the right direction for the ISCII (Indian) character sets.

The I18N framework is generic enough that it can also be used by
Mono should they decide to do so.  I've offered for DotGNU to take
on I18N for both pnetlib and corlib, and Miguel is amenable.  More
on this later.

Numerous other fixes to pnetlib from Peter, Stephen, and Gopal.
It's steadily getting better - keep up the good work guys.

Other changes are detailed in the appended NEWS entries.

Cheers,

Rhys.

Portable.NET 0.3.4 (20 April 2002)

Runtime engine:

* Auto-generate the "internalcall" tables using "ilinternal".
* Complete "binfmt" kernel registration code.
* New method cache.
* Modify call and exception instructions to accomodate
  the method cache changes.
* Integrate debug line number support into the engine.
* Pass debug offset and line number information to pnetlib
  for use in stack traces.
* Implemented internalcall's for "ClrResourceStream", "SocketMethods",
  "DefaultEncoding", "Array", "Assembly", "Type".
* Manifest resources and files.
* Properly initialize the locale on entry to "ilrun".
* Detect the code page that corresponds to libc's locale.
* Verifier fixes to "switch" and "newobj".
* Additional CVM and verifier debug code.
* Use the underlying type of an enumeration to load and store locals
  with CVM instructions.
* Fix the stack arrangement when internal exceptions are thrown.
* Implement a better policy for deciding whether an assembly is allowed
  to use security-senstivie features such as internalcall, PInvoke,
  manifest files, etc.
* Fix the interface lookup code in "call.c" when the interface is
  implemented by a parent of the current class.
* Add the new CVM instruction "type_from_handle" to inline calls
  to "Type.GetTypeFromHandle".
* Implement CVM instruction profiling to help study engine performance.

C# Compiler:

* Additional debug line number information.
* Fixes to operator overloading for "IntPtr" and "UIntPtr".
* Remove a shift/reduce conflict in "ArrayInitializer" related
  to trailing commas.

Documentation and Samples:

* Updated FAQ.
* Embed XML documentation into the CVM interpreter for all
  CVM instructions.
* Add a Python script to convert the CVM XML into HTML (Gopal V).
* Added "samples/except.cs" to demonstrate exception stack traces.
* Added "samples/codepage.cs" to demonstrate code page handling.
* Changes to the documentation stub generator (Gopal V).

Assembler:

* Handle debug line number information.

Debugger:

* Help system works.
* Simple gdb-like commands for xxgdb integration.

Linker:

* Align RVA's during exception block linking.

Loader and Metadata:

* Debug reading and writing support.
* Manifest file support.
* On-demand loading of images by assembly name.

Other:

* Integrated sources for libgc version 6.1alpha4.
* Minor tweaks to the automake/autoconf build system.
* Added an "init.d" script to "doc" - contributed by Gopal V.
* Fixes to "csant" to handle multiple resource files with "csc".
* Added a "--public-only" option to "ilfind" to assist pnetlib builds.
* Add maintainer mode to the autoconf system to work around
  autotools version problems.

pnetlib 0.1.8 (20 April 2002)

* Bug fixes to System.Net (Peter Minten, Gopal V.).
* Bug fixes to System.Uri* (Stephen Compall).
* Complete String.Format.
* Binary access to stdio streams.
* Bug fixes to System.IO.
* Bug fixes to System.Reflection.
* New assembly System.Xml added (Peter Minten).
* Stack trace fixes for exceptions.
* Continue System.Resources implementation.
* Tweaks to socket API's.
* Howto on writing unit tests for csunit (Gopal V.).
* Continue implementation of encoding classes.
* Implemented a large number of Windows-like code page encodings,
  mostly among the 8-bit character sets.
* Split internationalization support into a separate "I18N" library,
  which is dynamically loaded by "mscorlib" as needed.
* Updates to System.Convert and dependencies.

0.1.0 (20 April 2002)

* Add maintainer mode to the autoconf system to work around
  autotools version problems.