NEWS

NEWS - list of user-visible changes between releases of eposix


New in 3.2.1 - 2010-09-23

* STDC_TIME.to_local: 64 bit platform fix.
* read_line: feature now reads lines up to 8192 from 1024 characters.
* EPX_CRYPTO_FEATURES: easy access to md5 calculations.
* EPX_HTTP_11_CLIENT: chunked encoding fix.


New in 3.2.0 - 2010-01-09

* 64 bit platforms: fixed various reported bugs for 64 bit platforms
  and 64 bit ISE (EPX_ARRAY_HELPER, STDC_TIME.to_utc).
* Support for the mingw32 C compiler.
* MD5, SHA1 and HMAC calculation, see EPX_MD5_CALCULATION,
  EPX_SHA1_CALCULATION and EPX_MACH_CALCULATION
* EPX_HTTP_10_CLIENT
  - put: fixed bug in precondition, because should
    allow sending of all kinds of data, not just forms.
  - delete: didn't accept data, but it should. Breaking change.
  - now encodes spaces to + characters if a passed uri fragment
    contains them.
  - read_response_with_redirect: didn't redirect if redirection was to
    a different server.
* EPX_FILE_SYSTEM
  - mkdir: security change! newly created directories are now also
  	accessible by everyone (formerly only by user) unless of course
  	changed by the umask that is in effect. This is more like how
  	other tools and languages work.
  - is_directory and others: check was done by calling a routine that
    did set errno, but this meant errno might have been propagated,
    and cause code to think it was set. So now properly reset.
  - make_directories: create more than 1 directory (i.e. mkdir -p).
* ABSTRACT_INTERNET_SOCKET: new features set_low_delay and
	set_throughput to minimize delay or maximise throughput
* ABSTRACT_TCP_SOCKET.set_nodelay: new feature.
* STDC_BUFFER: new 64 bit integer read and write routines
* Mime parsing: fix where 1 more character than Content-Length was
  read if the server erroneously send more.
* EPX_MIME_EMAIL.attach_file: new feature to attach files to an email.
* Child process/fork changes: should now work with fewer surprises.
* Fixed all catcalls reported by gec.
* License changed to MIT.
* VisualEiffel support dropped.
* ISE Eiffel:
  - p_unistd.c::posix_fork(): amended definition to use the special
  	ISE fork routine in case multi-threading is enabled.
  - SUS_SYSLOG: identification passed to syslog should be a pointer
  	that remains valid. On ISE Eiffel the pointer was only temporary,
  	leading to garbage in the log.
  - eposix.ecf: works now out of the box when multithreading is	enabled
* Gobo Eiffel Compiler now supported.
* Works against latest Gobo SVN (which is Void safe or being made Void safe).
* Logging framework changes:
  - ULM logging classes are obsolete, and no longer included by
   	default in the library.xace.
  - EPX_LOG_HANDLER: now based on the NetLogger classes. Breaking
   	change.
  - New NetLogger API classes for logging which replace the ULM
    classes.
  - Format of logging changed so pid is logged as part of program name.
* Signal and exit handling rewritten. cecil no longer used.
* EPX_XML_WRITER: when a & is followed by a # it is assumed a
	character reference follows, so the & is not replaced by &
	Previously character references were made invalid.
* EPX_CGI.if_match and if_none_match: new feature to return value of
	If-Match and If-None-Match header.
* EPX_URL_ENCODING: inherits from UT_URL_ENCODING.
* EPX_HTT_URI_RESOLVER.resolve: empty path resolves to "/".
* Updated config.guess and config.sub so newer OSes should be
  recognised better.
* SUS_TEMPORARY_FILE: didn't properly set name with ISE Eiffel,
	so returned name was always the template, not the real temporary
	file name.
* Many other bug fixes, see ChangeLog.
* eposix sources now hosted on origo.

New in 3.0 - 2007-05-18

* Security, if you use this functionality you are urged to upgrade:
  - EPX_MIME_PARSER: filename parameter of Content-Dispose field is
    now stripped of directory components.
  - SUS_SYSLOG: format string vulnerability fixed.

* ABSTRACT_DESCRIPTOR
  - new class with most functionality from ABSTRACT_FILE_DESCRIPTOR,
  	but contains only descriptor specific functionality, not file
	  descriptor functionality.
  - eof: obsolete, use end_of_input
* ABSTRACT_FILE_DESCRIPTOR
  - generic descriptor code moved to new class EPX_DESCRIPTOR.
  - path: obsolete, use name instead.
* POSIX_FILE_DESCRIPTOR
  - close_on_execute did nothing.
* ABSTRACT_SOCKET/EPX_SOCKET
  - now inherit from ABSTRACT_DESCRIPTORand no longer contain file
    specific features.
  - socket multiplexing patch from Till G. Bay merged. This makes
	  eposix usuable for Goanna without patches.
* ABSTRACT_TCP_SERVER_SOCKET
  - don't set the SO_REUSEADDR option on Windows as it does something
    completely different. it screws up your system
  - set_reuse_address: value was always set as parameter was ignored.
* EPX_HTTP_CLIENT
  - default now raises an exception when a connection to a server can't
  	be opened (previously it returned not is_open), this is more
  	consistent with how eposix works. Set continue_on_error to get the
  	previous behaviour.
  - make_secure to create an https connection to the server. Needs the
    openssl binary to create such connections.
* STDC_BASE
  - new feature inherit_error_handling to inherit error handling like
  	raising an exception from another class.
* STDC_FILE
  - put_string: now supports writing of strings wtih %U
  	characters. Strings are also used as buffers in Eiffel, it was a
  	bit surprising that only C like strings could be written. This
  	could have an impact on performance.
  - filename: obsolete, use name instead.
  - eof: obsolete, use end_of_input
* SUS_TEMPORARY_FILE: new class, creates temporary file based on
 	mkstemp(), so filename is available.
* STDC_TEMPORARY_FILE
  - name: no longer exported as not applicable.
* STDC_FILE_SYSTEM
  - write_string_to_file: new feature to write contents of a string to
  	a file.
* STDC_TIME:
   - make_from_dt_date_time: creation from Gobo DT_DATE_TIME object.
   - as_dt_date_time: feature returns a	Gobo DT_DATE_TIME object.
* POSIX_CONSTANT
  - Added all POSIX error codes.
* EPX_URI: obsolete, use Gobo's UT_URI.
* EPX_HTTP_10_CLIENT
  - read_response_with_redirect: new method to read a response and
    follow up on redirects until the redirects end (or 20 redirects
    have been processed).
  - set_basic_authentication: new feature to include the authorization
  	header in case the server uses basic authentication.
  - new features is_authentication_required, authentication_scheme and
    authentication_realm.
* EPX_MIME_PARSER
   - Handle WWW-Authenticate as Apache sends it, which is in violation
     of RFC 2617 I believe.
   - rudimentary cookie parsing added.
   - Content-Disposition parsing had a security flaw: the filename
     parameter was not stripped from its directory component (it is now).
   - More robust in case erroneous Content-Length was present.
* EPX_MIME_HEADER
  - set_content_type: new method.
* EPX_MIME_EMAIL_HEADER: new class
* EPX_XML_WRITER
  - now uses the stricter routines from XM_UNICODE_CHARACTERS for name
  	and content validation. The corresponding routines in
  	EPX_XML_ROUTINES have been made obsolete.
* EPX_XHTML_WRITER
  - set_onclick: new feature
  - script: new feature
* EPX_CGI:
  - support for PUT method.
  - is_valid_request_method: new feature which can return false in
  	case the request method is not recognised. The EPX_CGI will return
	  405 in that case.
  - status: did not emit new line after header, so the next header
   	effectively became part of the status reason.
  - better mechanism to detect if data is available in the
    QUERY_STRING environment variable or via stdin.
  - if_modified_since: new feature, returns date.
  - don't write body when request method is HEAD.
* FreeBSD
  - Fixed a nasty bug in FreeBSD socket handling. It seems sockets set
  	EWOULDBLOCK even when data is returned for FreeBSD 5 and higher. So
  	errno is now explictly reset when data is returned, so routines
	  expecting errno to be set only on errors behave like expected.
  - STDC_TIME.to_utc, gmtime(), would set errno on FreeBSD
* proper multi-threading support for ISE Eiffel: all C calls which are
  potentially blocking are now marked as "C blocking". This required
  some heavy restructuring of the directory hierarchy and the
  introduction of #ifdef.
* Documentation: examples to create HTML email and connect to an IRC server.



New in 2.4 - 2006-05-30
* ./configure changes
  - Gobo Eiffel Compiler support added. Use --with-compiler=gec.
  - multi-threading support: Use --enable-threads.
* makelib.exe:
  - now generates multi-threaded libraries for ISE when the Microsoft
    C compiler is used.
* EPX_HTTP_SERVER
  - now supports persistent connections.
  - make: does not start listening anymore! Call listen_locally or
    listen_globally.
  - send_file: when serving a file it now includes an ETag
  - add_file_expires_date: new feature that adds an Expires header for
  	image files in order to improve performance with IE. Without this
  	IE will retrieve reused images on a page multiple times.
* EPX_HTTP_10_CLIENT:
  - removed precondition post_data_content_type_recognized as this is
    not necessarily true.
* EPX_CGI:
  - new feature status to signal to server which status code, response
    code, to return to the client.
  - has_key didn't initialise the key/value pair data structure which
    `value' and `raw_value' did.
* EPX_SMTP_CLIENT:
  - When reading capabilities should have used force_last
* EPX_IMAP4_CLIENT:
  - New feature fetch_header_and_flags.
* EPX_MIME_PARSER
  - now parses most of the fields which contain a list of email
    addresses such as the from, to, cc and bcc fields.
  - support for chunked Transfer-Encoding.
  - parse_body: does not take an argument anymore. Determining length
    of message body is now entirely based on the previously parsed
    header.
  - didn't correctly validate dates.
* ABSTRACT_FILE_DESCRIPTOR:
  - seek_XXXX features didn't reset eof, should always be False after
    a seek.
* EPX_EXTENSION_FILTER:
  - now accepts all directories and will recursive to any
    depth. Filenames must still match the filter though.
* ABSTRACT_DIRECTORY:
  - forth: when an extension filter was set, and recursive browsing
  	was specified, directories were not recursived because they did
  	not match the extension filter. Introduced the option
  	validate_directory in ABSTRACT_PATH_FILTER to give a filter the
  	option to accept directories, and not include them in the filter.
* POSIX_FILE_DESCRIPTOR
  - is_closed_on_execute: new feature.
* EPX_FILE_SYSTEM
  - browse_directory: now returns an EPX_DIRECTORY.
* EPX_DIRECTORY:
  - class equal to ABSTRACT_DIRECTORY. Use this instead of
    ABSTRACT_DIRECTORY as ABSTRACT_XXXX classes should not be used
    directly by the client.
* EPX_CHARACTER_HELPER
  - class has become obsolete.
* EPX_CURRENT_PROCESS:
  - new feature effective_user_name.
* EPX_HTTPS_URI_RESOLVER: new class.
* WINDOWS_BASE:
  - raise_posix_error is redefined to get the error
	message from the Windows API GetErrorMessage() instead of the
	posix strmessage. The posix strerror() doesn't return anything for
	Windows specific error numbers.
	This is a bit annoying if you combine classes that don't
	descend from WINDOWS_BASE with ones that do. In that case make
	sure to undefine raise_posix_error on the classes that do not
	inherit from WINDOWS_BASE.
* WINDOWS_CURRENT_PROCESS:
  - user_name: returns name of user associated with current thread.
* WINDOWS_SYSTEM:
  - performance_frequency: value of the high-resolution performance counter.
  - performance_counter: frequency of the high-resolution performance counter,
* EPX_DSML_V1_WRITER
  - new class to write LDIF file in XML format, i.e. DSML v1.
* EPX_LDIF_PARSER
  - class to parse LDIF files.
* STDC_ERRNO
  - clear_all: now clears both value and first_value.
  - first_value wasn't shared among all STDC_ERRNO objects.
* ABSTRACT_STRING_HELPER
  - incorrect postcondition in case the STRING contained a NULL character.
* EPX_XML_WRITER
  - add_comment: didn't quote meta data properly.
  - add_attribute, add_ns_attribute, add_a_name_space: greatly
    increased speed when serializing XML and you don't want to change the
    value of the attribute at a later stage.
* EPX_XHTML_WRITER
  - new feature img, adds an image.


New in 2.2 - 2005-03-03

* Socket handles on Windows are no longer inherited by child processes
  (this was a Windows default).
* EPX_HTTP_CLIENT.make_from_port: renamed to make_with_port.
* EPX_SMTP_CLIENT: new class for sending mail through an SMTP server.
* EPX_FTP_CLIENT: new class that implements a basic FTP client.
* EPX_IRC_CLIENT: new class. Still under development. Support for
  NickServ, DCC chat and user tracking per channel.
* EPX_OPENSSL: new class which uses the openssl program to
	connect to a server using a SSL/TLS session.
* EPX_MIME_BODY_MULTIPART.append_to_string: in case of more than
	one part, parts were not properly separated by a header.
* EPX_MIME_PART.append_to_string didn't append the boundary in a
	proper manner.
* EPX_MIME_FORM: new class inheriting from EPX_MIME_PART. Contains
	the make_form_data feature moved from EPX_MIME_PART. Use this
	class to create the result of HTML form submission to an HTTP
	server.
* EPX_MIME_PART: new creation feature make_form_data that makes it
  possible to	create a form data MIME message (RFC 2388).
* EPX_SELECT: Support for the select() call on Unix and Windows. Allows
	synchronous i/o multiplexing.
* STDC_BUFFER.put_string: new feature.
* ABSTRACT_FILE_DESCRIPTOR.read_line: now does blocking i/o if it
	has read the first character. Else you could end up reading
	partial lines. If you want truly non-blocking i/o string reading,
	use read_string instead of line reading.
* EPX_STRING_HELPER.string_to_pointer now returns a read-only
	pointer to the string. Writing to that pointer no longer affects the
  STRING. True for all XXXX_to_pointer routines.
* ABSTRACT_IP4_ADDRESS.make_from_components: didn't handle IP
  addresses that were in the 128-255.0.0.0 range due to integer overflow.
* ABSTRACT_IP_ADDRESS redefines is_equal so IP addresses can be
	compared for equality.
* POSIX_CURRENT_PROCESS.login_name: new definition, now returns a
  reliable login name.
* POSIX_CURRENT_PROCESS.real_user: returns user based on effective user id.
* EPX_PARTIAL_BUFFER: extends STDC_BUFFER with count feature. Count can be less
  than capacity. Use for partially filed buffers.
* EPX_CURRENT_PROCESS: new feature environment_variables.
* EPX_CURRENT_PROCESS: new feature millisleep.
* SUS_CURRENT_PROCESS: new feature nanosleep.
* SUS_SYSTEM: new feature
  have_realtime_clock,real_time_clock_resolution and real_time_clock.
* EPX_INCREMENTAL_XML_WRITER: new class.
* EPX_XML_WRITER: new method tag_depth.
* STDC_CURRENT_PROCESS now inherits from ARGUMENTS as well.
* SUS_TIME: based on STDC_TIME, adds nano-second resolution for
  systems that support it.
* EPX_SOAP_WRITER.message: returned a ASCII string, but should
	have returned a UC_STRING instead
* ABSTRACT_SERVICE: new creation feature make_from_name_with_default:
  create a service, but provide a default port in case port name not
  found in services.
* STDC_FILE.put_character accepts a CHARACTER now instead of an
	INTEGER.
* SUS_ENV_VAR.set_value: implementation was wrong.
* ISE Eiffel: we no longer use eif_freeze/eif_unfreeze but copy
  strings in case. So there is a certain performance
  hit. eif_freeze/eif_unfreeze seems to be unstable with 5.5


New in 2.0 - 2004-01-07
* license changed to Eiffel Forum Version 2, see
	forum.txt. License is now FSF (GPL) and OSI (Open Software
	Initiative) compatible.
* Full socket (tcp/udp/unix) support on Unix.
* Windows TCP support.
* non-blocking accept in the socket classes.
* STDC_FILE.read_string and ABSTRACT_FILE_DESCRIPTOR.read_string
  definition changed. It now follows Gobo's KI_CHARACTER_INPUT_STREAM
  in reading just a bunch of characters, without regard for new line
  characters.
* Use STDC_TEXT_FILE.read_line and ABSTRACT_FILE_DESCRIPTOR.read_line
  for line reading.
* Added builtin HTTP server EPX_HTTP_SERVER. Useful to embed in
  applications. Very primitive compared to a full-blown server.
* MIME parser extended and rewritten somewhat. Header stuff from
  EPX_MIME_PART is now in EPX_MIME_HEADER.
* STDC_FILE and ABSTRACT_FILE_DESCRIPTOR now inherit from the Gobo
  KI_CHARACTER_INPUT_STREAM and KI_CHARACTER_OUTPUT_STREAM
  classes. This makes sockets, file descriptors and streams
  plug-compatible with Gobo.
* Separate manual with short/flat forms of classes.
* Manual rewritten in more topical style.
* Truly Unicode safe now.
* GOBO_CC variable must now be bcb instead of bcc.


New in 1.6.2 - 2003-02-10
* lcc-win32 didn't like w_windows.c. Now uses data type
  PWIN32_FIND_DATAA instead of PWIN32_FIND_DATA


New in 1.6.1 - 2003-02-05
* Release less tested as 1.6.0. If 1.6.0 works fine for you, there is
  no reason to download this one.
* As I could not get SmartEiffel 1.1 beta to compile on Windows, that
  version is not supported.
* Release targeted at ISE Eiffel 5.2, VisualEiffel 4.1 and SmartEiffel
  1.1 beta.
* For ISE Eiffel 5.2 there were basically no changes needed.
* For VisualEiffel 4.1 a small change was made so string allocation
  should perform slightly better.
* Due to reorganization in SmartEiffel, this release does not work
  with earlier versions of Smarteiffel (base.h was moved).


New in 1.6.0 - 2003-01-21
* adapted to SmartEiffel (should still work with SmallEiffel).
* now needs Gobo to compile.
* tests partially converted to Gobo.
* src/library.xace file complete.
* ULM based logging through ULM_LOGGING and EPX_LOG_HANDLER classes.
* MIME parser.
* HTTP client in EPX_HTTP_10_CLIENT.
* class XML_GENERATOR renamed to EPX_XML_WRITER.
* class XHTML_GENERATOR renamed to EPX_XHTML_WRITER.
* new class EPX_URI for URI parsing.
* Windows specific shared memory class: WINDOWS_PAGING_FILE_SHARED_MEMORY.
* POSIX_MEMORY_MAP inherits from STDC_BUFFER. Breaks code.


New in 1.1.0 - 2002-06-25
* eposix is now build with autoconf. See INSTALL for instructions.