Embedable multi-threaded programming language

RELEASE NOTES for qore v0.8.3

release summary: 33 bug fixes and new feature support (including native Windows support)

• BUG FIX: fixed a bug in parse_url() & parseURL(); parsing urls with IPv6 addresses without ":" - this will only work if a port number is included; otherwise raw IPv6 addresses must be enclosed in square brackets: [ipv6addr]

• BUG FIX: fixed a bug in is_readable() - was returning True for all arguments

• BUG FIX: fixed a file descriptor leak in the FtpClient class related to exception handling

• BUG FIX: fixed some crashing memory bugs in socket handling (particularly related to the internal getPort() call)

• BUG FIX: fixed split() with quote argument

• BUG FIX: fixed a bug in handling parse errors in switch statements that caused an endless loop

• BUG FIX: fixed 2 memory errors handling parse exceptions with regular expressions

• BUG FIX: fixed an error in system() recognizing "$=" as shell meta-characters

• BUG FIX: fixed a bug in system() where system() caused a deadlock in both child and parent processes if launching the child process launch fails

• BUG FIX: fixed a bug in system() where quotes and backslashes were not being properly quoted

• BUG FIX: fixed typeinfo handling with imported variables in many places - particularly subprograms with imported variables could fail to parse if %require-types is set in the subprogram

• BUG FIX: fixed detected duplicate variables in the same block when %assume-local is set

• BUG FIX: SQLStatement::commit() and SQLStatement::rollback() no longer throw an exception when called without an active statement; instead, the statement is closed and the operation is executed on the underlying database connection object (Datasource or DatasourcePool object)

• BUG FIX: fixed a memory error looking up scoped constant values at parse time

• BUG FIX: do not issue a "return value ignored" exception if the function/method could throw an exception - the usage without using the return value could be to test if an exception is raised (ie an exception would be considered a side effect)

• BUG FIX: fixed the string output for dates (when date/time values are converted to a string) to not duplicate UTC offset information in case the associated time zone has no region name

• BUG FIX: fixed a bug in the c++ function QoreString::replaceAll()

• BUG FIX: fixed a crash when parsing a class with an unknown/undefined base class

• BUG FIX: fixed a memory leak in the Socket class static initialization

• BUG FIX: fixed issues with passing a reference through different program stacks

• BUG FIX: fixed a bug where some specific type errors in function or method calls were not found at parse time, but rather only at bug time - now these errors are found at parse time

• BUG FIX: added stack overrun check in QoreClass::execConstructor() call to catch the case when a class instantiation is recursively defined

• BUG FIX: fixed a crash due to a memory error in managing reference cycles with closures assigned to constant containers

• BUG FIX: fixed a crash when referencing closure-bound local variables in expressions executed by the background operator

• BUG FIX: fixed function/method variant matching to ensure that variants are matched at run time if there is a variant with fewer parameters than arguments in the call, but the arguments could be NOTHING (count these as ambiguous matches)

• BUG FIX: fixed 2 extremely tricky bugs where deleting a global-thread-local and closure-bound variable that causes an object to go out of scope that in turn references the variable int its destructor caused a crash due to improper thread-local variable stack deletion

• BUF FIX: fixed a deadlock when deleting the old value of the closure-bound global-thread-local variable while holding the variable's lock (happened when the value was an object that referenced the variable in the destructor)

• BUG FIX: implemented variable finalization to ensure that variables are not assigned after they are destroyed during program and thread termination and destruction - this fixed some possible memory leaks in QoreProgram destruction

• BUG FIX: implemented sleep() and usleep() with nanosleep() (on all platforms with nanosleep(); also no longer mask SIGALRM as it may be used by a library; SIGALRM is also needed for sleep() and usleep() on UNIX and UNIX-like platforms; this eliminated some strange crashes due to unhandled SIGALRM signals when qore is used with some 3rd party libraries

• BUG FIX: added QDOM_FILESYSTEM to all static File class methods (so they cannot be called while "no-filesystem" restrictions are in place for a Program object)

• BUG FIX: added QDOM_TERMINAL_IO to TermIOS::getWindowSize() (so it cannot be called while "no-terminal-io" restrictions are in place for a Program object)

• BUG FIX: added runtime checks for method calls to system File class constants while "no-terminal-io" is in force (so they cannot be called while "no-terminal-io" restrictions are in place for a Program object)

• BUF FIX: fixed a crashing bug where a hash passed to the context statement will cause a crash if one of the keys after the first is not assigned to a list

• new feature: Qore is now supported on Windows with a native DLL and binaries; see README-WINDOWS for more information

• new feature: parse defines are now supported for conditional parsing in a very simple way similar to a very simplified form of the C/C++ pre-processor.  All option (HAVE_*) are now supported as parse defines as well (they are defined only if they are True):

  new parse directives supporting parse defines:

  • %define
  • %ifdef
  • %ifndef
  • %else
  • %endif

  new Program methods supporting parse defines:

  • Program::define()
  • Program::getDefine()
  • Program::isDefined()
  • Program::undefine()

• new feature: new softlist and *softlist types for automatically converting values to a list

• new feature: FtpClient class enhancements:

  new methods

  • FtpClient::mkdir()
  • FtpClient::rmdir()
  • FtpClient::putData()

implemented implicit connection handling for the FtpClient class

• new feature: Program class enhancements:

new method: Program::replaceParseOptions()

also expanded the parse option checking logic to allow parse options to be set even when options are locked, if the options make the Program's option environment more restrictive

• new feature: added a new argument to split(string, string);now it's split(string, string, bool = False) - if the 3rd arg is True then the separator pattern string will be included in each element of the output list

• new feature: do not issue "duplicate-local-vars" warning when the other var is a top-level (thread-) local var

• new feature: include "deprecated" in the default warning mask

• new feature: added WARN_DEFAULT constant

• new feature: new command-line options for the qore executable:
  • --time-zone,-z (set default time region)
  • --define, -D   (create a parse define)

• new feature: thread-local variables are now persistent in each Program object; they do not disappear between calls to Program::run() or Program::callFunction(), etc

• new feature: allow SQLStatments to go from state 'defined' (retrieving select after exec) to 'executed' automatically without forcing the user to call SQLStatement::close()

• new feature: new functions:
  • strmul(string, int, *int)
  • has_key()

• new feature: parser improvements: implemented parser error recovery for syntax errors in argument list declarations

• new feature: added support for removing or deleting a list of keys from a hash in a single atomic operation:
  • my hash $h = remove $hash.$list_of_keys;
  • delete $hash.("a", "b", "c")

• new feature: allow parameters to be declared with type "nothing"

• doc updates: documentation updated for new features, documentation corrections