Erl_Interface Release Notes

These document describes the release notes for older versions of the Erl_Interface application.

Erl_interface 3.2

Improvements and new features

• The reference type has been extended from 18 bits to 82 bits. For compatibility with older nodes, an R6 node can send a ref to an older node; if the older node sends it back, it has lost all but its 18 least significant bits, but still compares equal to the original ref. The external format has been extended to represent the new longer refs; that means for example that binaries with refs, produced on an R6 node, cannot be converted to a term on an older node. In erl_interface, a function erl_mk_long_ref has been added, and macros ERL_REF_NUMBERS and ERL_REF_LEN.
  (*** POTENTIAL INCOMPATIBILITY ***)
  Own Id: OTP-3140
  Aux Id: OTP-3139
• The function erl_receive_msg has the problem that a fixed buffer must be given - a larger message than expected is simply discarded. A function erl_xreceive_msg has been introduced, which dynamically resizes the buffer given to it, if needed.
  Own Id: OTP-3313
  Aux Id: OTP-2927

Erl_interface 3.1.1

Improvements and new features

• #ifdef __cplusplus extern C { is added to all the erl*.h and ei*.h files in order to support use from C++.
  On Unix the object files are now produced with the -fPIC option to make it possible to include them in a shared library.
  Own Id: OTP-3138
  Aux Id: Seq 1722

Erl_interface 3.1

Fixed errors and malfunctions

• A buffer overflow in erl_connect() was causing C-node crashes on Linux.
  Own Id: OTP-2743
• When decoding very long strings (more than 65535 characters) the terminating 0 was left out.
  Own Id: OTP-2744
• erl_accept() was not handshaking properly with Erlang, causing incoming connection attempts to fail.
  Own Id: OTP-2862
• Very large negative numbers are no longer encoded incorrectly.
  Own Id: OTP-2897
• Atoms could sometimes contain an unterminated string. This is fixed.
  Own Id: OTP-2956
• Erl_interface now uses the SENS resolver functions if they are available at runtime. This primarily concerns use on the VxWorks platform.
  Own Id: OTP-3034
  Aux Id: Seq 1559
• The documentation for erl_connect_init() no longer makes erroneous reference to the remote node.
  Own Id: OTP-3102
  Aux Id: Seq 1671

Improvements and new features

• Erl_interface has been moved out of the Erlang runtime system (Erts) and is now a separate application. This has implications for all users of Erl_interface, who will need to make changes to the Makefiles used to build applications based on Erl_interface. In particular, header and library files are no longer in $(OTPROOT)/usr/. The include and lib directories are now located in the directory $(OTPROOT)/lib/erl_interface-3.1 (i.e. the directory name is now version specific).
  Own Id: OTP-3082