What's cooking in erlang/otp (2009-12-09)

[Björn Gustavsson]

There is now an HTML page with an overview of what's
in the 'pu' branch:

   http://erlang.github.com/otp/

The comments about the branches on that page will be
taken from the latest What's cooking email.

------------------------------------------------------------
[Graduated]

* ay/split_binary_docfix (erts) (2009-12-08) 1 commit
 + documentation: Fix erlang:split_binary/2 Pos argument (1556a6a)

------------------------------------------------------------
[New topics]

* cf/epp-macro-overloading (stdlib) (2009-12-07) 3 commits
 - epp: change rules to choose the right version of a macro (8dcc9f8)
 - epp: Add support of macros overloading (f7a8959)
 - epp: fix bug in the function scan_undef (52543e0)

Extend the pre-processor to allow overloading of macros with
the same name but different arities.

* tc/premodern-fpe (erts) (2009-12-08) 2 commits
 - Add -D_XOPEN_SOURCE to CPPFLAGS on Darwin platforms (ea2fae6)
 - Test for reliable fpes on Darwin platforms without DARWIN_MODERN_MCONTEXT (b95cf92)

Reliable floating point exceptions is necessary for hipe to
be enabled. I can confirm that hipe can now be enabled on
Snow Leopard (10.6) and that it speeds up building of the
Dialyzer PLT.

This branch depends on functionality that is deprecated
in Mac OS 10.6, so it might be necessary to find another solution
when 10.7 will be released (in case it removes the deprecated
functionality).

We would like to hear about how this patch works on older versions
of Mac OS X. Is it still possible to enable hipe on PPC macs?

------------------------------------------------------------
[Cooking]

* as/c_nc-fix (stdlib) (2009-11-29) 1 commit
 - Fix c:nc to use outdir or cwd to find compiled object file (0d4f83c)

I think there should be a test case before we graduate this topic,
so that we'll know that it will continue to work.


* at/odbc_osx_fix (odbc) (2009-11-30) 1 commit
 - Workaround broken ODBC implementation on OSX 10.5 (88c71c9)

* bd/http_chunk_fix (inets) (2009-11-27) 1 commit
 - http_chunk data handling/passing improvement. (c2553be)

* bg/otp_build-improvements (otp) (2009-12-02) 3 commits
 - Support updating the primary bootstrap in a git repository (d6a3861)
 - Determine which VCS is being used (c16fcaf)
 - .gitignore: Don't ignore script/boot files in bootstrap/bin (2bcfe0d)

* bg/slimmer-history (compiler, erts) (2009-12-02) 2 commits
 - beam_makepos: Do not put any dates in generated files (a910f28)
 - compiler: Teach 'slim' to omit compilation info (2c76865)

We don't want the compiler to put the date/time or the compiler's version
numbers into the beam files in the checked-in bootstrap, because
then all beam files in the bootstrap will have to be replaced every
time the primary bootstrap is updated.

The only potential problem this might cause is *if* the primary
bootstrap should need to be native-code compiled (the hipe compiler
checks the version number to make sure that the beam file was
compiled by a supported compiler, I think).


* db/tv_nthtail_fix (tv) (2009-12-01) 1 commit
 - Fix for tv which restarts while trying to open a table (bfc18a8)

We will cook this topic for a while and include it in the next
release unless someone finds a problem with it or a better fix.


* po/blowfish_ecb_cbc_ofb (crypto) (2009-12-08) 3 commits
 - Eliminate signed/unsigned compiler warnings (5747f67)
 - Add Blowfish tests (24300da)
 - Add Blowfish ECB, CBC and OFB modes (b120895)

This branch is currently being tested in our daily builds
and if no problems turns up this branch will likely be
graduated soon.

I eliminated some warnings in a separate commit; I intend
to squash those changes into commit b120895 before graduation.

* po/odbc-update-delete-no-rows (odbc) (2009-11-26) 1 commit
 - SQL_NO_DATA and SQLSTATE 00000 indicate success for updates/deletes that affect no rows (1a564f8)

* sc/sctp_connect_enhancement (erts, kernel) (2009-12-02) 2 commits
 - Implement a non-blocking gen_sctp:connect (92f3cee)
 - Correctly type sctp_assoc_id as signed, not unsigned (2666b68)

Raimo (the maintainer of the sctp code in OTP) is quite busy
with the new erlang.org site (demo.erlang.org), so there might
be a while before he will look at this branch, but it will
definitely happen before the next release.

* sc/ssl_pkix_extensions (ssl) (2009-12-02) 1 commit
 - Fix crash when decoding commercial certificates (31ccb1d)

The pkix stuff is in the ssl application is deprecated and has
been replaced with public key application. That functionality
in public_key is also documented.

It seems unlikely that we include this branch in OTP, but we will
keep it in 'pu' for a little bit longer.

------------------------------------------------------------
[Dropped]

* dh/doc-fixes (asn1, debugger, wx) (2009-12-01) 1 commit
 . fix for minor documentation xml issues (7e10c60)

Thanks for noticing those issues. Two problems were in XML
files that were not used; they have now been removed.

Another problem was in a template file (intentionally 
containing incomplete XML cod); that file has now
been renamed to have the extension .xml.src instead of
.src.xml.