What's cooking in erlang/otp (2010-06-28)

[Raimo Niskanen]

This issue of "What's cooking" is a weekend late due to
midsummer holiday. Sorry about that.

R14A was released as planned. We are now developing towards
the R14B release. The 'dev' branch has just got updated
version numbers, but more is to come...

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

* egil/update-system-vsn (erts, kernel, stdlib) (2010-06-17) 1 commit
 + Update Erlang system version to R14B (1e3f585)

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

* mk/net-dragonfly-bsd-patches (asn1, common_test, erl_interface, erts, et, gs, mnesia, odbc, reltool, runtime_tools, test_server, wx) (2010-06-23) 7 commits
 - Remove unused variables (dab5af5)
 - Do not hardcode browser name (82dcc82)
 - Make sure the odbcserver binary finds the ODBC library at run-time (c86dff5)
 - Use xxx(void) instead of xxx() (7142d52)
 - Use proper install method (5314ae6)
 - Add support for DragonFly BSD (03baa22)
 - Add support for NetBSD (6b72959)

* pg/beam_lib_cmp_2_return_type_specification (stdlib) (2010-06-17) 1 commit
 - Fix beam_lib:cmp/2 return type specification (8dad90e)

* pg/hipe_crash_with_on_load (erts) (2010-06-27) 1 commit
 - Fix crash when calling functions in a module with an on_load attribute from a native module (495804b)

* rani/sctp-udp-recv-error (erts) (2010-06-21) 1 commit
 - Fix inet_drv to detect passive mode UDP errors for SCTP builds (5615d7a)

* sd/epmd-stop-cli (erts) (2010-06-16) 2 commits
 - fix typo (101b731)
 - allow epmd -stop name to unregister a client from epmd (b070575)

* ta/filetypo (kernel) (2010-06-11) 1 commit
 - Correct trivial typos in file manual (6973f77)

------------------------------------------------------------
[Stalled]

* bg/safer-local_to_univ (erts) (2010-02-11) 1 commit
 - erl_time_sup.c: test for error return from mktime() (0f62f0b)

We will not include this branch in R13B04 for two reasons:

  o We are not 100% sure that this change is harmless on all
    platforms in all timezones.
  o We have a better solution for the underlying problem
    in the pipeline soon to surface in 'dev'.

Action expected from: OTP Team

* db/tv_nthtail_fix (tv) (2009-12-01) 1 commit
 - Fix for tv which restarts while trying to open a table (28f1e36)

Since our long-term goal is to migrate from gs towards wx,
maintaining the old gs applications has a low priority for
the Erlang/OTP team. Therefore, we will accept patches that
seem sound, but we are unlikely to spend much of our own time
fixing bugs.

The author of this topic branch has found the real reason for
the problem, but uncovered additional issues.

Action expected from: The topic author - to decide whether to
include the topic branch (which is a workaround, but does eliminate
the crash) or to wait for a better fix from himself or someone else
with an interest to advance the topic.

* er/ei-decode_msg (erl_interface) (2010-03-11) 1 commit
 - Add function to decode distribution header (864091a)

Needs documentation and test cases.

Action expected from: Topic author

* jp/dependencies_makefile (compiler, erts) (2010-02-14) 3 commits
 - squash! eliminate dialyzer warning (434e2ca)
 - squash! fix snprintf for Windows (bf2708d)
 - Add dependencies Makefile generation to erlc(1) and compile(3) (7cbc437)

Approved in principle by the OTP Technical Board; now awaits a closer
review of the implementation.

Action expected from: Björn Gustavsson (the reviewer)

* kr/gs-browser (gs) (2010-02-10) 1 commit
 - Change lib/gs/src/tool_utils.erl to select multiple browsers other than Netscape (802d159)

This topic branch introduces a new call to the deprecated regexp module.

Action expected from: Topic author or anyone else with an interest to
advance the topic

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

* bg/temp-hipe-fixes (compiler, hipe, kernel) (2010-03-15) 6 commits
 - Avoid crash by skipping compilation_SUITE:on_load/1 (234e13e)
 - Inline less aggressively for native-code compilation (9fcb48b)
 - Crudely fix return type for the lists:key{search,find,member}/3 (ef71597)
 - seq_trace_SUITE: Don't native-compile (2a81b1a)
 - Disable native code if on_load is used (3befa76)
 - andor_SUITE: Don't native-compile (97aa2da)

This branch contains temporary workarounds to avoid failing test
cases and is never intended to graduate.

* cf/timer_tc (stdlib) (2010-04-06) 1 commit
 - Add timer:tc/2 to measure the elapsed time of anonymous functions (2cca650)

* jf/run_erl-disable-flow-control (erts) (2010-03-05) 1 commit
 - Teach run_erl RUN_ERL_DISABLE_FLOWCNTRL for disabling flow control (d0775cd)

* jn/gen_stream (stdlib) (2010-05-17) 1 commit
 - Add new gen_stream behaviour for efficiently consuming serial streams (65f3db8)

 . Add new gen_stream behaviour for efficiently consuming serial streams (65f3db8)

This topic branch has failing test cases. 

shell_SUITE:start_restricted_from_shell;
    We have now tested with and without this topic branch and when
    it is present that test case fails. We consider it proved
    to be guilty. The test case does not fail when run standalone
    so it seems to be tricky... Also, some of its own test cases
    fail sporadicly apparently since the assumption there shoul
    be no more processes after the test case does not hold;
    probably a timing issue.

Action expected from: Topic author.

* jr/cover-src-path (tools) (2010-04-23) 1 commit
 - Fix searching for source files in analyse_to_file/* (b9d5068)

* ks/auth-specs (kernel) (2010-06-09) 1 commit
 - auth: Fix types and specs (1c51135)

* ks/cleanups (compiler, debugger, docbuilder, stdlib) (2010-04-10) 4 commits
 - compiler: Fix incorrect types and specs (8e79baa)
 - escript: Add more types to records (f2a2139)
 - debugger: Clean up as suggested by tidier (9e962d7)
 - docbuilder: Clean up as suggested by tidier (3647def)

Was formerly called ks/cleanups-after-r13b04.

* pg/honor-start-type-in-rel-files (sasl) (2010-06-06) 1 commit
 - Honor start type in .rel files when building relup files (7599900)

 . Honor start type in .rel files when building relup files (7f0192d)

* sb/make-files-like-erlc (tools) (2010-05-18) 1 commit
 - Change make:files to behave more like erlc (5e9d051)

* se/http_response_empty_phrase (erts) (2010-06-10) 1 commit
 - {packet,http} allow empty response phrase (288f54c)

* sf/erts_de_busy_limit (erts) (2010-06-08) 1 commit
 - Add flag-based setting for 'erts_de_busy_limit' constant (57c0eaf)

 . Add flag-based setting for 'erts_de_busy_limit' constant (b584553)

* ta/asn1-reporting (asn1) (2010-04-23) 1 commit
 - asn1ct: Make formatting of errors and warnings consistent (93face2)

* uw/epmd-fullnames (kernel) (2010-05-07) 1 commit
 - Allow the erlang nodename host part to differ from the hostname (e0774be)

* gl/jinterface-pom (jinterface, otp) (2010-02-08) 1 commit
 - Generate pom.xml during jinterface build (165fbca)

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

* hb/edoc (edoc) (2010-04-01) 1 commit
 . EDoc and Dialyzer specs and types (516e16c)

Temporarily dropped. Will be fixed to use updated dialyzer.

* pg/xmerl_scan_hex_entities (xmerl) (2010-06-07) 1 commit
 . Fix decoding of hex entities (&#xXXXX;) in xmerl_scan (36448fc)

The bug it fixes is recognized, but the fix in the branch is
not complete... The test case is in our internal 'dev' branch
but the test suites are not released yet due to remaining
copyright issues. We will fix the bug in a future release.