libs-base/NEWS

1 News
******

The currently released version of the library is ‘1.31.1’.

   See the <ReleaseNotes.html> document for more information.

1.1 Noteworthy changes in version ‘1.31.1’
==========================================

   • This is a bugfix release correcting a missing KVO method when using
     the ng runtime and an error in weak reference support when using
     the gnu runtimeR, along with a few other minor fixes and
     documentation improvements.
   • The library version changes from 1.31.0 to 1.31.1

1.2 Noteworthy changes in version ‘1.31.0’
==========================================

   • Library version changed from 1.30 to 1.31
   • Implementation of weak references for the GNU runtime, so that weak
     references are now supported/available in portable code, and in
     conjunction with NSPointerFunction fixes we now support weak
     references in NSMapTable, NSHashTable, and NSPointerArray as well
     as supporting automatic deregestration of deallocated observers in
     NSNotificationCenter.
   • Autogsdoc updated to support modern CSS based HTML and provide
     simple diagrams of inheritence in the reference documentation.
   • New experimental implementation of NSURLSession ...  we still need
     work to replace non-portable (blocks dependent) code before it can
     be a supported class.
   • New KeyValueObserving code for Clang and GNUstep runtime.
   • Other new methods/features

        − BSByteOrder fixes for NSSwappedFloat and NSSwappedDouble
        − [NSDate] small object optimisation when using Clang
        − -[NSFileManager URLsForDirectory:inDomains:]
        − NSGeometry missing functions implemented
        − [NSInvocation] missing typedefs implemented
        − [NSOperation] threads are now named for easy identification
        − [NSPredicate] BETWEEN operator for more types
        − -[NSString enumerateLinesUsingBlock:]
        − [NSThread] priority support now working on Android
        − [NSString] NSRegularExpressionSearch option
        − [NSString] ICU collator cached for improved performance
        − -[NSURLRequest assumesHTTP3Capable]
        − -[NSURLRequest setAssumesHTTP3Capable:]
        − [NSUserDefaults] use bundle identifier rather than program
          name
        − [NSValue] edge insets added
        − -[NSZombie logZombie:]

   • Support for being built with the '-asan yes' command line option or
     the GNUSTEP_WITH_ASAN=1 environment variable setting.  The library
     is also aware when it was not built with that option but is linked
     to an executable which was (and a few features which confuse the
     leak checker are turned off).  In addition NSObject+GNUstepBase.h
     declares new methods for tracking the ownership of objects of a
     particular class (or individual instances) to help in identifying
     the cause of any leak found by the leak sanitizer.
   • Many minor bugfixes and very, very many minor memory leaks fixed in
     both the library and the automated testcases.
   • Removed deprecated locking code and changed many classes to use
     lightweight and more fine-grained locking for simple cases
     protecting short regions.  We retain a global lock for more complex
     situations where there is a significant chance of deadlock.
   • Several symbols (variables and functions) which were accidentally
     public have been made static or internal to the library.
   • Updated to work with recent versions of autoconf.

1.3 Noteworthy changes in version ‘1.30.0’
==========================================

   • Library version changed from 1.29 to 1.30

   • autogsdoc (and many source/header files) updated for ObjC-2 support
   • gdnc gspath spelling error fixes
   • GSFileHandle remove handle from run loop when -dealloc is called
   • GSHTTPURLHandle close socket if we end loading with I/O in
     progress.
   • GSMimeDocimnet optimisations
   • GSPrivateSymbolPath() portability improvements
   • GSVersionMacros add GS_UNIMPLEMENTED to mark unimplemented methods
   • HTMLLinker man page groff warning fixed
   • Make GSTcpTune options available to streams as well as file handles
     and improve debug logging for stream operations.
   • NSBundle improvements in librarym bundle lookup
   • NSCache thread safety fix
   • NSData caching data of file URLs and OSX consistency tweak to
     permissions when writing file atomically
   • NSDate implements +now constructor.
   • NSDecimalNumber fix possible coimparison bug for zero values
   • NSError -description and -localizedDescription formats match OSX
   • NSException portability improvments
   • NSFileManager makeed safety fix and make enumerating a file URL
     return URLs rather than paths.
   • NSIndexSet implements enumerateRangesInRange convenience methods.
   • NSISO8601DateFormatter.m: bugfix for date/time string generation
   • NSJSONSerialization fix memory leak, fix issue with unicode
     surrogate pairs.
   • NSKeyValueObserving Add methods to remove observers
   • NSLocale Fix -countryCode incorrectly returning language code, fix
     for hyphen and underscore in locale identifier
   • NSMessagePort remove restriction on Distributed Objects message
     length
   • NSNotificationCenter fix for memory leak, minor bugfixes (use
     before initialise)
   • NSNull fix for -valueForUndefinedKey: to return singleton
   • NSNumberFormatter make minimum/maximum properties NSNumbers
   • NSObject optimise allocation with new runtime library
   • NSOperation fix occasional scheduling bug
   • NSOrderedSet Fix keyed encoding to match Apple platforms.
   • NSPathUtilities fix intialisation order deadlock.
   • NSPredicate fix for array access keywords
   • NSProcessInfo android support
   • NSString correct class used when loading empty string from
     file/URL, implements regular expression search methods.
   • NSTask return an error if the path to launch in is bad, use _exit
     to terminate forked process if needed, use closefrom() to close
     descriptors in child process if possible
   • NSTimer wrap call to block in exception handler (bug #289)
   • NSTimeZone improvements
   • NSURL Fix NSURL path on Windows for UNC paths.
   • NSURLRequest: Support deleting using setValue:forHTTPHeaderField:
     with nil value.
   • NSURLSession many bugfixes and improvements
   • NSUserDefaults fix potential deadlock
   • NSXMLElement bugfix to remove previous attributes when setting
     attributes.
   • NSXMLNode returns NSError on failure to evaluate xpath expression.
   • gnustep_global_lock and GSLazyLock deprecated for removal in next
     release.

1.4 Noteworthy changes in version ‘1.29.0’
==========================================

   • Library version changed from 1.28 to 1.29

1.5 Noteworthy changes in version ‘1.28.1’
==========================================

   • Many changes to make building and testcases work on ms-windows
     (particularly with the MSVC target and when using a strict C99
     compiler).
   • Support for native locking on ms-windows.
   • Support for overlapped I/O on ms-windows.
   • New timezone handling code to deal with v2+ of the timezone format.
   • TLS support for secure Distributed Objects connections.
   • Masking of sensitive information in http/https debug logs.
   • a variety of bugfixes.

1.6 Noteworthy changes in version ‘1.28.0’
==========================================

Aside from an assortment of bugfixes, this release includes a lot of
improvements for Windows support as well as numerous new classes and
methods.

   Not every bugfix, improvement or a new feature will be listed here.

   • Reading and setting File Creation Date attribute on Windows.
   • Added new ‘ASSIGNMUTABLECOPY()’ macro for consistency with
     ‘ASSIGNCOPY()’.
   • Replaced character set data headers for URLs with loading these
     from a standard data source, and updated bitmap representation to
     use much less space for character sets residing wholly in the base
     plane, such as the URL charsets (given they are purely ASCII).
   • Updated character set data with newer Unicode data set.
   • ‘[NSURLProtocol -initWithRequest:cachedResponse:client:]’ will now
     retain the client up until the last message is sent to it, which
     improves compatibility with OS X.
   • Percent-escaping code in ‘NSURL’ simplified.
   • Removed mixed ABI support.
   • Use of Apple runtime now assumes non-fragile ABI (which is true on
     modern systems).
   • Improve typing on method implementation pointers in some classes.
   • In ‘NSHTTPCookie’, rewritten code for extracting individual cookies
     from the HTTP header.
   • In ‘NSKeyedArchiver’, implement secure coding methods.
   • New methods in ‘NSDateComponents’.
   • Improvements in ‘NSCalendar’ and ‘NSLocale’ for calendar locale and
     ‘NSDateComponents’.
   • In ‘NSFileManager’, use ‘utimensat()’ to set file modification
     date, if available.
   • Correctly stop parsing number being decoded in
     ‘NSJSONSerialization’ when encountering a number with an invalid
     exponent.
   • Improve OS X compatibility for ‘NSURLQueryItem’ initializers.
   • For ‘NSFileManager’, in ‘changeFileAttributes’, implement setting
     creation date for Unix-like systems.  Implement reading the
     creation date if a supported method was detected.
   • Support reading Android assets from the main bundle in
     ‘NSInputStream’.
   • Support Android assets directories in ‘NSBundle’ and
     ‘NSFileManager’.
   • Implement ‘-[NSXMLParser initWithStream:]’.
   • Allow clearer choice between 'sloppy' ‘GSSloppyXMLParser’ used in
     ‘NSXMLParser’ and the libxml2-based ‘GSStrictXMLParser’.
   • Fix building Win32 implementations for ‘GSFileHandle’ and
     ‘NSMessagePort’ with nonfragile ABI.
   • Use ‘NSNumber’ and not ‘NSString’ in ‘-[NSUserDefaults
     setBool:forKey:]’.
   • Posting notification before ‘NSThread’ exit.
   • Actually declare optional ‘NSFilePresenter’ methods as optional.
   • In ‘NSConcreteMapTable’, fix replacing existing values in a weak
     objects map table.
   • Fix leaks in ‘NSOperation’.
   • Various compat fixes for various MSYS systems, particularly around
     sockets code.
   • In ‘NSData’, ‘NSFileManager’ and more, various improvements when
     overwriting and creating files with respect to file attributes
     (owners, creation timestamp, etc).
   • Improve ‘NSLog’ output on Android.
   • Use ‘instancetype’ in ‘NSURLRequest’ header.
   • Define ‘NSAttributedStringKey’ and ‘NSNotificationName’.
   • Add new ‘NSURL’ methods.
   • In ‘GSMime’, have ‘-contentFile’ check the ‘Content-Type’ header
     before checking ‘Content-Disposition’.
   • Fix a bug linking with WEAK symbols where binutils 2.3.5 would fail
     to link due to not all expected symbols being exported.
   • New ‘plutil’ utility.
   • Implementation of ‘[NSData rangeOfData:options:range:]’ which finds
     the ‘NSRange’ in which the passed data occurs.
   • Change ‘ENTER_POOL’/‘LEAVE_POOL’ so they no longer wrap the
     enclosed code in a loop, enabling use in some loops.
   • New 10.5 methods in ‘NSRunLoop’/‘NSURLConnection’.
   • Improve compatibility when building with ICU 68.
   • Fix compiling libdispatch integration of ‘NSRunLoop’ on Windows.
   • Add support for building on Windows with MSVC's Clang by passing
     the ‘configure’ flag ‘--host=x86_64-pc-windows’.  Use of an MSYS2
     shell without ‘-devel’ packages is recommended.
   • Implementation of ‘NSURLSession’ and related classes.  This adds
     some dependencies on more recent versions of ‘libcurl’,
     ‘libdispatch’ etc.
   • Fix initializing ‘NSUUID’ from a string.
   • Disable use of ‘libcurl’ if its headers are not found.
   • In ‘NSURLProtocol’, continue writing data if not all of it was
     written.
   • Fix use of GnuTLS under MinGW by using ‘send/recv’ rather than
     ‘read/write’.
   • Add support for libobjc2 runtime on Windows.
   • Fix BOM insertion when generating data from a string using one of
     the Unicode encodings.

1.7 Noteworthy changes in version ‘1.27.0’
==========================================

Aside from an assortment of bugfixes, this release includes a lot of
improvements for Android support as well as numerous new classes and
methods.

   • Expose GNU TLS wrappers and add methods to get certificate expiry.
   • Improve thread safety when using zombies, particularly on
     statup/shutdown.
   • Improvements for Ukrainian localization.
   • Decreased ICU requirements to 49 to support Windows 2000.
   • Simplifications and fixes in GSPrivateSymbolPath().
   • GSMime improvements (word encoding specifier, utf-8 improvements
     encoding quoted words with multibyte characters)
   • NSJSONSerialization fixes for codepoints over 0x7f.
   • NSCharacterSet support for URL*AllowedCharacterSet and declarations
     for new character sets.
   • NSString implementations for new methods
     stringByRemovingPercentEncoding/
     stringByAddingPercentEncodingWithAllowedCharacterSet:.
   • Fixed a crash in gdomap when an invalid hostname is given for the
     -M option.
   • In NSString.m, removed functions urldecode() and ishex() which were
     mistakenly neither namespaced nor declared static and thus could
     have conflicted with non-library code.
   • Fixed libdispatch configuration switch so -enable-libdispatch works
     correctly; correctly checking for HAVE_LIBDISPATCH_RUNLOOP.
   • Updated libdispatch runloop integration so it is compatible with
     Swift's corelibs libdispatch release (from
     github.com/apple/swift-corelibs-libdispatch).  The libdispatch must
     be compiled with INSTALL_PRIVATE_HEADERS=YES.
   • In NSThread, spinlocks implemented using builtins to be able to
     target platforms without pthread_spin_lock(), such as Android
     targeting API level < 24.
   • In NSLog on Android, send logs to syslog.
   • Implementation of NSOrderedSet.
   • When ./configuring, link against libandroid on Android.
   • In NSBundle, allow integrating with Android asset manager using
     +[NSBundle setJavaAssetManager:withJNIEnv:], enabling use of
     mainBundle's pathForResource:ofType:, -URLForResource:ofType: and
     similar; referencing Info.plist if it exists in Android assets; use
     of NSFileManager's fileExistsAtPath: et al and
     isReadableFileAtPath:; reading files using NSFileHandle APIs; use
     of NSDirectoryEnumerator to enumerate Android assets from the main
     bundle.
   • In NSBundle, localization support on Android.
   • In NSProcessInfo, automatic initialization on Android using a fake
     executable path (/data/data/<app identifier>/Resources).
   • In NSData, improvements in reading Android assets.
   • Various improvements in the mechanism to report memory usage of
     individual objects.
   • Skeletal implementation of NSUbiquitousKeyValueStore.
   • Implementation of NSByteCountFormatter.
   • Fixes to writing large HTTPS requests (GSSocketStream,
     NSURLProtocol).
   • In gdomap.c, fix detection of local networks.
   • In NSArray's -removeObjectsInArray:, prevent some crashes.
   • In GSTLS, avoid setting session priority twice.
   • In NSFileHandle, fix so that setting certificate information does
     not discard any other options already set.
   • In GSXML's -fatalErrorFunction, use the correct function to get the
     line number.
   • In NSOperation's _execute, ensure lock gets released on an error by
     surrounding with NS_DURING.
   • Generics support in NSHashTable.
   • Implementation of NSProgress.
   • Skeleton implementation of NSURLComponents.
   • In NSSortDescriptor, added
     -sortDescriptorWithKey:ascending:descending:.
   • In NSOperationQueue, added -addOperationWithBlock.
   • In NSFileManager, added
     -URLForDirectory:inDomain:appropriateForURL:create:error: and
     -enumeratorAtURL:includingPropertiesForKeys:options:errorHandler:.
     Also added NSItemReplacementDirectory constant, and updated stub
     implementation for -URLForDirectory:shouldCreate:error:.  Added
     -initWithDirectoryPath:...  with additional parameters skipHidden
     and errorHandler.
   • In NSDictionary, fixed keysSortedByValueUsingComparator:.
   • Moved NSFileWrapper from -gui to -base.
   • Added NSFilePresenter, NSFileVersion and NSFileCoordinator.
   • Added NSPersonComponents and NSPersonNameComponentsFormatter.
   • Added units of measurement classes such as NSUnit, NSMeasurement,
     NSMeasurementFormatter, NSEnergyFormatter, NSLengthFormatter,
     NSMassFormatter.
   • In NSUnit, support for NSUnitArea, NSUnitConcentrationMass,
     NSUnitDispersion, NSUnitElectricCharge, NSUnitIlluminance,
     NSUnitElectricCurrent, NSUnitElectricPotentionDifference,
     NSElectricResistance, NSUnitMass, NSUnitEnergy, NSUnitFrequency,
     NSUnitPower, NSUnitSpeed, NSUnitFuelEfficiency, NSUnitPressure,
     NSUnitVolume, NSUnitLength.
   • Support for data directory on Android introduces
     GSInitializeProcessAndroid and makes use of the path returned by
     Context.getFilesDir() as the basis for storing data (e.g.
     NSUserDefaults) and when querying for directory paths
     (NSLibraryDirectory, NSApplicationSupportDirectory, etc.).
   • Placeholder NSScript* classes.  Added NSUserActivity,
     NSObjectScripting, NSHFSFileTypes, NSAppleEventManager and
     NSAppleEventDescriptor.
   • Added NSDateInterval intersectionWithDateInterval:.
   • Added NSBackgroundActivityScheduler.
   • Added NSISO8601DateFormatter and NSMetadataAttributes.
   • Added NSOrtogrpahy and NSLinguisticTagger.
   • Added NSExtensionItem, NSExtensionContext,
     NSExtensionRequestHandling, and NSItemProvider and
     NSItemProviderReadingWriting.
   • Updated timezone info for NSTimeZones.
   • On Android, support for NSTemporaryDirectory to use
     Context.getCacheDir(), and cleaning it up in
     GSInitializeProcessAndroid() given there is no support for temp
     directory before Android API 26.  Also used with NSCachesDirectory
     + NSUserDomainMask.
   • NSXPCConnection fixes.
   • NSException symbolication support using libunwind (used when
     backtrace() is unavailable).
   • Travis build improvements to use new runloop integration and
     gnustep-2.0 runtime.
   • In NSKeyValueObserving, implement two missing methods for NSArray:
     -addObserver:options:context: and
     -removeObserver:fromObjectsAtIndexes:forKeyPath:.
   • Updated NSUUID to use instancetype.
   • Added support for NSDate constants in NSPredicate.
   • Fixed a NSTimer bug with blocks.
   • In GSTLS, do not put password in the hash key of the credentials,
     and to avoid logging it when debugging is on.
   • Improvements in NSConcreteHashTable and NSConcreteMapTable.
   • In various places, switch away from deprecated
     CREATE_AUTORELEASE_POOL() to use the ARC-compatible ENTER_POOL and
     LEAVE_POOL macros.
   • When building the list of hosts to be probed to see if they have
     gdomap servers, fix code to include those explicitly defined in the
     config file.  Add -S option to list the addresses of the known
     gdomap servers.
   • Backward compatibility fix for ICU 65.
   • Update GSPrivateSymbolPath() so that, on the path where
     LINKER_GETSYMBOL is not available, we attempt to lookup classes
     using the prefix ._OBJC_CLASS_ for the 2.0 ABI (earlier ABIs use a
     prefix of __objc_class_name_ for the class definition.
   • Fix parsing of NSURLResponse content type header.
   • Fix for class lookup when using the 2.0 ABI.
   • Fixed NSURLComponents setURL: throwing exceptions when URL didn't
     have all expected parts caused by rangeOfString: throwing for nil
     values.
   • Added NSURLQueryItem implementation.

1.8 Noteworthy changes in version ‘1.26.0’
==========================================

   • Improve utf8 validity checks.
   • Make point and size subclasses for NSValue interchangable.
   • Add support for TLS SNI. Always request certificate from client and
     update certificates after 5 minutes.
   • Don't write deprecated fields to desktop link file.
   • Use NSLock instead of GSLazyLock and other improvements for
     multithreaded processes.
   • Clean up of NSString cluster.
   • Update NSAssert() and NSCAssert() to handle variable arguments (as
     OSX has done) and mark the numbered macros as obsolete.
   • Various improvements in tests.
   • Require ICU >= 50.
   • ICU is now detected using pkg-config.
   • Improve XML parsing.
   • Make NSXMLNode ivar a union representing different types, instead
     of assuming it will contain different underlying class types in
     different contexts.  This is important for the new libobjc2 ABI.
   • OSX compatibility changes to NSURL.
   • NSFileManager call error handle on missing file.
   • Dummy spinlock implementation for platforms that don't support it.
   • Internationalization improvements: Japanese translation, Turkish
     translation, Polish translation.
   • Various improvements for new libobjc2 "v2 ABI", including things
     like a new NSConstantString implementation, making
     GS_REPLACE_CONSTANT_STRING a noop with the new ABI, etc.
   • Improvements for stack traces, exception handling and dead lock
     detection.
   • Other more minor bugfixes and cleanups.  Many found by Coverity
     scan results.
   • As usual, this release also contains an update to include the most
     recent international timezone data.

1.9 Noteworthy changes in version ‘1.25.1’
==========================================

   • Unicode fixes for characters outside the base plane
   • Stubs for some new OSX methods
   • Various new OSX compatibility macro and type definitions
   • NSFileManager fixes and tweaks to match OSX implementation
   • NSDistributedLock bugfix for pre-existing lock directories
   • Alternative sort algorithms selectable at runtime
   • Compatibility-related changes for environments not supporting weak
     symbols
   • Other more minor bugfixes and cleanups.
   • As usual, this release also contains an update to include the most
     recent international timezone data.

1.10 Noteworthy changes in version ‘1.25.0’
===========================================

   • Garbage collection support removed (NSGarbageCollector stub
     remains)
   • Support for Debian style multi-architecture installations added
   • OpenSSL bundle removed since it didn't match GNUTLS support
   • Ported to Debian/Hurd
   • ICU string (regexp in particular) fixes
   • OSX compatibity changes in NSRunLoop and NSTask behavior
   • Alternative sort algorithms selectable at runtime
   • Many bugfixes and cleanups.
   • As usual, this release also contains an update to include the most
     recent international timezone data.

1.11 Noteworthy changes in version ‘1.24.9’
===========================================

   • Niels added support for generics
   • Support for 'ng' runtime library (latest language features enabled)
   • Performance optimisations and improved diagnostic messages
   • Garbage Collection deprecated (support to be removed)
   • As usual, this release also contains an update to include the most
     recent international timezone data.

1.12 Noteworthy changes in version ‘1.24.8’
===========================================

   • Performance optimisations (particularly in the use of tiny string
     objects by the new objc runtime on 64bit systems).
   • Thread naming and logging of threads by NSLog() has been made
     consistent with the latest OSX releases, making debugging of
     multithreaded code a little easier.
   • Sergei Golovin has added NSURLConnection regression tests (while
     fixing a few bugs there).
   • As usual, this release also contains an update to include the most
     recent international timezone data.
   • Various other bugfixes.

1.13 Noteworthy changes in version ‘1.24.7’
===========================================

   • TLS and other security improvements (note, SSLv3.0 is disabled by
     default in order to prevent the 'POODLE' attack).
   • Latest timezone data included.
   • Various other bugfixes.

1.14 Noteworthy changes in version ‘1.24.6’
===========================================

   • NSUUID implemented
   • New OSX version macros
   • TLS support improvements
   • Various new methods for OSX compatibility
   • Various other bugfixes

1.15 Noteworthy changes in version ‘1.24.5’
===========================================

   • NSInvocationOperation
   • OSX version compatibility macro improvements
   • Static analyzer fixes (mostly printf format string issues)
   • Various other bugfixes

1.16 Noteworthy changes in version ‘1.24.4’
===========================================

   • Updated time zone data
   • OSX 10.7 NSCalendar methods
   • Portability improvments and minor bugfixes
   • More testcases in the testsuite

1.17 Noteworthy changes in version ‘1.24.3’
===========================================

   • Implementation of the NSXML DOM classes
   • Implementation of consistent TLS/SSL support
   • Implementation of new/selectable sorting algorithms
   • More explicit dependencies on external libraries.

1.18 Noteworthy changes in version ‘1.24.0’
===========================================

   • There is binary incompatibility on 64bit systems in that the value
     of the NSNotFound constant there is now 64bits rather than 32bits.
   • gcc-4.0 is the minimum official supported compiler for GNUstep
   • Support for the GNU LANGUAGES environment variable and other locale
     improvements
   • IPV6 support for NSHost and networking operations
   • Support for UTF-8 string literals in source (compiler permitting)

1.19 Noteworthy changes in version ‘1.23.0’
===========================================

   • Support for automatic reference counting (ARC) when using clasng
     and the GNUstep Objective-C 2.0 runtime 1.5 or later.
   • Full support for weak references in NSHashTable, NSMapTable and
     NSPointerArray when using clang and the GNUstep Objective-C 2.0
     runtime 1.5 or later.

1.20 Noteworthy changes in version ‘1.22.0’
===========================================

   • Many updates and new classes
   • There is now a regression test framework included with the package
   • New support for Objective-C 2.0

1.21 Noteworthy changes in version ‘1.21.1’
===========================================

This is an (unstable) copy of the 1.20.1 release

1.22 Noteworthy changes in version ‘1.20.1’
===========================================

This is a stable bugfix release.  There are no major changes or binary
incompatibilities, but this release does include an update of timezone
handling to include the latest zone information.

1.23 Noteworthy changes in version ‘1.21.0’
===========================================

This is an (unstable) copy of the 1.20.0 release

1.24 Noteworthy changes in version ‘1.20.0’
===========================================

This is a stable release.  There have been major changes and
reorganizations to support, among other things, the new non-fragile ABI
from clang.  These changes, although they break binary compatibility
with previous releases, should allow all future releases to maintain
compatibility.

1.25 Noteworthy changes in version ‘1.19.3’
===========================================

   • Bugfix to work around OSX behavior of [NSURL-path]

1.26 Noteworthy changes in version ‘1.19.2’
===========================================

   • Various OSX compatibility improvements.
   • String handling performance improvements.
   • Several minor bugfixes.

1.27 Noteworthy changes in version ‘1.19.1’
===========================================

   • New Mac OS X methods for writing data in NSData
   • New classes NSHashTable and NSMapTable
   • Garbage collection now works again and is much improved.
   • Method return types and arguments have been changed for Mac OS X
     10.5

1.28 Noteworthy changes in version ‘1.19.0’
===========================================

   • Support for native objective-c exceptions
   • Connection keepalive for ms-windows
   • Path utitlites fix for ms-windows
   • Changes to build on 64bit ms-windows
   • Support for @synchronize

1.29 Noteworthy changes in version ‘1.15.3’
===========================================

   • Extended NSUserDefaults so it recognizes ../ as a relative path.
   • Added TLS/SSL support for NSStream based on GNU TLS
   • Added support for https to NSURLConnection using new stream code
     and added basic support for digest authentication.
   • Fixed various problems with and added new options to KVO.

1.30 Noteworthy changes in version ‘1.15.2’
===========================================

Bug fixes include improved thread safety (and a change to the NSThread
class structure) and Key-Value observing.

1.31 Noteworthy changes in version ‘1.15.1’
===========================================

This is an unstable release.  There may be API and ABI changes from
previous releases.  The licesne hase changed to GPLv3 and LGPLv3.
Mostly bug fixes, but a few improvements in NSPredicates and Key-Value
coding have been added.

1.32 Noteworthy changes in version ‘1.15.0’
===========================================

This is an unstable release from 1.14.0.  It is otherwise identical to
the 1.14.0 release.  Releases in the 1.15 series may not be forward
compatible with previous 1.15 releases.

1.33 Noteworthy changes in version ‘1.14.0’
===========================================

Many portability (particularly for ms-windows) and MacOS-X compatibility
fixes.  New MacOS-X classes and incorporation of NSAffineTransform and
NSSpellServer which were formerly in the gui library.  Improved
performance of amssively multithreaded programs.

1.34 Noteworthy changes in version ‘1.13.1’
===========================================

Various minor bugs and MacOS-X incompatibilities fixed.  One important
fix for a possible buffer overrun attack when initialising NSDate
objects from strings.  One fix for a serious (crash) bug when
initialising the bundles system in an application which has a lot of
frameworks linked to it.  See the release notes for more details.

1.35 Noteworthy changes in version ‘1.13.0’
===========================================

Several sets of classes have been added for dealing with urls and
predicates.  A few minor api changes have occured as well.

1.36 Noteworthy changes in version ‘1.12.0’
===========================================

There have been a number of API changes and several methods have been
depreciated in this release.  Although current GNUstep programs that use
these methods will still work in this version, there are enough changes
that a new library version was considered useful.  See the release notes
for more details.

   New NSStream classes where added to the library.

   User defaults were restructured to create the defaults lazily and can
be set to not write to an external file at all, for developers who wish
to use the library as a stand-alone library or in other situations where
using external resources is not desired.

1.37 Noteworthy changes in version ‘1.11.2’
===========================================

   • Support for GNUstep.conf and relocation of the filesystem is much
     improved in this release.
   • The WM_QUIT message is now intercepted to allow an application to
     terminate cleanly.
   • NSMessagePort was implemented on Windows platforms.
   • Deprecated support for system-wide GNUsteprc files has been
     removed.
   • Some support for keeping user defaults in the Windows registry
     implemented.

1.38 Noteworthy changes in version ‘1.11.1’
===========================================

   • New Cocoa class NSSortDescriptor
   • NSStringFrom...  functions now output strings that can be read by
     old OpenStep implementations (but can also still be read by GNUstep
     and MacOSX).
   • More support for debugging on mingw, including writing logs to
     debugger and event viewer.

1.39 Noteworthy changes in version ‘1.11.0’
===========================================

This release is binary incompatible with previous releases.  The
interface version of the library has changed so that apps, tools and
libraries that use the base library need to be recompiled to use this
new version.

   • Window's path handling has changed to use native paths throughout.
   • Startup/configuration of the libraries no longer requires
     environement variables.
   • Character sets are included in the library rather than being read
     from data files.
   • NSRunLoop and related classes use natvie win32 event handling on
     Windows machines.

1.40 Noteworthy changes in version ‘1.10.3’
===========================================

This version includes a few minor bug fixes.

1.41 Noteworthy changes in version ‘1.10.2’
===========================================

This version mostly includes minor fixes and updates.

   • The definition of NSContainsRect has changed to correspond with the
     current Mac OS X/Cocoa def - the sides of the bRect can touch
     aRect.
   • Add support for systems that support unichar file paths (e.g.
     Windows).
   • Use a proper one-to-one abbreviation dictionary for NSTimeZone.

1.42 Noteworthy changes in version ‘1.10.1’
===========================================

This version mostly includes minor fixes and updates.

   • Runtime discovery of the library version is possible.
   • NSXMLParser class added.  Not completely implemented.
   • NSArrays makeObjectsPerformSelector iterates in same order as MacOS
     X.
   • Designated initializers for NSArray, NSDictionary, NSSet, and
     NSString have been changed for MacOS X compatibility.

1.43 Noteworthy changes in version ‘1.10.0’
===========================================

Note the interface version of the library has changed so that apps,
tools and libraries the use the base library need to be recompiled to
use it.

   • A large majority of the library classes have been documented thanks
     to the efforts of Adrian Robert
   • URL classes support persistant connections
   • Mac OSX XML compatibility fixes.

1.44 Noteworthy changes in version ‘1.9.2’
==========================================

   • GSMime parsing ignores extraneous data
   • New log functions GSOnceFlag and GSOnceMLog
   • New class NSError
   • Multiple new function in GSObjCRuntime
   • NSProtocolChecker rewritten
   • autogsdoc support added for building frames
   • Binary incompatibility: NSUnarchiver, GSIMapTable have new ivars
     added

1.45 Noteworthy changes in version ‘1.9.1’
==========================================

   • Default string encoding taken from system nl_langinfo if not set
     with GNUSTEP_STRING_ENCODING.
   • NSKeyedArchiver/NSKeyedUnarchiver classes added.
   • NSPropertyLists class added, also decodes Mac OS X binary propery
     lists.

1.46 Noteworthy changes in version ‘1.9.0’
==========================================

   • Lazy locking implemented (see GSLock documentation)
   • MacOSX PB files updated to 10.3
   • DO retain/release implementation simplified and also handles some
     complex DO retain/release problems.
   • GNUSTEP_STRING_ENCODING now supports any valid iconv name.
   • gdomap uid/gid fixes
   • NSString subclass heirarchy reorganized to fix problems with
     copying and ownership of data.

1.47 Noteworthy changes in version ‘1.8.0’
==========================================

Read the NEWS file for a complete list of changes since the last stable
version.  The major change is that the header files (both in the package
and when installed) are in different locations.  Also, due to filesystem
changes in gnustep-make, several components of gnustep-base are located
in different locations.  Generally this should not affect the
compilation or running of applications and tools.

1.48 Noteworthy changes in version ‘1.7.4’
==========================================

   • Added Korean encoding
   • Updated use of ObjCRuntime functions.

1.49 Noteworthy changes in version ‘1.7.3’
==========================================

Note in this version there have been large changes to the location of
header files (both in the package and when installed).  It's possible
(though unlikely) that certain applications that rely on GNUstep
specific headers may not compile because of this.

   • A number of Protocol and DO fixes.
   • New TraditionalChinese language.

1.50 Noteworthy changes in version ‘1.7.2’
==========================================

   • NSUndoManager improvements
   • New NSMessagePort implementation.
   • Private GSTcpPort becomre NSSocketPort.
   • Improvements to handle selectors better over remote connections.

1.51 Noteworthy changes in version ‘1.7.1’
==========================================

Bug fixes.

1.52 Noteworthy changes in version ‘1.7.0’
==========================================

See gnustep-make for comments on the filesystem change.  Some components
of gnustep-base are now stored in different directories and in some
cases you should use different methods to look for them.  Use
+pathForLibraryResource:ofType:inDirectory: instead of
+pathForGNUstepResource:.  Also try using +bundleForLibrary:.

   gnustep-base is now documentated as OpenStep complient.  Other
changes:

   • Add GSApplicationSupportDirectory for
     NSSearchPathForDirectoriesInDomains.
   • Added man page for gdomap

1.53 Noteworthy changes in version ‘1.6.0’
==========================================

   • More MinGW support
   • New MacOSX compatible methods.
   • The Base Additions library compiles on native OSX.
   • autogsdoc produces better, cleaner docs.
   • Built-in garbage collecting classes.
   • Any many many bug fixes and minor improvements.

1.54 Noteworthy changes in version ‘1.5.1’
==========================================

   • Port NSThread to MingW
   • Better framework support in NSBundle
   • Added Thai string encodings.
   • New makeImmutableCopyOnFail: method.
   • Lots of autogsdoc improvements, Updated gsdoc DTD to 1.0 version.
   • Added GSPrintf for logging to stdout.
   • Warning logs selectable at runtime.
   • NSTimeZone code rewritten for speed.

1.55 Noteworthy changes in version ‘1.5.0’
==========================================

   • New MacOSX methods implemented (NSString, NSArray, NSObject)
   • Fixed bug that occationally deleted user defaults.
   • Tcp connections use runloop in NSConnectionReplyMode.

1.56 Noteworthy changes in version ‘1.4.0’
==========================================

   • gdomap - security bug fixes.

1.57 Noteworthy changes in version ‘1.3.4’
==========================================

This is a first pre-release version for 1.4.

   This version also fixes a potentially destructive bug in gdomap.  All
users are urged to upgrade to this version as soon as possible.

   • gdomap - don't write pidfile until after setuid away from root
   • New combined Unix/Windows version of NSFileHandle

1.58 Noteworthy changes in version ‘1.3.3’
==========================================

Note there are interface and binary changes in this release that require
you to recompile all applications and tools that use gnustep-base.

   • Rewrite of NSURL (NOTE: Requires recompilation of all apps!)
   • NSMapTable fix (also requires recompilation).
   • Hack to avoid bug in gcc 3.1
   • MacOSX compatibility changes: -dealloc, NSLog
   • Add NSZombie class.
   • GC improvements
   • Support for system-wide .GNUsteprc

1.59 Noteworthy changes in version ‘1.3.2’
==========================================

   • Corrections for handling Windows file paths, etc
   • Other fixes for Windows - DO now works on Windows
   • New localization/internationalization tool make_strings
   • Experimental libffi support.
   • Handle running tools/apps on other hosts
   • Updated files and new tool for handling different encodings
     (cvtenc).
   • Unicode and UTF8 handling improvements.

1.60 Noteworthy changes in version ‘1.3.0’
==========================================

   • Moved additional classes into subprojects and/or bundles to make it
     easier to port these to other Foundation libraries..
   • Traditional Chinese extensions added.
   • Better support for resources (bundles)
   • Ports and DO work on MingW.
   • Better KeyValueCoding support (for EOF).
   • New, partially finished Objective-C/Foundation programming manual.

1.61 Noteworthy changes in version ‘1.1.0’
==========================================

   • Removed use of distributed lock to sync defaults file.
   • Compiles on Darwin (but does not work yet).
   • New tool autogsdoc for inline Objective-C documentation.
   • Some NSBundle convienience methods for associating resources with
     libraries and tools (like a lightweight framework).
   • URL classes improved and more robust.
   • SSL classes compiled as a separate bundle due to license problems.
   • Better operation in MinGW environment.
   • New localization files.
   • XML property lists

1.62 Noteworthy changes in version ‘1.0.2’
==========================================

Mostly a bug fix release to work with the new gcc 3.0.

   • Added support for special gcc 3.0 options (constant string
     support).

1.63 Noteworthy changes in version ‘1.0.1’
==========================================

   • Many fixes to work better with Darwin (still not there).
   • Fixes to work with BSD Unix
   • Added some missing methods, better conformance to MacOSX Docs.
   • Added support for invoking super implementation (mostly for
     writting bridges from other languages).
   • Works better with gcc 3.x, newer kernels.
   • More memory debugging support.

1.64 Noteworthy changes in version ‘1.0.0’
==========================================

   • Fix parsing of arguments for new linux kernels.
   • File manager and other fixes for mingw
   • Fix alignment issues on CPUs that require it.
   • Update unicode support and fixes

1.65 Noteworthy changes in version ‘0.9.1’
==========================================

   • New MacOSX compatible files for NSCalendarDate, NSTimeZone
   • NSUserDefaults now uses NSLanguages not Languages
   • Various improvements for Windows platforms
   • NSCharacterSets updated to v3.0.1 of Unicode data.
   • Added some gettext compatible localization macros.

1.66 Noteworthy changes in version ‘0.9.1’
==========================================

   • Fixes for building on FreeBSD
   • Unicode support for -initWithFormat:
   • NSDate pass dates over DO bycopy unless explicit byref.
   • Updated for Makefile package changes.

1.67 Noteworthy changes in version ‘0.9.0’
==========================================

   • Workaround when no host IP set.
   • Standardized non-NS filenames
   • Lots of code simplifications and standardization.
   • Added key/value methods to NSObject.
   • Updated DO and NSInvocation to use ffcall libraries.
   • New GSHTTPURLHandle class for http and https support.
   • New GSMime class for MIME parsing
   • Made DO threadsafe.
   • Added extension to NSThread to allow JIGS to map java threads to
     gnustep threads.
   • Modifications to make it easier to port to Apple runtime.
   • Added framework support to NSBundle
   • Added localization support
   • Better unicode conversion.
   • New NSNull class.
   • Major rewrite of NSString
   • Port to MinGW/Windows
   • Removed obsolete classes.

1.68 Noteworthy changes in version ‘0.6.6’
==========================================

   • Lots of new documentation.
   • Completely rewritten Distributed Object to be much more compatible
     with the MacOS-X API (and incidentally, closer to the original
     OpenStep standard).
   • Support to compile library as a DLL on Windows (still cygwin only).
   • Removed lots of obsolete classes.
   • New tools for handling property lists.
   • More optimization of classes.

1.69 Noteworthy changes in version ‘0.6.5’
==========================================

   • Better debugging information.
   • Timezone information rewritten to work more like GNUstep wants it
     rather than strict Posix.
   • Added support for FreeBSD native POSIX threads
   • Better garbage collection support.
   • Lots of optimizations and bug fixes.

1.70 Noteworthy changes in version ‘0.6.0’
==========================================

Most of the changes to the Base Library are bug fixes and updates to
include MacOS-X specifications.  Although the base library hasn't been
extensively tested, it is currently used in several commercial products
and installations, and is considered to be fairly stable.

   • Some changes to eventually allow the use of automatic garbage
     collection.

   • Better localization support in NSBundle.

   • Performance boosts in many classes.

1.71 Noteworthy changes in version ‘0.5.5’
==========================================

Too many changes to mention in detail, but here is a list of a few:

   • Many base classes have been rewritten with tonnes of performance
     improvements that in many cases make it as fast as or faster than
     the NeXT implementation.

   • DO and archiving has received many improvements that help it work
     on a variety of different platforms.

   • Configuration and compilation has been greatly improved and fool
     proofed.

   • There are several new tools for handling services, defaults, and
     pasteboards.

1.72 Noteworthy changes in version ‘0.5.1’
==========================================

   • Additional runtime functions for interaction with Guile and
     ObjC-Guile library.

1.73 Noteworthy changes in version ‘0.5.0’
==========================================

   • Improvements to the NSInvocation class, from Masatake Yamato
     <masata-y@aist-nara.ac.jp>.

   • Implemented several new OpenStep methods and classes (e.g.  NSTask)
     and speed improvements for others (NSArray, NSData, NSString), from
     Richard Frith-Macdonald <richard@brainstorm.co.uk>.

   • gdomap now handles subnet addressing and machines with multiple IP
     addresses from Richard Frith-Macdonald <richard@brainstorm.co.uk>.

1.74 Noteworthy changes in version ‘0.4.0’
==========================================

   • New tools for maintaining the defaults database.

   • Use the new GNUstep Makefile Package to compile the library, tools
     checks, and everything else.

   • An implementation of NSDistributedLock

   • NSData implemented as a class cluster including a class to allocate
     shared VM memory.

   • Big NSTimeZone improvements, as well as inclusion of time zone
     files, from Yoo C. Chung <wacko@laplace.snu.ac.kr>.

   • Major improvements to distributed objects and many related clases
     from Richard Frith-Macdonald <richard@brainstorm.co.uk>.  Also
     added a nameserver.

   • Major rewrite of NSString, include Unicode strings from Stevo
     Crvenkovski <stevo@btinternet.com>

   • A rewrite of the NSBundle class from Adam Fedor <fedor@gnu.org>

   • Addition of a C-language style stream package.

   • Better support for threads and locking.

   • Support for running on Windows from Scott Christley
     <scottc@net-community.com>

   • Many, many, many, many bug fixes and new classes.

1.75 Noteworthy changes since version ‘0.1.19’
==============================================

   • The library has changed its name from ‘libobjects’ to
     ‘libgnustep-base’.  The Apr 17 ChangeLog entry contains a list of
     the way various other names were changed.

   • The library now requires a patch to gcc-2.7.2.  The patch adds
     thread-safe features to the GNU Objective C runtime.  Each thread
     has its own exception handler and assertion handler, thanks to Yoo
     C. Chung <wacko@power1.snu.ac.kr>.

   • Distributed Objects is much improved.  Exceptions in the server are
     sent back to the client.  Ungracefully closed connections are
     gracefully handled.

   • NSUserDefaults has been implemented, thanks to Georg Tuparev
     <tuparev@NMR.EMBL-Heidelberg.DE>.

   • NSScanner has been implemented, thanks to Eric Norum
     <Eric.Norum@usask.ca>.

   • NSCharacterSet has a new caching scheme, and is now faster than
     NeXT's implementation, thanks to Adam Fedor.

   • Preliminary thread-safety work has been done.  NSObject and
     NSAutoreleasePool should be thread-safe.

   • The "%@" printf directive now works on systems without GNU libc.

   • The NS*Page* functions have been implemented.

   • The mframe and behavior functions have been overhauled and better
     commented.

   • The NSHashTable and NSMapTable functions have been implemented,
     thanks to Albin Jones <albin.jones@dartmouth.edu>.  Albin has also
     implemented underlying GNU functions that provide functions for
     arrays and linked lists of C-type variables.

   • The NSThread class has been implemented.  Thanks to Scott Christley
     <scottc@net-community.com>, the NSLock class has been implemented.

   • A RunLoop class has been implemented, and is used for listening to
     Port objects.  It is used for Distributed Objects.  There is also
     an NSRunLoop class based on RunLoop.

   • The NSTimer class has been implemented, although its use with
     RunLoops is currently disabled.

   • The Notification mechanism has been implemented.  It makes good use
     of hash tables and linked lists in order to be fast.

   • The Invocation class heirarchy has been fleshed out and now works.

   • The collection classes have been overhauled to better handle
     distributed objects, and for better compatibility with NeXT's
     method names.

     A new separation has been made in the abstract collection classes:
     IndexedCollections contain objects accessible by an integer key,
     but the user cannot insert at an arbitrary key; these are useful
     for sorted collections, such as SplayTree's.  OrderedCollection can
     have their order determined by the user; i.e.  users can send
     ‘-insertObject:atIndex:’, etc.

     There is a new set of rich enumeration methods based on
     Invocations.

   • Port class heirarchy has been overhauled.  There are now classes
     for TCP ports, UDP ports, and Mach ports.  Only the TCP ports are
     currently functional.

   • GNU-style archiving has had an overhaul, and the GNUstep NSArchiver
     class is functional, but not strongly tested.  It does not yet call
     -awakeUsingCoder:.

     I have separated the high-level archiving of groups of objects from
     the low-level format of how C-types are written.  There are several
     new classes.  CStream is a subclass of Stream that knows how to
     encode C-type variables in a machine independent way; this class
     has two concrete subclasses: BinaryCStream, and TextCStream.  Plug
     these backends into Coder to get different style low-level formats
     for archiving.

     Floats and doubles are now encoded more efficiently.

     NSArchiver is built on top of Coder.  You can actually send all the
     Coder methods to NSArchiver and vice-versa.

     GNU classes BinaryCoder and TextCoder are gone.

   • Several new OpenStep functions have been implemented:
     NSHomeDirectory, NSUserName, NSHomeDirectoryForUser, NSPageSize,
     NSLogPageSize, NSroundUpToMultipleOfPageSize,
     NSRoundDownToMultipleOfPageSize, NSRealMemoryAvailable,
     NSAllocateMemoryPages, NSDeallocateMemoryPages, NSCopyMemoryPages.

   • ...and many bug fixes.

1.76 Noteworthy changes since version ‘0.1.14’
==============================================

   • Can be made as a shared library by passing ‘--enabled-shared’ to
     'configure'.  Thanks to Jan Kybic <kybic@earn.cvut.cz> and Bryan
     Headley <bwh@mail.lnd.coretech.com> for suggestions.

   • New classes NSSet, NSMutableSet, NSCountedSet.  New concrete
     classes NSGSet, NSGMutableSet, NSGCountedSet.  New test program
     nsset.m.  New class NSMethodSignature.

   • Running './configure' and building the library in a different
     directory than the source works as it should, according to the GNU
     standards.

   • Dynamic loading fixes for Solaris, thanks to Adam Fedor.

   • Fixes to Coder correct bugs with encoding/decoding wildly
     interconnected objects.  (My application uses a "Suffix Tree"
     structure: a Tree, and a LinkedList that winds its way through the
     leaves of the tree; the LinkedList nodes also have pointers back to
     the tree nodes.)

   • NSTimeZone implemented, thanks to Peter Burka
     <peter@bert.psyc.upei.ca>

   • NSData fixes, thanks to Adam Fedor.

   • NSObjCRuntime functions implemented.  NSObject description methods
     implemented.

   • Bug fixes in NSString, NSDictionary, NSArray, NSGeometry and other
     places.

1.77 Noteworthy changes since version ‘0.1.13’
==============================================

   • NSProcessInfo class, thanks to Georg Tuparev.

   • NSDate now more operational, thanks to Jeremy Bettis.

   • Autorelease checking improved, thanks to Adam Fedor.

   • NSString concrete classes now more configurable.  Several new
     methods implemented.

   • Many bug fixes.

1.78 Noteworthy changes since version ‘0.1.12’
==============================================

   • Bug fixes: installation; NSArray and NSDictionary copying; NSArray,
     NSDictionary, NSData, NSArchiver, NSUnarchiver concrete class
     configurability; NSString -getCharacter:range:.  See the ChangeLog
     for more details.

1.79 Noteworthy changes since version ‘0.1.10’
==============================================

   • Now using ‘src’, ‘config’ and ‘doc’ directories to un-clutter the
     top-level directory.

   • New GNUStep classes implemented: NSDictionary, NSMutableDictionary;
     concrete classes NSGDictionary, NSGMutableDictionary; enumeration
     classes NSGDictionaryKeyEnumerator, NSGDictionaryObjectEnumerator.

   • More methods in NSData are implemented, thanks to Albin Jones.

   • More methods in NSString are implemented; we have new classes
     NSCharacterSet and NSBitmapCharSet; all thanks to Adam Fedor.

   • And several bug fixes.  See the ChangeLog for details.

1.80 Noteworthy changes since version ‘0.1.9’
=============================================

   • Renamed "foundation" include file directory to "Foundation", in
     accordance with OpenStep.

   • Several bug fixes, including a problem with a missing file in
     0.1.9.

1.81 Noteworthy changes since version ‘0.1.8’
=============================================

   • Many new GNUStep classes: NSEnumerator, NSArrayEnumerator, NSCoder,
     NSArchiver, NSUnarchiver, NSData, NSMutableData, NSGCoder,
     NSGArchiver, NSGUnarchiver, NSGData, NSGMutableData.  Much coding
     and prep work has been done to make archiving work (see the
     ChangeLog), but it's not quite ready for action yet.

   • New GNUStep classes implemented by others: Thanks to Adam Fedor,
     NSAssertionHandler.  Thanks to Jeremy Bettis, NSDate.

   • Overhauled encoding and decoding.  The Coder now sends
     -initWithCoder by default, but will still send the more flexible
     +newWithCoder if the class implements it.  See objects/Coding.h.
     The Stream class interface has been changed slightly.  There are
     two new protocols for Streams.

   • Several new debug-aiding methods implemented in NSAutoreleasePool.

   • Separated Constant Collection protocols from changeable ones.
     Eventually I'll separate the classes too.

   • Included an outline for the GNU Objective C Language Manual.  The
     GNU project is looking for volunteers to help flesh it out.  Send
     email to Martin Michlmayr <tbm@ihq.com> or Andrew McCallum
     <mccallum@gnu.ai.mit.edu>.

   • Include the AUTHORS file, needed for legal reasons.  Include the
     ‘GNUStep-volunteers’ file.

   • Several bug fixes: Typo in Array.m; Linux header file frobbing in
     NSZone.h; typo causing crash in checks/nsarray.m; bad deallocation
     in Collection.m; typo in BinaryTree.m; put -write: and -read:
     implementations back in Collection.m.

1.82 Noteworthy changes since version ‘0.1.7’
=============================================

   • Thanks to Adam Fedor <fedor@boulder.colorado.edu>, classes
     NSBundle, NSNumber and NSValue are now operational.  He also
     provided stubs for NSArray, NSCoder and NSDictionary.

   • NSArray has been fleshed out.  There are new classes
     NSConcreteArray and NSConcreteMutableArray.  Basic operations with
     the NSArray class cluster now work, and it is set up to coexist
     nicely with the GNU collection heirarchy.  Next I'll do
     NSDictionary in a similar style.

   • From Adam Fedor, there is a new patch to the gcc Objective C
     runtime that aids dynamic linking.  You'll have to apply this patch
     and reinstall the runtime before you can compile this version of
     libgnustep-base.

   • Several bug fixes, including two serious ones in Collection
     deallocation and behavior adding.  See the ChangeLog for details.

1.83 Noteworthy changes since version ‘0.1.5’
=============================================

   • Better string handling.  NSString is now fleshed out, and I've
     implemented a scheme by which the GNU String object and OpenStep's
     NSString can coexist nicely.  The OpenStep classes declare their
     string arguments with (NSString*) just like the standard says, but
     the preferred (more flexible) way to declare string arguments is
     (id <String>); and these two types are set up so that they coexist.
     There is still more to be done.  NSString has several unimplemented
     methods; GNU String needs some more work.

   • Newly implemented classes: MallocAddress, NSString,
     NSMutableString, NSCString, NSMutableCString.

   • Thanks to Pieter Schoenmakers <tiggr@es.ele.tue.nl> we have a new
     version of the gcc-string.patch that should apply more smoothly.

   • Thanks to Adam Fedor <fedor@boulder.colorado.edu> for a bug fix to
     NXStringTable's.

   • Thanks to Mark Lakata <lakata@nsdssp.lbl.gov> for a bug fix to
     NSZone.c.

   • Several bug fixes.  Thanks to those who reported them.  Credits are
     in the ChangeLog.

1.84 Noteworthy changes since version ‘0.1.3’
=============================================

This release not well tested at all.  We desperately need someone to
write a test suite using dejagnu.  Any volunteers?

   I made this release now in order to share the progress that is being
made on GNUSTEP.

   • New GNUSTEP implementations: NSObject, NSAutoreleasePool, NSZone.
     Thanks to Mark Lakata for NSZone.

   • New GNUSTEP implementations included, but not compiled: NSBundle,
     NSException, NSGeometry, NSNumber, NSValue.  Many thanks Adam
     Fedor.

   • Many new GNU classes: String classes!  String, MutableString,
     ConstantString.  One interesting feature of the GNU string classes
     is that that, just like in Smalltalk, they are part of the
     Collection heirarchy--all the methods you are used to using on
     other collections can be used on these "collections of characters".
     You can create ConstantStrings using the @"" syntax.

   • Entire library converted to use ‘retain’, ‘release’, ‘autorelease’,
     ‘dealloc’ instead of ‘free’.

1.85 Noteworthy changes since version ‘0.1.0’
=============================================

   • New category: ObjectRetaining.  New classes: AutoreleasePool,
     AutoreleaseStack.

   • Bug fixes: Install next-includes properly.  New instructions in
     README.ULTRIX. Time.m patched for Solaris 2.4.  test12.m free fix.

1.86 Noteworthy changes in version ‘0.1.0’
==========================================

   • Renamed the library from ‘libcoll’ to ‘libgnustep-base’.  (See the
     end of the file ‘DISCUSSION’ for the background on this name
     choice.)  Several file names changed to reflect this.  GNU class
     interfaces are now included with ‘objects’ prefix, e.g.  ‘#include
     <objects/BinaryTree.h>’.

   • Many new classes.  Pseudo-random number classes Random, RNGBerkeley
     and RNGAdditiveCongruential.  New stream classes Stream,
     StdioStream and MemoryStream.  New coder classes Coder, TextCoder
     and BinaryCoder.  New network packet transmission classes Port and
     SocketPort.  New remote object messaging classes Connection, Proxy
     and ConnectedCoder.  New protocols Coding and Retaining.  New, but
     unimplemented: Lock and Locking.  New but soon-to-disapppear:
     RetainingNotifier, InvalidationListening.

   • Some bug fixes: Fixed the assert typo in Storage.m.  The Time class
     now compiles under Solaris.  Fixed insertion bug in CircularArray.
     NXStringTable_scan.l can now be compiled with lex, not just flex,
     (thanks to Adam Fedor <adam@bastille.rmnug.org>).  Properly detect
     the difference between gcc running under NEXTSTEP and NeXT's cc.
     Using autoconf version 2.0.  Renamed DelegateList to DelegatePool.
     Renamed some collection hierarchy methods for better consistency.

   • Some directory reorganization so that NeXT-compatible files can be
     included in the standard way, e.g.  #include <objc/List.h>.  Some
     other NeXT-compatibility improvements: Changed ‘GNU’ prefix to ‘NX’
     in List and HashTable.  New files zone.[hc] containing dummy stubs
     for NeXT-compatible zone functions.

1.87 Noteworthy changes in version ‘940524’
===========================================

   • A NeXT-compatible NXStringTable object, thanks to Adam Fedor
     <adam@bastille.rmnug.org>.

   • SplayTree and RBTree classes now operational.  More methods in Time
     class implemented.

   • Some API cleanup: -delegateListList changed to
     -delegateListCollection.  -includesSameContents: changed to
     -contentsEqual:.  -insertObject:atKey: changed to
     -putObject:atKey:.  See the ChangeLog for more detail.

   • Configuration by autoconf in the self-tests directory.
     Configuration script tests GCC nested functions.  Configuration
     script detects NEXTSTEP and makes the appropriate adjustments,
     including skipping the NeXT-compatibility classes.

   • Bug fixes: BinaryTree rotate methods fixed.  Fixed the way
     ‘ifNone:’ and ‘ifAbsent:’ functions were called.  Fixed the way
     long elements are printed.  Added methods for preventing memory
     leaks by unfinished enumerations: ‘-newEnumState’ and
     ‘-freeEnumState:’.  Several bug fixes in List and Storage; changes
     for better NeXT-compability.  And more.

1.88 Noteworthy changes in version ‘931026’
===========================================

   • Installation using ‘./configure’ and ‘autoconf’

   • New BinaryTree and RBTree(unfinished) classes.  Rewritten
     LinkedList class.

   • A new scheme for holding non-object elements in classes that
     require object contents; EltNodeCollector class.

   • Archiving with -write: and -read: methods.  This involved removing
     the ability to set the comparison function independent of content
     type.

   • Removed COLL_NO_ELEMENT and friends.  Now there are no arbitrary
     restrictions on which long int's can be stored.  Like in Smalltalk,
     ...ifAbsentCall: methods have been added to replace this
     functionalty.

   • Added a LABMDA() macro for defining small functions in the arg
     position.

   • Removed many ...perform: methods.  Use instead the more flexible
     ...call: methods with LABMDA().

   • Renamed ...Description: methods to ...Encoding: for better use of
     already-defined objc keyword: @encode().

   • New in the Collecting protocol: Filtered enumerating instead of
     filtered shallowCopy'ing.  Enumerations still safe when modifying
     the contents.

   • The beginnings of documentation in libcoll.texi.

   • Many bug fixes.

   • ...and more.

   Also see the ‘ChangeLog’ file for more detail.

   Copyright © 2005 Free Software Foundation

   Copying and distribution of this file, with or without modification,
are permitted in any medium without royalty provided the copyright
notice and this notice are preserved.