GNU C Library NEWS -- history of user-visible changes. 1998-03-04 Copyright (C) 1992, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98 Free Software Foundation, Inc. See the end for copying conditions. Please send GNU C library bug reports using the `glibcbug' script to <bugs@gnu.org>. Questions and suggestions should be send to <bug-glibc@gnu.org>. Version 2.1 * Richard Henderson corrected size of struct timeval on Linux/Alpha to conform to POSIX member type requirements. Symbol versions have been adjusted as needed within the library, and for direct use by applications, but there is potential for problems if third-party libraries use struct timeval as part of their interface. This does not present a problem for X and other "essential" system libraries. * An additional locale model to support C++ Standard Library locale model and probably more was implemented by Ulrich Drepper. * Eric Youngdale and Ulrich Drepper implemented versioning of objects on symbol level. * Miles Bader provided the `argp' function family to support hierachical command line argument parsing, layered on top of getopt. * strtod accepts new hexadecimal floating-point format from ISO C 9X. * printf has two new specifiers %a and %A to print hexadecimal flaoting-point numbers. * scanf recognizes the %a and %A format for scanning floating point numbers. * the new headers <stdint.h> and <inttypes.h> from ISO C 9X provides information and interfaces for the available integer types. * the new header <complex.h> contains definitions of the complex math functions from ISO C 9X. * the new header <tgmath.h> defines generic macros to use complex or real valued functions. * Thorsten Kukuk provided an implementation for NIS+, securelevel 0, 1 and 2. * Andreas Jaeger provided a test suite for the math library. * Mark Kettenis implemented the utmpx interface and an utmp daemon. * Ulrich Drepper added character conversion functions. * Optimized string functions have been added. * The localedata addon is now part of glibc. * An implementation of profiling shared libraries was added by Ulrich Drepper. * Thorsten Kukuk and Ulrich Drepper provided an implementation for a caching daemon for NSS (nscd). Missing a better place here are some numbers on improvements. Under Linux 2.1.125 un-tar-ing the kernel sources takes user system wall using local files 12.19s 6.88s 22.91s using NIS 13.92s 8.91s 26.34s using NIS & nscd 10.37s 7.34s 25.30s using NIS+ 27.57s 30.37s 640.46s using NIS+ & nscd 10.25s 7.83s 26.51s using NIS & old nscd [1] 13.83s 8.32s 29.60s Keep in mind that non-namelookup related operations dominate above times. It was just a common complain that using NIS+ unpacking the kernel is horribly slow. [1] The old nscd implementation is not available anymore since it was distributed with glibc up to version 2.0.98 and thus is now replaced. * Tim Waugh provided an implementation of the POSIX.2 wordexp function family. * Mark Kettenis provided a Hesiod NSS module. * The ELF dynamic loader knows how to process dynamic string tokens ($ORIGIN and $PLATFORM) in RPATHs and similar strings (Ulrich Drepper). * rcmd can now handle netgroups (Dick Streefland). * A port to the ARM was contributed by Phil Blundell, Pat Beirne and Scott Bambrough. * Support for the IPv6 protocol has been added to the socket API, as per the latest draft standards. * Interface changes relative to the latest 2.0.x release: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ addseverity NEW: Unix98 alphasort64 NEW: LFS argp_err_exit_status NEW: argp, GNU ext argp_error NEW: argp, GNU ext argp_failure NEW: argp, GNU ext argp_help NEW: argp, GNU ext argp_parse NEW: argp, GNU ext argp_program_bug_address NEW: argp, GNU ext argp_program_version NEW: argp, GNU ext argp_program_version_hook NEW: argp, GNU ext argp_state_help NEW: argp, GNU ext argp_usage NEW: argp, GNU ext authdes_create NEW: Secure RPC authdes_getucred NEW: Secure RPC authdes_pk_create NEW: Secure RPC backtrace NEW: GNU ext. backtrace_symbols NEW: GNU ext. backtrace_symbols_fd NEW: GNU ext. cacos NEW: ISO C 9x cacosf NEW: ISO C 9x cacosh NEW: ISO C 9x cacoshf NEW: ISO C 9x cacoshl NEW: ISO C 9x cacosl NEW: ISO C 9x capget NEW: kernel capset NEW: kernel carg NEW: ISO C 9x cargf NEW: ISO C 9x cargl NEW: ISO C 9x casin NEW: ISO C 9x casinf NEW: ISO C 9x casinh NEW: ISO C 9x casinhf NEW: ISO C 9x casinhl NEW: ISO C 9x casinl NEW: ISO C 9x catan NEW: ISO C 9x catanf NEW: ISO C 9x catanh NEW: ISO C 9x catanhf NEW: ISO C 9x catanhl NEW: ISO C 9x catanl NEW: ISO C 9x cbc_crypt NEW: Secure RPC ccos NEW: ISO C 9x ccosf NEW: ISO C 9x ccosh NEW: ISO C 9x ccoshf NEW: ISO C 9x ccoshl NEW: ISO C 9x ccosl NEW: ISO C 9x cexp NEW: ISO C 9x cexpf NEW: ISO C 9x cexpl NEW: ISO C 9x cimag NEW: ISO C 9x cimagf NEW: ISO C 9x cimagl NEW: ISO C 9x clearerr_locked REMOVED clntunix_create NEW: sunrpc ext clog NEW: ISO C 9x clog10 NEW: ISO C 9x clog10f NEW: ISO C 9x clog10l NEW: ISO C 9x clogf NEW: ISO C 9x clogl NEW: ISO C 9x conj NEW: ISO C 9x conjf NEW: ISO C 9x conjl NEW: ISO C 9x cpow NEW: ISO C 9x cpowf NEW: ISO C 9x cpowl NEW: ISO C 9x cproj NEW: ISO C 9x cprojf NEW: ISO C 9x cprojl NEW: ISO C 9x creal NEW: ISO C 9x crealf NEW: ISO C 9x creall NEW: ISO C 9x creat64 NEW: LFS csin NEW: ISO C 9x csinf NEW: ISO C 9x csinh NEW: ISO C 9x csinhf NEW: ISO C 9x csinhl NEW: ISO C 9x csinl NEW: ISO C 9x csqrt NEW: ISO C 9x csqrtf NEW: ISO C 9x csqrtl NEW: ISO C 9x ctan NEW: ISO C 9x ctanf NEW: ISO C 9x ctanh NEW: ISO C 9x ctanhf NEW: ISO C 9x ctanhl NEW: ISO C 9x ctanl NEW: ISO C 9x des_setparity NEW: Secure RPC ecb_crypt NEW: Secure RPC endutxent NEW: Unix98 exp10 NEW: ISO C 9x exp10f NEW: ISO C 9x exp10l NEW: ISO C 9x exp2 NEW: ISO C 9x exp2f NEW: ISO C 9x exp2l NEW: ISO C 9x fattach NEW: STREAMS fdetach NEW: STREAMS fdim NEW: ISO C 9x fdimf NEW: ISO C 9x fdiml NEW: ISO C 9x feclearexcept NEW: ISO C 9x fegetenv NEW: ISO C 9x fegetexceptflag NEW: ISO C 9x fegetround NEW: ISO C 9x feholdexcept NEW: ISO C 9x feof_locked REMOVED feraiseexcept NEW: ISO C 9x ferror_locked REMOVED fesetenv NEW: ISO C 9x fesetexceptflag NEW: ISO C 9x fesetround NEW: ISO C 9x fetestexcept NEW: ISO C 9x feupdateenv NEW: ISO C 9x fflush_locked REMOVED ffsl NEW: GNU ext. ffsll NEW: GNU ext. fgetpos64 NEW: LFS fgets_unlocked NEW: GNU ext. fileno_locked REMOVED fma NEW: ISO C 9x fmaf NEW: ISO C 9x fmal NEW: ISO C 9x fmax NEW: ISO C 9x fmaxf NEW: ISO C 9x fmaxl NEW: ISO C 9x fmin NEW: ISO C 9x fminf NEW: ISO C 9x fminl NEW: ISO C 9x fmtmsg NEW: Unix98 fopen64 NEW: LFS fputc_locked REMOVED fputs_unlocked NEW: GNU ext. fread_unlocked NEW: GNU ext. freopen64 NEW: LFS fseeko NEW: Unix98 fsetpos64 NEW: LFS fstatfs64 NEW: LFS fstatvfs NEW: Unix98 fstatvfs64 NEW: LFS ftello NEW: Unix98 ftello64 NEW: LFS ftruncate64 NEW: LFS ftw64 NEW: LFS fwrite_unlocked NEW: GNU ext. gai_strerror NEW: IPv6 gamma_r REMOVED gammaf_r REMOVED gammal_r REMOVED getchar_locked REMOVED getdate NEW: Unix98 getdate_err NEW: Unix98 getdate_r NEW: GNU ext. getmsg NEW: STREAMS getnameinfo NEW: IPv6 getnetname NEW: Secure RPC getpmsg NEW: STREAMS getpt NEW: Unix98 PTY getrlimit64 NEW: LFS getutxent NEW: Unix98 getutxid NEW: Unix98 getutxline NEW: Unix98 glob64 NEW: GNU ext. globfree64 NEW: GNU ext. gnu_get_libc_release NEW: GNU ext. gnu_get_libc_version NEW: GNU ext. grantpt NEW: Unix98 PTY host2netname NEW: Secure RPC iconv NEW: iconv iconv_close NEW: iconv iconv_open NEW: iconv if_freenameindex NEW: IPv6 if_indextoname NEW: IPv6 if_nameindex NEW: IPv6 if_nametoindex NEW: IPv6 in6addr_any NEW: IPv6 in6addr_loopback NEW: IPv6 inet6_isipv4mapped NEW: IPv6 isastream NEW: STREAMS iswblank NEW: GNU ext. key_decryptsession NEW: Secure RPC key_decryptsession_pk NEW: Secure RPC key_encryptsession NEW: Secure RPC key_encryptsession_pk NEW: Secure RPC key_gendes NEW: Secure RPC key_get_conv NEW: Secure RPC key_secretkey_is_set NEW: Secure RPC key_setnet NEW: Secure RPC key_setsecret NEW: Secure RPC llrint NEW: ISO C 9x llrintf NEW: ISO C 9x llrintl NEW: ISO C 9x llround NEW: ISO C 9x llroundf NEW: ISO C 9x llroundl NEW: ISO C 9x log2 NEW: ISO C 9x log2f NEW: ISO C 9x log2l NEW: ISO C 9x lrint NEW: ISO C 9x lrintf NEW: ISO C 9x lrintl NEW: ISO C 9x lround NEW: ISO C 9x lroundf NEW: ISO C 9x lroundl NEW: ISO C 9x lseek64 NEW: LFS makecontext NEW: Unix98 mempcpy NEW: GNU ext. mmap64 NEW: LFS moncontrol REMOVED modify_ldt NEW: kernel nan NEW: ISO C 9x nanf NEW: ISO C 9x nanl NEW: ISO C 9x nearbyint NEW: ISO C 9x nearbyintf NEW: ISO C 9x nearbyintl NEW: ISO C 9x netname2host NEW: Secure RPC netname2user NEW: Secure RPC nextafterx NEW: ISO C 9x nextafterxf NEW: ISO C 9x nftw NEW: Unix98 nftw64 NEW: LFS open64 NEW: LFS passwd2des NEW: Secure RPC pow10 NEW: GNU ext. pow10f NEW: GNU ext. pow10l NEW: GNU ext. pread NEW: Unix98 pread64 NEW: LFS printf_size NEW: GNU ext. printf_size_info NEW: GNU ext. profil_counter REMOVED pthread_mutexattr_getkind_np REPLACED pthread_mutexattr_setkind_np REPLACED ptsname NEW: Unix98 PTY ptsname_r NEW: Unix98 PTY putc_locked REMOVED putchar_locked REMOVED putgrent NEW: GNU ext. putmsg NEW: STREAMS putpmsg NEW: STREAMS pututxline NEW: Unix98 pwrite NEW: Unix98 pwrite64 NEW: LFS readdir64 NEW: LFS readdir64_r NEW: LFS remquo NEW: ISO C 9x remquof NEW: ISO C 9x remquol NEW: ISO C 9x round NEW: ISO C 9x roundf NEW: ISO C 9x roundl NEW: ISO C 9x rtime NEW: GNU ext. scalbln NEW: ISO C 9x scalblnf NEW: ISO C 9x scalblnl NEW: ISO C 9x scandir64 NEW: LFS sendfile NEW: kernel setcontext NEW: Unix98 setrlimit64 NEW: LFS setutxent NEW: Unix98 sighold NEW: Unix98 sigignore NEW: Unix98 sigqueue NEW: POSIX.1b sigrelse NEW: Unix98 sigset NEW: POSIX.1b sigtimedwait NEW: POSIX.1b sigwaitinfo NEW: POSIX.1b sincos NEW: GNU ext. sincosf NEW: GNU ext. sincosl NEW: GNU ext. statfs64 NEW: LFS statvfs NEW: Unix98 statvfs64 NEW: LFS strcasestr NEW: GNU ext. strfxtime NEW: ISO C 9x strtoimax NEW: ISO C 9x strtoumax NEW: ISO C 9x strverscmp NEW: GNU ext. svcauthdes_stats NEW: Secure RPC svcunix_create NEW: sunrpc etx svcunixfd_create NEW: sunrpc ext swapcontext NEW: Unix98 tcgetsid NEW: Unix98 PTY tdestroy NEW: GNU ext. tgamma NEW: ISO C 9x tgammaf NEW: ISO C 9x tgammal NEW: ISO C 9x tmpfile64 NEW: LFS trunc NEW: ISO C 9x truncate64 NEW: LFS truncf NEW: ISO C 9x truncl NEW: ISO C 9x umount2 NEW: kernel unlockpt NEW: Unix98 PTY updwtmpx NEW: Unix98 user2netname NEW: Secure RPC utmpxname NEW: Unix98 versionsort NEW: GNU ext. versionsort64 NEW: LFS waitid NEW: Unix98 wcscasecmp NEW: GNU ext. wcsncasecmp NEW: GNU ext. wcsnlen NEW: GNU ext. wcstoimax NEW: ISO C 9x wcstoll NEW: ISO C 9x wcstoull NEW: ISO C 9x wcstoumax NEW: ISO C 9x wcswcs NEW: Unix98 wordexp NEW: POSIX.2 wordfree NEW: POSIX.2 write_profiling REMOVED xdecrypt NEW: Secure RPC xdr_authdes_cred NEW: Secure RPC xdr_authdes_verf NEW: Secure RPC xdr_cryptkeyarg NEW: Secure RPC xdr_cryptkeyarg2 NEW: Secure RPC xdr_cryptkeyres NEW: Secure RPC xdr_getcredres NEW: Secure RPC xdr_key_netstarg NEW: Secure RPC xdr_key_netstres NEW: Secure RPC xdr_keybuf NEW: Secure RPC xdr_keystatus NEW: Secure RPC xdr_netnamestr NEW: Secure RPC xdr_sizeof NEW: Secure RPC xdr_unixcred NEW: sunrpc ext xencrypt NEW: Secure RPC ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Version 2.0.5 * more bug fixes * inet_ntoa is thread-safe * updwtmp is moved from libutil to libc * rewrite of cbrt function * update of timezone data Version 2.0.4 * more bug fixes Version 2.0.3 * more bug fixes Version 2.0.2 * more bug fixes * add atoll function * fix complex problems in Berkeley DB code * fix math functions Version 2.0.1 * fixed lots of header problems (especially Linux/GNU specific) * dynamic loader preserves all registers * Roland McGrath provided support for handling of auxiliary objects in the ELF dynamic loader. * support for parallel builds is improved Version 2.0 * GNU extensions are no longer declared by default. To enable them you must define the macro `_GNU_SOURCE' in your program or compile with `-D_GNU_SOURCE'. * The library has changed from using GNU ld symbol aliases to using weak symbols where available. The ELF object file format supports weak symbols; GNU ld also supports weak symbols in the a.out format. (There is also now support for other GNU ld extensions in ELF. Use the `--with-elf' option to configure to indicate you have ELF, and `--with-gnu-ld' if using GNU ld.) This change resulted in the deletion of many files which contained only symbol aliases, reducing the size of the source and the compiled library; many other files were renamed to less cryptic names previously occupied by the symbol alias files. There is a new header file <elf.h> for programs which operate on files in the ELF format. * Converted to Autoconf version 2, so `configure' has more options. Run `configure --help' to see the details. * The library can now be configured to build profiling, highly-optimized (but undebuggable), and/or shared libraries (ELF with GNU ld only). The `--enable-profile', `--enable-omitfp', and `--enable-shared' options to `configure' enable building these extra libraries. The shared library is built by default when using both ELF and GNU ld. When shared libraries are enabled, the new library `-ldl' is available for arbitrary run-time loading of shared objects; its interface is defined in <dlfcn.h>. The new header file <link.h> gives access to the internals of the run-time dynamic linker, `ld.so'. The shell script `ldd' is similar to the application of same name on other systems and it provides information about dynamically linked binaries. * The C library now provides the run-time support code for profiling executables compiled with `-pg'. Programs can control the profiling code through the interface in <sys/gmon.h>. The `gmon.out' files written by the GNU C library can be read only by GNU `gprof' (from GNU binutils); the support for this file format was contributed by David Mosberger-Tang. * The math code has been replaced with a math library based on fdlibm from Sun, and modified by JT Conklin and Ulrich Drepper with i387 support, by Ian Taylor with `float' functions and by Ulrich Drepper with `long double' functions. The math functions now reside in a separate library, so programs using them will need to use `-lm' their linking commands. * John C. Bowman contributed optimized ix87 assembler inline functions. * Ulrich Drepper has contributed support for an `/etc/nsswitch.conf' mechanism similar to that found in Solaris 2. This is now used for the group, passwd, hosts, networks, services, protocols, rpc, ethers, shadow, netgroup, publickey, and alias databases. The `nsswitch.conf' file controls what services are used for each individual database. This works by loading shared libraries with names specified in `nsswitch.conf', so service modules can be changed or added at any time without even relinking any program. Currently there are the file, db, and NIS based NSS services available. * The new functions `strtoq' and `strtouq' parse integer values from strings, like `strtol' and `strtoul', but they return `long long int' and `unsigned long long int' values, respectively (64-bit quantities). * The new functions `strtof' and `strtold' parse floating-point values from strings, like `strtod', but they return `float' and `long double' values, respectively (on some machines `double' and `long double' are the same). * Ulrich Drepper has contributed new implementations of the floating-point printing and reading code used in the `printf' family of functions and `strtod', `strtof', and `strtold'. These new functions are perfectly accurate, and much faster than the old ones. * The implementation of the POSIX locale model was completely rewritten by Ulrich Drepper. This includes the new programs `localedef' and `locale' to compile the POSIX locale definition. * The former dummy implementations of the strcoll and strxfrm function are now replaced by fully functional code contributed by Ulrich Drepper. The collation information comes from the POSIX locale definitions. * The new header <langinfo.h> defines an interface for accessing various locale-dependent data (using the locale chosen with `setlocale'). * Ulrich Drepper has contributed a new suite of functions for operation on wide-character and multibyte-character strings, in <wchar.h>; and classification and case conversion of wide characters, in <wctype.h>. These new functions are conforming to the ISO C, Amendement 1 specification. * There is now a second implementation of the standard I/O library available. It comes from GNU libg++ as was written by Per Bothner, heavily modified by Hongjiu Lu and made thread safe by Ulrich Drepper. * You can now use positional parameter specifications in format strings for the `printf' and `scanf' families of functions. For example, `printf ("Number %2$d, Mr %1$s\n", "Jones", 6);'' prints ``Number 6, Mr Jones''. This is mainly useful when providing different format strings for different languages, whose grammars may dictate different orderings of the values being printed. To support this feature, the interface for `register_printf_handler' has changed; see the header file <printf.h> for details. * The `printf' and `scanf' families of functions now understand a new formatting flag for numeric conversions: the ' flag (e.g. %'d or %'f) says to group numbers as indicated by the locale; for `scanf' and friends, this says to accept as valid only a number with all the proper grouping separators in the right places. In the default "C" locale, numbers are not grouped; but locales for specific countries will define the usual conventions (i.e. separate thousands with `,' in the US locale). * The pgrp functions have been regularized, slightly incompatibly but much less confusingly. The core functions are now `getpgid' and `setpgid', which take arguments for the PID to operate on; the POSIX.1 `getpgrp' (no argument) and BSD `setpgrp' (identical to `setpgid') functions are provided for compatibility. There is no longer an incompatible `getpgrp' with an argument declared under _BSD_SOURCE; no BSD code uses it. * The new header file <fts.h> and suite of functions simplify programs that operate on directory trees. This code comes from 4.4 BSD. * The resolver code has been updated from the BIND 4.9.5-P1 release. Parts of the code were heavily modified by Ulrich Drepper to fit in the NSS scheme used in glibc. * There is a new malloc debugging hook `__memalign_hook'. * There are new typedefs `ushort' for `unsigned short int' and `uint' for `unsigned int' in <sys/types.h>. These are for compatibility only and their use is discouraged. * The `-lmcheck' library to enable standard malloc debugging hooks is now done differently, so that it works even without GNU ld. * New function `euidaccess' checks allowed access to a file like `access', but using the effective IDs instead of the real IDs. * The time zone data files have been updated for the latest and greatest local time conventions of the countries of the world. * The new function `dirfd' extracts the file descriptor used by a DIR stream; see <dirent.h>. * The new functions `ecvt', `fcvt', and `gcvt' provide an obsolete interface for formatting floating-point numbers. They are provided only for compatibility; new programs should use `sprintf' instead. There are also equivalent function for the `long double' floating-point type and all functions also exist in a reentrant form. * The new auxiliary library `-lutil' from 4.4 BSD contains various functions for maintaining the login-record files (primarily of use to system programs such as `login'), and convenient functions for allocating and initializing a pseudo-terminal (pty) device. * Ulrich Drepper has contributed new support for System V style shared memory and IPC on systems that support it. * Ulrich Drepper has contributed several miscellaneous new functions found in System V: The `hsearch' family of functions provide an effective implementation of hash tables; `a64l' and `l64a' provide a very simple binary to ASCII mapping; `drand48' and friends provide a 48-bit random number generator. * Ulrich Drepper has contributed new reentrant counterparts for the `random' and `hsearch' families of functions; `random_r', `hsearch_r', etc. * Ulrich Drepper has contributed new, highly-optimized versions of several string functions for the i486/Pentium family of processors. * Ulrich Drepper has updated the Linux-specific code, based largely on work done in Hongjiu Lu's version of GNU libc for Linux. The GNU library now supports Linux versions 2.0.10 and later, using the ELF object file format (i[3456]86-*-linux). * Andreas Schwab has ported the C library to Linux/m68k (m68k-*-linux). * David Mosberger-Tang and Richard Henderson have ported the C library to Linux/Alpha (alpha-*-linux). Richard Henderson contributed the dynamic linking support for ELF/Alpha. * Richard Henderson contributed several Alpha optimized assembler function for arithmetic and string handling. * Ulrich Drepper has contributed a new set of message catalog functions to support multiple languages using the <libintl.h> interface, for use with his new package GNU gettext. Translation volunteers have contributed catalogs of the library's messages in Spanish, German, and Korean. * For compatibility with XPG4, Ulrich Drepper has contributed the `gencat' program and the `catgets' function for reading the catalog files it creates. (The <libintl.h> interface is preferred; we include the <nl_types.h> interface using `catgets' only for source compatibility with programs already written to use it.) * New header file <values.h> gives SVID-compatible names for <limits.h> constants. * Various new macros, declarations, and small header files for compatibility with 4.4 BSD. * New function `group_member' is a convenient way to check if a process has a given effective group ID. * When using GCC 2.7 and later, the socket functions are now declared in a special way so that passing an argument of type `struct sockaddr_in *', `struct sockaddr_ns *', or `struct sockaddr_un *' instead of the generic `struct sockaddr *' type, does not generate a type-clash warning. * New function `error' declared in header file <error.h> is a convenient function for printing error messages and optionally exiting; this is the canonical function used in GNU programs. The new functions `err', `warn', and friends in header file <err.h> are the canonical 4.4 BSD interface for doing the same thing. * The <glob.h> interface has several new flags from 4.4 BSD that extend the POSIX.2 `glob' function to do ~ and {...} expansion. * New function `unsetenv' complements `setenv' for compatibility with 4.4 BSD. `clearenv' which is used in POSIX.9 is also available. * New function `getsid' returns session ID number on systems that support it. * We have incorporated the 4.4 BSD `db' library (version 1.85). New header files <db.h> and <mpool.h> provide a rich set of functions for several types of simple databases stored in memory and in files, and <ndbm.h> is an old `ndbm'-compatible interface using the `db' functions. Link with `-ldb' to get these functions. * New macro `strdupa' copies a string like `strdup', but uses local stack space from `alloca' instead of dynamic heap space from `malloc'. * New function `strnlen' is like `strlen' but searches only a given maximum number of characters for the null terminator. `stpncpy', `strndup' and `strndupa' are similar variants for the `stpcpy', `strdup' and `strdupa' function. * New function `statfs' in header <sys/statfs.h>. * The new <argz.h> and <envz.h> interfaces contributed by Miles Bader provide convenient functions for operating on blocks of null-terminated strings. * A new suite of functions in <utmp.h> handle all the details of reading and writing the utmp file. * An implementation of the NIS/YP(tm) based NSS service was contributed by Thorsten Kukuk. * Paul Eggert and Ulrich Drepper modified the `strftime' function to be completely POSIX compliant and also implemented the extended functionality to handle alternate digit representation and alternate era date formats. * Ulrich Drepper provided an implementation of the `strptime' function defined in XPG4.2 which transforms a string into a `struct tm' value. * Paul Eggert provided the tzselect shell script as part of the timezone code. The shell script makes it easy to select the correct timezone specification. * The implementation of the malloc family of functions is completely replaced by a new implementation by Doug Lea with many improvements by Wolfram Gloger. The implementation uses the mmap function (if available) and it is optimized for the use in multi threaded programs. * Ulrich Drepper contributed a MD5 "encryption" for the crypt family of functions. This new functionality is usable by specifying a special salt string and it is compatible with implementation on *BSD systems. * Lots of functions from the XPG4.2 standard were added by Ulrich Drepper: `getsubopt' to handle second level command line options, `bsd_signal' to access BSD style `signal' functionality, the obsolete `regexp' style expression matcher. * the `lchown' function is available on system which support this functionality. * The implementation of the shadow password handling function was contributed by Ulrich Drepper. * David Mosberger-Tang changed the SunRPC implementation to be 64bit safe. * POSIX.1g support was added. The <sys/select.h> header is available, `isfdtype' and `pselect' are implemented. Craig Metz contributed an implementation of `getaddrinfo'. Version 1.09 * For cross-compilation you should now set `BUILD_CC' instead of `HOST_CC'. * New header file <fstab.h> and new functions `getfsspec', `getfsent' and friends, for parsing /etc/fstab. This code comes from 4.4 BSD. * The new function `daemon' from 4.4 BSD is useful for server programs that want to put themselves in the background. * Joel Sherrill has contributed support for several standalone boards that run without an operating system. * `printf', `scanf' and friends now accept a `q' type modifier for long long int as well as `ll'. Formats using these might be `%qu' or `%lld'. * All of the code taken from BSD (notably most of the math and networking routines) has been updated from the BSD 4.4-Lite release. * The resolver code has been updated from the BIND-4.9.3-BETA9 release. * The new functions `getdomainname' and `setdomainname' fetch or change the YP/NIS domain name. These are system calls which exist on systems which have YP (aka NIS). * The time zone data files have been updated for the latest international conventions. * The SunRPC programs `portmap' and `rpcinfo' are now installed in $(sbindir) (usually /usr/local/sbin) instead of $(bindir). Version 1.08 * The C library now includes support for Sun RPC, from Sun's free RPCSRC-4.0 distribution. The `portmap', `rpcinfo', and `rpcgen' programs are included. (There is still no support for YP.) * Tom Quinn has contributed a port of the C library to SGI machines running Irix 4 (mips-sgi-irix4). * The new `lockf' function is a simplified interface to the locking facilities of `fcntl', included for compatibility. * New time functions `timegm', `timelocal', and `dysize' for compatibility. * New header file <sys/timeb.h> and new function `ftime' for compatibility. * New header files <poll.h> and <sys/poll.h> and new function `poll' for compatibility. * The error message printed by `assert' for a failed assertion now includes the name of the program (if using GNU ld) and the name of the calling function (with versions of GCC that support this). * The `psignal' function is now declared in <signal.h>, not <stdio.h>. * The library now includes the <sys/mman.h> header file and memory management functions `mmap', `munmap', `mprotect', `msync', and `madvise', on systems that support those facilities. * The interface for `mcheck' has changed slightly: the function called to abort the program when an allocation inconsistency is detected now takes an argument that indicates the type of failure. The new function `mprobe' lets you request a consistency check for a particular block at any time (checks are normally done only when you call `free' or `realloc' on a block). * It is now possible to easily cross-compile the C library, building on one system a library to run on another machine and/or operating system. All you need to do is set the variable `HOST_CC' in `configparms' to the native compiler for programs to run on the machine you are building on (a few generator programs are used on Unix systems); set `CC' to the cross-compiler. * The new function `fexecve' (only implemented on the GNU system) executes a program file given a file descriptor already open on the file. Version 1.07 * Brendan Kehoe has contributed most of a port to the DEC Alpha running OSF/1 (alpha-dec-osf1). He says it is 75% complete. * You can set the variable `libprefix' in `configparms' to specify a prefix to be prepended to installed library files; this makes it easy to install the GNU C library to be linked as `-lgnuc' or whatever. * The new `stpncpy' is a cross between `stpcpy' and `strncpy': It copies a limited number of characters from a string, and returns the address of the last character written. * You no longer need to check for whether the installed `stddef.h' is compatible with the GNU C library. configure now checks for you. * You can now define a per-stream `fileno' function to convert the stream's cookie into an integral file descriptor. * ``malloc (0)'' no longer returns a null pointer. Instead, it allocates zero bytes of storage, and returns a unique pointer which you can pass to `realloc' or `free'. The behavior is undefined if you dereference this pointer. * The C library now runs on Sony NEWS m68k machines running either NewsOS 3 or NewsOS 4. * The new `syscall' function is a system-dependent primitive function for invoking system calls. It has the canonical behavior on Unix systems, including unreliable return values for some calls (such as `pipe', `fork' and `getppid'). * The error code `EWOULDBLOCK' is now obsolete; it is always defined to `EAGAIN', which is the preferred name. On systems whose kernels use two distinct codes, the C library now translates EWOULDBLOCK to EAGAIN in every system call function. Version 1.06 * The GNU C Library Reference Manual is now distributed with the library. `make dvi' will produce a DVI file of the printed manual. `make info' will produce Info files that you can read on line using C-h i in Emacs or the `info' program. Please send comments on the manual to bug-glibc-manual@gnu.org. * The library now supports SVR4 on i386s (i386-unknown-sysv4). * Brendan Kehoe has contributed a port to Sun SPARCs running Solaris 2. * Jason Merrill has contributed a port to the Sequent Symmetry running Dynix version 3 (i386-sequent-dynix). * The library has been ported to i386s running SCO 3.2.4 (also known as SCO ODT 2.0; i386-unknown-sco3.2.4) or SCO 3.2 (i386-unknown-sco3.2). * New function `memory_warnings' lets you arrange to get warnings when malloc is running out of memory to allocate, like Emacs gives you. * The C library now contains the relocating allocator used in Emacs 19 for its editing buffers. This allocator (ralloc) minimizes allocation overhead and fragmentation by moving allocated regions around whenever it needs to. You always refer to a ralloc'd region with a "handle" (a pointer to a pointer--an object of type `void **'). * There is a new `printf' format: `%m' gives you the string corresponding to the error code in `errno'. * In `scanf' formats, you can now use `%as' or `%a[' to do the normal `%s' or `%[' conversion, but instead of filling in a fixed-sized buffer you pass, the `a' modifier says to fill in a `char **' you pass with a malloc'd string. * The `fnmatch' function supports the new flag bits `FNM_LEADING_DIR' and `FNM_CASEFOLD'. `FNM_LEADING_DIR' lets a pattern like `foo*' match a name like `foo/bar'. `FNM_CASEFOLD' says to ignore case in matching. * `mkstemp' is a traditional Unix function to atomically create and open a uniquely-named temporary file. Version 1.05 * The standard location for the file that says what the local timezone is has changed again. It is now `/usr/local/etc/localtime' (or more precisely, `${prefix}/etc/localtime') rather than `/etc/localtime'. * The distribution no longer contains any files with names longer than 14 characters. * `struct ttyent' has two new flag bits: TTY_TRUSTED and TTY_CONSOLE. These are set by the new `trusted' and `console' keywords in `/etc/ttys'. * New functions `ttyslot' and `syslog' from 4.4 BSD. Version 1.04 * The configuration process has changed quite a bit. The `configure' script is now used just like the configuration scripts for other GNU packages. The `sysdeps' directory hierarchy is much rearranged. The file `INSTALL' explains the new scheme in detail. * The header files no longer need to be processed into ANSI C and traditional C versions. There is just one set of files to install, and it will work with ANSI or old C compilers (including `gcc -traditional'). * Brendan Kehoe and Ian Lance Taylor have ported the library to the MIPS DECStation running Ultrix 4. * The Sun 4 startup code (crt0) can now properly load SunOS 4 shared libraries. Tom Quinn contributed the initial code. The GNU C library can NOT yet be made itself into a shared library. * Yet further improved support for the i386, running 4.3 BSD-like systems (such as Mach 3 with the Unix single-server), or System V. * New function `strncasecmp' to do case-insensitive string comparison with limited length. * New function `strsep' is a reentrant alternative to `strtok'. * New functions `scandir' and `alphasort' for searching directories. * New function `setenv' is a better interface to `putenv'. * Ian Lance Taylor has contributed an implementation of the SVID `ftw' function for traversing a directory tree. * The GNU obstack package is now also part of the C library. The new function `open_obstack_stream' creates a stdio stream that writes onto an obstack; `obstack_printf' and `obstack_vprintf' do formatted output directly to an obstack. * Miscellaneous new functions: reboot, nice, sigaltstack (4.4 BSD only), cfmakeraw, getusershell, getpass, swab, getttyent, seteuid, setegid. * `FNM_FILE_NAME' is another name for `FNM_PATHNAME', used with `fnmatch'. * The new functions `strfry' and `memfrob' do mysterious and wonderful things to your strings. * There are some new test programs: test-fseek, testmb, and testrand. * Some work has been done to begin porting the library to 4.4 BSD and Linux. These ports are not finished, but are a good starting place for really supporting those systems. * `/etc/localtime' is now the standard location for the file that says what the local timezone is, rather than `/usr/local/lib/zoneinfo/localtime'. This follows the general principle that `/etc' is the place for all local configuration files. * The C library header files now use `extern "C"' when used by the C++ compiler, so the C library should now work with C++ code. * The header file <bstring.h> is gone. <string.h> now declares bcopy, bcmp, bzero, and ffs. * Mike Haertel (of GNU e?grep and malloc fame) has written a new sorting function which uses the `merge sort' algorithm, and is said to be significantly faster than the old GNU `qsort' function. Merge sort is now the standard `qsort' function. The new algorithm can require a lot of temporary storage; so, the old sorting function is called when the required storage is not available. * The C library now includes Michael Glad's Ultra Fast Crypt, which provides the Unix `crypt' function, plus some other entry points. Because of the United States export restriction on DES implementations, we are distributing this code separately from the rest of the C library. There is an extra distribution tar file just for crypt; it is called `glibc-VERSION-crypt.tar.Z', e.g. `glibc-1.04-crypt.tar.Z'. You can just unpack the crypt distribution along with the rest of the C library and build; you can also build the library without getting crypt. Users outside the USA can get the crypt distribution via anonymous FTP from ftp.uni-c.dk [129.142.6.74], or another archive site outside the U.S. * The code and header files taken from 4.4 BSD have been updated with the latest files released from Berkeley. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Copyright information: Copyright (C) 1992, 93, 94, 95, 96 Free Software Foundation, Inc. Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim copies of this document as received, in any medium, provided that the copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved, thus giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn. Permission is granted to distribute modified versions of this document, or of portions of it, under the above conditions, provided also that they carry prominent notices stating who last changed them. Local variables: version-control: never end: