source: trunk/minix/lib/regex/WHATSNEW@ 10

Last change on this file since 10 was 9, checked in by Mattia Monga, 13 years ago

Minix 3.1.2a

File size: 5.2 KB
Line 
1# @(#)WHATSNEW 8.3 (Berkeley) 3/18/94
2
3New in alpha3.4: The complex bug alluded to below has been fixed (in a
4slightly kludgey temporary way that may hurt efficiency a bit; this is
5another "get it out the door for 4.4" release). The tests at the end of
6the tests file have accordingly been uncommented. The primary sign of
7the bug was that something like a?b matching ab matched b rather than ab.
8(The bug was essentially specific to this exact situation, else it would
9have shown up earlier.)
10
11New in alpha3.3: The definition of word boundaries has been altered
12slightly, to more closely match the usual programming notion that "_"
13is an alphabetic. Stuff used for pre-ANSI systems is now in a subdir,
14and the makefile no longer alludes to it in mysterious ways. The
15makefile has generally been cleaned up some. Fixes have been made
16(again!) so that the regression test will run without -DREDEBUG, at
17the cost of weaker checking. A workaround for a bug in some folks'
18<assert.h> has been added. And some more things have been added to
19tests, including a couple right at the end which are commented out
20because the code currently flunks them (complex bug; fix coming).
21Plus the usual minor cleanup.
22
23New in alpha3.2: Assorted bits of cleanup and portability improvement
24(the development base is now a BSDI system using GCC instead of an ancient
25Sun system, and the newer compiler exposed some glitches). Fix for a
26serious bug that affected REs using many [] (including REG_ICASE REs
27because of the way they are implemented), *sometimes*, depending on
28memory-allocation patterns. The header-file prototypes no longer name
29the parameters, avoiding possible name conflicts. The possibility that
30some clot has defined CHAR_MIN as (say) `-128' instead of `(-128)' is
31now handled gracefully. "uchar" is no longer used as an internal type
32name (too many people have the same idea). Still the same old lousy
33performance, alas.
34
35New in alpha3.1: Basically nothing, this release is just a bookkeeping
36convenience. Stay tuned.
37
38New in alpha3.0: Performance is no better, alas, but some fixes have been
39made and some functionality has been added. (This is basically the "get
40it out the door in time for 4.4" release.) One bug fix: regfree() didn't
41free the main internal structure (how embarrassing). It is now possible
42to put NULs in either the RE or the target string, using (resp.) a new
43REG_PEND flag and the old REG_STARTEND flag. The REG_NOSPEC flag to
44regcomp() makes all characters ordinary, so you can match a literal
45string easily (this will become more useful when performance improves!).
46There are now primitives to match beginnings and ends of words, although
47the syntax is disgusting and so is the implementation. The REG_ATOI
48debugging interface has changed a bit. And there has been considerable
49internal cleanup of various kinds.
50
51New in alpha2.3: Split change list out of README, and moved flags notes
52into Makefile. Macro-ized the name of regex(7) in regex(3), since it has
53to change for 4.4BSD. Cleanup work in engine.c, and some new regression
54tests to catch tricky cases thereof.
55
56New in alpha2.2: Out-of-date manpages updated. Regerror() acquires two
57small extensions -- REG_ITOA and REG_ATOI -- which avoid debugging kludges
58in my own test program and might be useful to others for similar purposes.
59The regression test will now compile (and run) without REDEBUG. The
60BRE \$ bug is fixed. Most uses of "uchar" are gone; it's all chars now.
61Char/uchar parameters are now written int/unsigned, to avoid possible
62portability problems with unpromoted parameters. Some unsigned casts have
63been introduced to minimize portability problems with shifting into sign
64bits.
65
66New in alpha2.1: Lots of little stuff, cleanup and fixes. The one big
67thing is that regex.h is now generated, using mkh, rather than being
68supplied in the distribution; due to circularities in dependencies,
69you have to build regex.h explicitly by "make h". The two known bugs
70have been fixed (and the regression test now checks for them), as has a
71problem with assertions not being suppressed in the absence of REDEBUG.
72No performance work yet.
73
74New in alpha2: Backslash-anything is an ordinary character, not an
75error (except, of course, for the handful of backslashed metacharacters
76in BREs), which should reduce script breakage. The regression test
77checks *where* null strings are supposed to match, and has generally
78been tightened up somewhat. Small bug fixes in parameter passing (not
79harmful, but technically errors) and some other areas. Debugging
80invoked by defining REDEBUG rather than not defining NDEBUG.
81
82New in alpha+3: full prototyping for internal routines, using a little
83helper program, mkh, which extracts prototypes given in stylized comments.
84More minor cleanup. Buglet fix: it's CHAR_BIT, not CHAR_BITS. Simple
85pre-screening of input when a literal string is known to be part of the
86RE; this does wonders for performance.
87
88New in alpha+2: minor bits of cleanup. Notably, the number "32" for the
89word width isn't hardwired into regexec.c any more, the public header
90file prototypes the functions if __STDC__ is defined, and some small typos
91in the manpages have been fixed.
92
93New in alpha+1: improvements to the manual pages, and an important
94extension, the REG_STARTEND option to regexec().
Note: See TracBrowser for help on using the repository browser.