Release Notes (Versions history)

Liberty Eiffel (latest release first)

For other upcoming releases see the list of names.

Curtiss (2024.dev, to be named after Glenn Curtiss)

• not yet released (see next section for current release notes)
• User-visible changes:
  • added installation script: Installing on Windows using the Tiny-C compiler
  • added support for assign (note: it applies to the setter, while ISE version applies to the getter)
  • redesign of eiffeldoc generated HTML to reduce its size dramatically
  • addition of a zsh completer for se
  • updated dependency of BDW GC to version 8.x
  • installation script (install.sh) now supports the latest libgc-dev library (external garbage collector)
  • finally removed the obsolete classes GEN_RAND, MIN_STAND and STD_RAND
  • removed support for some unused legacy platforms (OpenVMS, Amiga, Elate, BeOS, OS/2, Macintosh, HP RISC, IBM370, NS32000, MIPS, Pyramid 9810, SPARC, VAX, Motorola 68000) - in case you have a real use case for those we are happy to readd it
  • removed support for some unused backend C-compilers (i.e. Watcom-C)
  • removed obsolete feature "is_basic_expanded_type" from class ANY
  • obsolete keyword 'creation' now generates an error
  • obsolete class READY_DESCRIPTION removed from sequencer cluster
  • 'is_prime' feature added to class INTEGER_GENERAL
  • 'is_fibonacci' feature added to class INTEGER_GENERAL
  • constants 'Tau', 'Sqr_tau' and 'Inv_tau' added to math_constants.e
  • C-runtime now C99 compliant
  • C-runtime now thread-safe
  • C-code generator does not yet generate C99 compliant C-code, currently being worked on (likely for the Dennis-release).
  • RUN_FEATUREs now have clear names (hopefully)
  • to better support the user access rights model of the current Windows versions, the config file is no longer written to a root directory but rather to %ALLUSERSPROFILE% or %USERPROFILE%
  • support for NetBSD, FreeBSD and OpenBSD added (Thanks to KOIZUMI Satoru)
• Known bugs:
  • see [1] for the full list

Bell (2016.05, named after Alexander Graham Bell)

• released in May 2016
• first release since Liberty Eiffel has become the official GNU Eiffel compiler
• User-visible changes:
  • changed Environment Variable name from SmartEiffel to LibertyEiffel (anyhow, normally it should not be necessary to set this one)
  • new tool Mock
  • removed linebreaks in compiler output
  • many bugfixes
  • GC call at exit is optional
  • generic creation
  • agents are now closures
  • finder now finds all classes in the universe with the given name, not only the first one
  • keyword is at the beginning of a feature is now deprecated
  • Added support for alias "[]" and alias "()"
  • constants are now visible in the eiffeldoc generated documentation
• Known bugs:
  • there is still an issue in both GC implementations (classical SEGC and BDW), if it shows up, it often yields a "Bad target type" runtime error.
  • for the full list see [2]

Adler (2013.11, named after Charles Adler, Jr.)

• First release as Liberty Eiffel
• User-visible changes:
  • Added NATURAL_8, NATURAL_16, NATURAL_32, and NATURAL_64 classes. See tutorial/natural.e for examples.
  • Even low-level features (i.e. external "built_in") are now checking their assertions. As an example, division by zero is now checked by assertions.
  • Inlined dynamic dispatch for better performance
  • A missing export clause is deprecated. Use {ANY} instead.
  • New core libraries: cli, json, log, parse (beware, these libraries are not yet tuned to be used without GC)
  • Improved libraries: string (with notably a new FIXED_STRING class)
  • Wrapper libraries: gtk, gdk, readline, ffi...
  • A new tool that can generate mocks to help unit testing
  • BDW GC support
  • Collections implementation of is_equal changed to compare the contained objects using their is_equal functions instead of = (which was formerly the functionality of is_equal_map). The old functionality of is_equal is available by fast_is_equal.
• Developer changes:
  • The web site now belongs to the repository
  • Automatic testing tools (ET on the web, and watch_eiffeltest.sh in the shell)
  • Automatic Debian packages generation
• Known bugs:
  • BDW GC is not well tested; currently weak references seem not to work properly; and the GC is not run at program exit (it should run all finalizers)
  • Sometimes SmartEiffel's native GC behaves wrongly, analysis is welcome
  • Some of the newer core libraries do not work very well when there is no GC
  • See the bugs page