Release Notes (Versions history)

LibertyEiffel (latest release first)

For upcoming releases see the list of names.

Curtiss (2016.09, named after Glenn Curtiss)

• not yet released (see next section for current release notes)
• User-visible changes:
  • C99 conforming C code generation
• Developer changes:
  • RUN_FEATUREs now have clear names
• Known bugs:
  • see [1] for the full list

Bell (2016.01, named after Alexander Graham Bell)

• not yet released (see next section for current release notes)
• first release since LibertyEiffel is 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)
  • removed linebreaks in compiler output
  • many bugfixes
  • GC call at exit is optional
  • generic creation
• Developer changes:
• 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 LibertyEiffel
• 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
• 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

SmartEiffel (all releases which are predecessors of Liberty)

Release 2.3 [Antoine-Auguste Parmentier] - Wednesday July 11th 2007

Again, a lot of novelties for this release:

• New typing rules have been revisited and are now crystal clear. See this page for details.
• Implemented a new class loading algorithm, which takes into account the "distance" between classes, thus reifying the notion of clusters and sub-clusters. Everything is trans