classpath - News: GNU Classpath 0.91 "All for One, One for All" released

GNU Classpath 0.91 "All for One, One for All" released

Item posted by Mark Wielaard <mark> on Mon 15 May 2006 10:27:19 PM UTC.

GNU Classpath, essential libraries for java, is a project to create
free core class libraries for use with runtimes, compilers and tools
for the java programming language.

The GNU Classpath developer snapshot releases are not directly aimed
at the end user but are meant to be integrated into larger development
platforms. For example the GCC (gcj) and Kaffe projects will use the
developer snapshots as a base for future versions. More projects based
on GNU Classpath: http://www.gnu.org/software/classpath/stories.html

Some highlights of changes in this release (more extensive list below):

  RMI activation daemon and persistent naming service tools are now
  included. Print service discovery, single document print jobs and
  support for client-formatted print data through CUPS has been
  added. Support for custom mouse cursors, system clipboard and
  selection access has been implemented. A Free Swing OceanTheme and
  support for assistive technologies (accessibility) has been
  added. The VM runtime interface has been merged with the generics
  version to support annotations and other 1.5 language features.

GNU Classpath 0.91 does not yet support all new 1.5 additions, but
there is also an experimental GNU Classpath "generics" release.
classpath-0.91-generics contains a version of the core library that
uses the new 1.5 language features such as generics and
enumerations. ECJ, JamVM, IKVM and Cacao are known to support the
generics release. And you can use it to run Eclipse 3.1 with it to
develop programs that use the new 1.5 language and core library
additions. classpath-generics is a work in progress and not as
extensively tested as our regular releases. But please try it out if
you want to help us test the new 1.5 support of the core libraries.

The GNU Classpath developers site http://developer.classpath.org/
provides detailed information on how to start with helping the GNU
Classpath project and gives an overview of the core class library
packages currently provided.  For each snapshot release generated
documentation is provided through the GNU Classpath Tools gjdoc
project.  A documentation generation framework for java source
files used by the GNU project. Full documentation on the currently
implementated packages and classes can be found at:
http://developer.classpath.org/doc/

For more information about the project see also:

- GNU Classpath home page:
  http://www.gnu.org/software/classpath/

- Developer information (wiki):
  http://developer.classpath.org/

- Full class documentation
  http://developer.classpath.org/doc/

- GNU Classpath hackers:
  http://planet.classpath.org/

- Autobuilder, current build status, build snapshots:
  http://builder.classpath.org/

- Application test pages (wiki)
  http://developer.classpath.org/mediation/FreeAWTTestApps
  http://developer.classpath.org/mediation/FreeSwingTestApps
  http://developer.classpath.org/mediation/FreeSWTTestApps

- GNU Classpath hacking with Eclipse (wiki)
  http://developer.classpath.org/mediation/ClasspathHackingWithEclipse

- GNU Classpath promotion banners:
  http://developer.classpath.org/mediation/ClasspathBanners

This release depends on gtk+ 2.4 for AWT support. But gtk+ 2.6 or
higher is recommended. Included, but not activated by default in this
release is a Graphics2D implementation based on the Cairo Graphics
framework (http://www.cairographics.org). Enabling this makes programs
like JFreeChart and JEdit start up on GNU Classpath based runtimes.
To enable this support install the cairo 0.5.x snapshot, configure GNU
Classpath with --enable-gtk-cairo.

One of the major focuses of the GNU Classpath project is expanding and
using the Mauve test suite for Compatibility, Completeness and
Correctness checking.  Various groups around GNU Classpath collaborate
on the free software Mauve test suite which contains more than 45.000
core library tests.  Mauve has various modules for testing core class
library implementations, byte code verifiers, source to byte code and
native code compiler tests.  Mauve also contains the Wonka visual test
suite and the Jacks Compiler Killer Suite.
See for more information: http://www.sourceware.org/mauve/
This release passes 44975 out of 45537 Mauve core library tests.

Conformance reports for the included jaxp support can be found in the
doc/README.jaxp file.

GNU Classpath 0.91 can be downloaded from
ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/classpath/
or one of the ftp.gnu.org mirrors
http://www.gnu.org/order/ftp.html

File: classpath-0.91.tar.gz
MD5sum: 3ce11b4b990b108c5ab93894fcc61be6
SHA1sum: fcbfdf64f7a990f1747621772a2e9e69d0baaab7

File: classpath-0.91-generics.tar.gz (EXPERIMENTAL)
MD5sum: e79132b1b8441523b8f4f6a8f2d2910b
SHA1sum: 90be3b2115e8a0288bcb6e2d1860fe58b42c77b5

New in release 0.91 (May 14, 2006)
(See the ChangeLog file for a full list of changes.)

• Experimental activation (java.rmi.activation) support, including RMI

  activation daemon and persistent naming service tools.

• Experimental printing support: The API implementation of the

  javax.print packages has been finished and work on the printing
  provider implementation started. Currently supported features from the
  Java Print Service API are print service discovery (CUPS registered
  printers), single document print jobs and support for client-formatted
  print data. An example application (gnu/classpath/examples/print/Demo)
  has been added to show the API usage for service discovery and
  printing of files.

• The GTKToolkit now gives access to the both the system clipboard and

  system selection.

• Custom mouse cursor support has been added to the gtk+ peers. And

  cursors can now also be set on light-weight components.

• Free Swing improvements: Support for OceanTheme has been mostly

  completed and turned on as default Metal theme. X11-style Copy and
  Paste behavior in text components with the middle mouse button.
  Support cursor changes on various components when resizing. Support
  for Look and Feel window decorations has been added.

• Updated locale data information to CLDR 1.3.
• Various bugs in Classpath's SecureRandom implementations have been

  fixed; that class now respects the "securerandom.source" security
  property and the "java.security.egd" system property.

• Support for assistive technologies has been added to AWT and Swing.

Runtime interface changes:

• A new class, VMArray, is now available which separates the native

  array creation method from java.lang.reflect.Array.

• A new class, gnu.classpath.Unsafe, is provided for handling the

  new low-level operations required by java.util.concurrent.

• The reference implementations of Method, Constructor, and Field

  now have a new native getModifiersInternal() method.  The public
  getModifiers() method in each case has been rewritten in terms of
  this method.

• The reference implementation of VMThread has been updated to handle

  the new Thread.UncaughtExceptionHandler support.

• A new class, java.security.VMSecureRandom, is now available that is

  used to generate random numbers for seeding cryptographically-secure
  pseudo-random number generators.

• VMClass and the reference implementations of Method, Constructor and

  Field now include a number of 1.5 methods imported from the generics
  branch. These are all optional (in the sense that the methods
  associated with them merely fail on use if the VM doesn't provide
  them, rather than the VM failing altogether), but VMs should aim to
  support them where possible.

• The implementation of java.lang.instrument has been merged to the main

  branch from the generics branch.

• The VM interfaces of the main branch and the generics branch are now

  consistent with one another.  As a result, the main branch includes an
  additional environ() function in VMSystem and an additional argument
  has been added to nativeSpawn() in VMProcess.

• Annotation support is now available in the main branch, if the VM

  supports it. The VM should implement VMClass.getDeclaredAnnotations,
  Constructor.getAnnotation, Constructor.getDeclaredAnnotations,
  Field.getAnnotation, Field.getDeclaredAnnotations,
  Method.getAnnotation and Method.getDeclaredAnnotations.

• java.lang.Package now has a new constructor that takes the defining

  ClassLoader as an extra argument. If you use a custom version of
  VMClassLoader, please switch it to use this constructor.

• The reference implementation of VMClassLoader.getBootPackages() now

  reads the META-INF/INDEX.LIST resource using the java.boot.class.path
  system property.

New/Untested/Disabled Features:

  The following new features are included, but not ready for
  production yet. They are explicitly disabled and not supported. But
  if you want to help with the development of these new features we
  are interested in feedback. You will have to explicitly enable them
  to try them out (and they will most likely contain bugs). If you are
  interested in any of these then please join the mailing-list and
  follow development in CVS.

• Cairo Gtk+ Graphics2D support, enabled by giving configure

  --enable-gtk-cairo.

• QT4 AWT peers, enable by giving configure --enable-qt-peer.

The following people helped with this release:

Andrew John Hughes, Anthony Balkissoon, Arnaud Vandyck, Audrius
Meskauskas, Bernhard Rosenkraenzer, Bryce McKinlay, Caolan McNamara,
Carsten Neumann, Casey Marshall, Chris Burdess, Christian Thalinger,
Dalibor Topic, David Gilbert, Fridjof Siebert, Gary Benson, Ito
Kazumitsu, Jeroen Frijters, John K Peterson, John Sullivan, Keith
Seitz, Lillian Angel, Mark Wielaard, Michael Barker, Michael Koch,
Nicolas Geoffray, Olivier Jolly, Paul Jenner, Rafael H. Schloming,
Raif S. Naffah, Riccardo Mottola, Robert Schuster, Roman Kennke,
Sascha Brawer, Stephen White, Sven de Marothy, Thomas Fitzsimmons,
Tom Tromey and Wolfgang Baer.

We would also like to thank the numerous bug reporters and testers!