# EPICS Base Release 3.14.12.2

## Changes between 3.14.12.1 and 3.14.12.2

#### Another race condition in errlog cleaned up

If it was still busy when the IOC was closed down, the errlog thread could have preempted the exit handler and freed the various internal pvtData mutex and event objects too soon.

#### Top-level make target changes

Several make targets have been changed. Note that these can only be used from an application's <top> directory.

`make uninstall.<arch>`
  Deletes the bin/<arch> and lib/<arch> directories for <arch> only. Note that <arch> does not have to be an architecture that this host is configured to build, it works for any arch.
`make archuninstall`
  Deletes the bin/<arch> and lib/<arch> directories for all architectures that this host is configured to build. Should not affect files used for multiple architectures, or for host or target architectures that this host is not configured to build.
`make uninstall`
  Does archuninstall and also deletes the other install directories include, db, dbd, doc, html, templates and java. This will affect subsequent builds for other architectures, but it doesn't delete their bin/<arch> or lib/<arch> contents.
`make realuninstall`
  Deletes all install directories for all architectures.
`make distclean`
  Does realclean realuninstall as before, and also now does a cvsclean, which removes file remnants from CVS operations named `.#*` and editor backups named `*~` throughout the source tree.

#### Compress record type

This record now posts monitors on its NUSE field whenever its value changes. A new field OUSE was added to support this.

#### Remove C++ build rule for `.C` files

An early convention on Unix systems was to name C++ files with an upper-case extention, `.C`. This does not work on Windows or MacOS where the filesystems are case-insensitive, and the C++ build rule was causing problems so has been eliminated. Any remaining C++ source files that are still using this convention will have to be renamed, preferably to `.cpp`

#### Support `make -s` on Windows

The flag to silence build output did not work on some Windows architecture combinations. This has now been fixed.

#### iocLogServer now supports logrotate

The feature in the iocLogServer that closed and reopened the logfile used to ignore the SIGHUP signal when the log filename did not change. This has now been changed so these logfiles can be used with the standard Linux logrotate package.

## Changes between 3.14.12 and 3.14.12.1

This release only contains changes that fix bugs or add build configuration files for new or updated target architectures. No functionality has been changed, and as this is a patch release the software has not gone through as rigorous a testing regime as it does for a normal minor release.

#### Launchpad Bugs Resolved

The following are links to bugs in the Launchpad bug tracker that have been fixed in this release:

- 693534 errlog causes crash on IOC exit
- 701673 Large array problem in 3.14.12
- 717252 local caput causes ioc crash on win32
- 750549 epicsTime has non-portable c++ static initialization
- 753137 Makefile dependency checking of database files is broken

#### New/Updated target architectures

The following target architectures have been added or updated:

vxWorks-mpc8548
vxWorks-mpc8548-debug
  This PowerPC CPU is used on the Emerson MVME4100 VME CPU board (from Ernest Williams, SLAC).
vxWorks-ppc32
vxWorks-ppc32sf
vxWorks-ppc32-debug
vxWorks-ppc32sf-debug
  New generic 32-bit PowerPC targets for vxWorks 6.x, using hardware or software floating-point. These targets can be used instead of the CPU-specific ppc603, ppc604, mpc8540 and mpc8548 targets (and their _long alternatives, these targets are all compiled with the -mlongcall flag) to reduce the number of distinct build targets needed when supporting multiple PowerPC board types.
ios-386
ios-arm
  Updated for iOS 4.3, which is now the default OS version (from Tom Palaia, ORNL).

#### IOCSH_STARTUP_SCRIPT environment variable

The function `iocsh(const char *pathname)` now sets the environment variable `IOCSH_STARTUP_SCRIPT` to the value of its pathname argument before it starts executing the script commands.

#### RTEMS-mvme5500

This target now automatically links binary files with the bspExt library, and adds the extension `.elf` to their filenames, matching the other mvme targets.

#### RTEMS Network Buffer Configuration

Add the macros `RTEMS_NETWORK_CONFIG_MBUF_SPACE` and `RTEMS_NETWORK_CONFIG_MBUF_SPACE` to rtems_netconfig.c to allow customization of the network buffer space allocated. The configuration files for the RTEMS-mvme3100, RTEMS-mvme5500 and RTEMS-beatnik targets now default to allocating 2MB for mbufs and 5MB for clusters; other RTEMS targets will continue to use 180KB and 350KB rspectively.

#### RTEMS TFTP filesystem

Use the new mount API to initialize TFTP on newer RTEMS versions.

#### C++ build issues on older Solaris compiler

Dirk Zimoch reported some problems building with an older SUNWspro C++ compiler which have been resolved where possible.

#### FreeBSD broadcast problem

The `ifreq_size` macro in freebsd/osdsock.h must be different in BSD 4.4.

#### Thread exit synchronization

When finished waiting for a thread to exit, signal the event in case other threads are waiting also.

#### Win32 osdTime provider fix

Jeff Hill fixed the last time compare in PLL drift factor update loop.

#### Errlog can lose messages

Systems that generate large numbers of errlog messages or have a slow message listener could overwrite older messages in the message buffer after the buffer wraps. This also corrects and annotates the test code to describe what's being checked.

When the IOC is shutting down, the errlog thread should process all queued messages before it quits.

#### Back-slash escapes for Win32

Stephen Norum pointed out the need for various Perl scripts to escape back-slash characters in Windows file paths.

#### catools on Windows

Windows 7 does not properly support line-mode buffering of stdio streams; the catools programs used this mode to ensure that they could be used in pipelines, but in Windows 7 they became fully buffered and are not flushed when the program exits, so buffering of stdout has now been completely disabled on Windows.

## Changes between 3.14.11 and 3.14.12

#### Launchpad Bugs Resolved

The following are links to bugs in the Launchpad bug tracker that have been fixed in this release:

- 541258 compiler warnings in base
- 541264 CA subscription element count is fixed - eliminates compressed video option
- 541331 Several devLib routines don't use vector table
- 541391 when subscribing for zero elements, array element count should be dynamic
- 545385 SIGFPE calculating epicsNAN, epicsINF
- 546991 prev. value fields not initialized in init_record
- 551909 macExpandString writes out of boundary
- 552803 Compress record segfaults on ALG (algorithm) change
- 571121 Perl issue compiling with INSTALL_LOCATION set
- 572589 Make dbl emit empty strings for non-existent fields
- 595154 C++ errors building base using cygwin1.7
- 595240 C code uses C++ keywords as variable names
- 595242 C code uses C++ "//" style comments
- 615916 Bug in RULES.Db breaks parallel make when using MSI
- 625034 Remove compiler checks for VMS in src/toolsComm/flex
- 626848 Build with GNU make 3.82 fails when installing libraries
- 626859 RTEMS build does not create .d dependancy files
- 627511 MSVC linker fails if input lib dirs start with forward slash
- 644263 EPICS softIOC always dies in response to SIGHUP
- 650000 caput tool won't write to mbbo w/o state strings
- 663875 NTP broadcasts break NTP synchronization (RTEMS)
- 667384 are the request and response bytes pending reversed in casr?
- 680702 calc and calcout record get_precision bug

#### Support for Cygwin 1.7

Base can now built with shared libraries on Cygwin 1.7.x, although only with the gcc-3 compiler. Cygwin 1.5.x only works when compiled without shared libraries (set `STATIC_BUILD=YES` and `SHARED_LIBRARIES=NO` in `configure/CONFIG_SITE`). There is code in Base now that depends on the Cygwin version, so make sure that you rebuild Base if you upgrade your Cygwin installation.

#### epicsEvent

epicsEvent is now explicitly required to act as a simple binary semaphore. A single epicsEventSignal call must awaken just one thread when multiple threads are waiting for the event. A test that checks for this has been added to epicsEventTest and the Application Developer's Guide has been updated to describe this requirement.

#### Enable array puts to subArray records

It is now possible to put an array into the VAL field of a soft channel subArray record whose INP field is empty. Processing the record then causes the sub-array extraction process to be done on the current VAL array. This can be used to feed a sequence of values into some other record (set INDX=1 and NELM=MALM and read one element out of the VAL field each time).

#### Added windows-x64 target

64-bit binaries for Microsoft Windows platforms can now be built using the target architecture windows-x64, which is also a valid cross-build target for a win32-x86 host. We do not currently support or recommend trying to use 64-bit builds on MinGW or Cygwin.

#### Deleted osf-alpha targets

Kazuro Furukawa has been unable to compile EPICS Base on this target for the last few releases and it's not really needed any more, so the targets have been deleted from this release.

#### Expanded CALC expressions

The calc and calcout records can now accept infix expressions up to 79 characters long, although you have to use long string support to read or write any that are more than 39 characters. The postfix interpreter now sports an integer literal token as well as the double literal one, which reduces the maximum size of a postfix buffer needed for any specific size of infix buffer by a factor of 2/3.

#### Added Apple iOS target architectures

Tom Pelaia II and Mark Engbretson contributed build configuration files to cross-compile Base for Apple's iOS operating system as used in the iPhone and iPad. The target architecture for these is ios-arm, and there is also an ios-x86 target which compiles for the iPhone Simulator running on darwin-x86.

To build these for iOS, uncomment the `CROSS_COMPILER_TARGET_ARCHS` definition in `configure/os/CONFIG_SITE.darwin-x86.Common` and check the settings in `configure/os/CONFIG_SITE.Common.iosCommon`.

#### Dynamic arrays over CA

Dynamic array sizing was developed by Michael Abbott at the 2010 EPICS Codeathon. It permits a CA client to fetch only the currently valid elements of an array by specifying a COUNT of zero to either of the ca_array_get_callback() or ca_create_subscription() routines. It has never before been legal to pass a COUNT of zero to the ca_array_get_callback() routine, but this development does introduce a subtle change to the published API of the ca_create_subscription() routine.

In previous releases a COUNT of zero for a subscription meant use the ca_element_count() for the channel, but from this release it can return fewer elements (never more), at the behest of the server. The number of elements can vary with subsequent array update events, so a client that uses this technique must use the count field of the event_handler_args in its callback function each time it is called to obtain the correct element count from the server. Note that the ca_element_count() value for a channel is only updated at connection time, and supplies the maximum number of elements that the server array variable can hold.

Dynamic arrays are currently only supported by the CA client library and IOC server RSRV, the Perl CA library and the catools programs. The portable CAS does not understand them, and database links that connect over CA do not attempt to use them either. CA clients that try to use this functionality with a server that does not support it will receive the same full-sized zero-filled arrays that previous releases supported.

#### CA over TCP connections

Merged the CA-over-TCP changes developed by Ralph and Jeff at the 2008 EPICS Codeathon for the CA client library and both servers (CAS and RSRV). This adds a new CA configuration variable `CA_NAME_SERVERS` which is used by the client library as a list of host names or addresses of CA servers to be connected to and queried over TCP sockets. This can be used to tunnel CA connections over ssh. See the CA reference manual for more details.

#### Record Types aai and aao

- Fixed bug in memory allocation that caused crashes when linking other records to aai or aao.
- Fixed bug where NELM was modified instead of NORD.
- Added Soft Channel device support.
- Added SIOL link and proper simulation mode for Soft Channel support.
- Added MPST, APST and HASH fields for monitor on change support like in waveform record.

#### New capr.pl script

This Perl program attempts to replicate the behaviour of the IOC command 'dbpr' over Channel Access, printing the fields and values of the named record. Run `capr.pl -h` for usage information.

#### devLib cleanup

- Add VME connect/disconnect IRQ calls to the "virtual os" table
- It is now possible to compile all devLib code on targets without runtime support
- All internal functions are made static. Some were not before.
- Move VME calls to `devLibVME.h`. `devLib.h` contains general defintions and error codes.
- For compatibility `devLib.h` includes `devLibVME.h` unless the macro `NO_DEVLIB_COMPAT` is defined.
- The "virtual os" table was renamed from `pdevLibVirtualOS` to `pdevLibVME` reflecting the fact that other bus types will need seperate tables.
- The "virtual os" table API has been moved to a different header file, `devLibVMEImpl.h`.

#### DTYP and INP/OUT order

The fields DTYP and INP/OUT can now be specified in any order in a database instance (.db) file.

#### Rewrite epicsThreadOnce()

Michael Davidsaver suggested a better implementation of epicsThreadOnce() which makes it possible for all architectures to detect recursive initialization functions. This change also renames the routines to remove the original macro, and fixes some questionable usage in places.

#### Many Record Types

Record types were not setting many 'last value' fields at initialization, assuming that the VAL field would always hold the default value and thus not giving correct initial monitor behavior in some circumstances.

#### Compress Record Type

Fixed a crash when ALG (algorithm) was changed to Average at runtime.

#### configure/RELEASE Enhancements

Variable definitions in a `configure/RELEASE` file may now use the `:=` or `?=` assignment syntax. Release file processing now prints a warning if an include file can't be not found (use `-include` if this is expected) or if an undefined macro is used, and aborts if a circular definition is expanded. The variable `EPICS_HOST_ARCH` can now be used, but target-architecture-specific values must be set in a target-specific `configure/RELEASE` file such as `RELEASE.Common.linux-x86`.

#### VxWorks 6.7 and 6.8 support

Added build support for the latest Wind River releases. This does not include the ability to run on SMP vxWorks systems though, those will need some more extensive modifications.

#### RTEMS 4.10 support

Added support for the latest release of RTEMS. There is no longer a distinction between executive and malloc memory pools. The new mount() API is used.

#### Dependency file generation

Changes to the way in which we generate header dependency files, which are now named with a `.d` suffix instead of `.depends`. We now use the compiler to generate these where possible, and create them in the `O.$(T_A)` directory.

#### Installed file permissions

We now install libraries and other non-executable files with mode 444 rather than 644.

#### CA Perl5: strings and array subscriptions

In some circumstances a string received from CA might not have been properly zero-terminated; this has now been fixed. `CA::create_subscription()` would not accept a zero for the subscription array length; this is now permitted, in the underlying CA API this means use the native length from the server.

#### Linking Readline on Linux

Different Linux distributions have different requirements when linking readline; some need `-lcurses`, others `-lncurses` and others don't require either. The `configure/os/CONFIG_SITE.Common.linux-*` files now make this configuration easy to choose between different settings for the `COMMANDLINE_LIBRARY` variable. If your build fails as it's trying to create the `antelope` binary in the Base directory `src/toolsComm/antelope/O.arch` this is almost certainly the problem. You will need to do a `make rebuild` from the top of Base after fixing the setting of `COMMANDLINE_LIBRARY`.

#### CA Command Line Tools Changes

Three new options were added to the `caget` and `camonitor` utilities, to allow printing float values (rounded) as hex, octal or binary.

## Changes between 3.14.10 and 3.14.11

#### Time provider on Win32

A race condition meant that sometimes EPICS programs (including the internal programs such as flex and antelope) built for Win32 architectures would not start properly on Windows systems that have multiple CPUs. This race has been fixed.

#### Build system dependency change

In order to get GNU make parallel execution (-j option) to work proprely for multiple target architectures, a new dependency had to be added. Now all cross-compiled builds depend on their host build. This means that when a `make crosstargetarch` command is issued, the EPICS_HOST_ARCH target build will be executed first, followed by the crosstargetarch build. Builds done in an O.arch directory will still only build the arch targets however.

#### Channel Access changes

Mantis 361 fix - ca_add_fd_registration users might not receive select wakeup

Mantis 359 fix - ca client library flow control mode related issues

Mantis 357 fix - high throughput multithreaded ca client appl thread could be trapped in lib.

- Discovered during code review. Not seen in practice, but possible

Mantis 285 fix - CA Documentation doesn't distinguish sync groups from ca_put_callback()

Mantis 346 fix - deleting the chid passed in from within put cb handler causes failure

Mantis 284 fix - channel clear protocol warning messages from PCAS

Mantis 237 fix - SEGV from simple CA client during context destroy

Mantis 242 fix - invalid DBR type not screened in client library when doing a put

#### Portable Channel Access Server changes

These changes impact the Gateway (Proxy server) and other servers but not the IOC.

Mantis 360 fix - server is unresponsive for one of its clients, when async io postponed and in flow control mode

Mantis 358 fix - PCAS service snap-in has no way to determine if its a put, or a put calback.

Mantis 356 fix - medm display sometimes hangs until the motor stops when controling motor through gw.

Mantis 350 fix - Incoming data corruption under heavy CAS load.

Mantis 340 fix - leak when performing a read and conversion fails.

Mantis 348 fix - A call to 'assert (item.pList == this)' failed in ../../../../src/cas/generic/st/ioBlocked.cc line 112

Mantis 345 fix - Compilation warning: complaint about missing gddDestructor

Mantis 343 fix - gddScalar::new() operator is not fully thread safe

Mantis 333 fix - resTable::removeAll() does not reset the item count

Mantis 335 fix - excas fails in clearOutstandingReads - maybe requires an R3.13 client

Mantis 329 fix - GW hang, pthread_mutex_lock failed: error Invalid argument message

Mantis 352 fix - gateway hangs temporarily under heavy load on 8-core 64bit RHEL5

- High throughput performance appears to be much better now for both scalars and large arrays, but more testing needed in operational gateways

#### Timer Queue Library

Mantis 336 fix - timer queue should have try / catch block around call to user's expiration callback

Mantis 332 fix - epicsTimerTest failure, windows vista 64, dual core SMP system

#### LibCom

Mantis 328 fixed - orderly shutdown for soft IOC fails

#### Application configure files

The configuration directory files installed by makeBaseApp.pl have been changing in recent releases to make them work more like the files in the Base configuration directory. The CONFIG_APP file has gone, and its functionality is now performed by the CONFIG file which should only be modified in exceptional circumstances. The variables that used to be set in the CONFIG file now appear in the new CONFIG_SITE file, and can be overridden for specific combinations of host and target architectures by creating a file with name matching one of these patterns:

- CONFIG_SITE.<host-arch>.Common
- CONFIG_SITE.Common.<target-arch>
- CONFIG_SITE.<host-arch>.<target-arch>

Note that the setting for `CHECK_RELEASE` in the CONFIG_SITE files is not compatible with previous releases of Base; if you are creating an application that has to work with earlier releases, move the `CHECK_RELEASE` setting back to the configure/Makefile where it used to live.

The RELEASE file(s) can now define the variable `RULES` if you wish the application to use build rules from some module other than EPICS_BASE. The rules must appear in a configure subdirectory just like they do in Base.

#### Compile-time assertions

A new macro has been added to epicsAssert.h which performs assertion checks at compile-time. `STATIC_ASSERT(expr)` can only be used when `expr` can be evaluated by the compiler, and will cause the compilation to fail if it evaluates to false. The resulting compiler error message might appear a little obscure, but it does provide some explanation and contains the line where the failure was discovered. Future versions of the C++ standard will probably contain a similar facility `static_assert(expr, message)` but will require compiler support to be implemented.

#### Several changes made to dbDefs.h

The definitions for the macros `YES`, `NO`, `NONE`, `min()` and `max()` have been deleted. `YES` and `NO` have been replaced by `menuYesNoYES` and `menuYesNoNO` from the menuYesNo.h file where they were used in several record types. The other macros were not being used anywhere in Base, sncseq or Asyn.

The macro `LOCAL` that was a synonym for `static` is now deprecated and will be deleted in R3.15, please adjust your code to use the latter keyword. All uses of the `READONLY` macro from shareLib.h must now be replaced by the keyword `const` as the macro has been deleted.

The dbDefs.h file was unnecessarily including various other libCom header files which may have to be manually added to out-of-tree source files that relied on this. The general rule for header files is that a header should only include other headers that are needed for its own inclusion in any source file. The `#include` statements that might need to be added are:

- #include <stdarg.h>
- #include "errlog.h"
- #include "errMdef.h"
- #include "ellLib.h"
- #include "epicsTypes.h"

A new macro `CONTAINER(pointer, type, member)` has been added which calculates and returns a pointer to the parent structure when given a pointer to a member, the structure type and the name of the member in that structure. On GNU compilers the type of the pointer is checked to ensure that it matches the member, so code using this macro should be built using gcc for additional confidence.

#### Long-deprecated errSymFind() function deleted

This functionality was replaced by errSymLookup() many releases ago.

#### Perl CA library shutdown

The Perl CA library has been modified to properly flush the Channel Access I/O queues when a program using the library exits.

#### bi, bo, mbbi, mbbo ENUM string fields

The existing Channel Access protocol transports 26 bytes for each ENUM string, but the fields used to hold ENUM strings in the discrete record types were configured to be 16 (mbbi/mbbo) or 20 (bi/bo) bytes long. These have all been increased to match the CA limit.

#### Use of SIGALRM disabled

Previous releases that supported HPUX required that EPICS trap and be able to generate the SIGALRM signal in order to break out of a blocking socket system call on those systems (Posix only). There were two API routines that had to be called by any code using sockets to properly support this. Since we no longer support HPUX this code is no longer required, and as it breaks the Posix timer interface on Linux it has been disabled in this release. The API routines now do nothing on all platforms, and will be removed before the 3.15 Release of Base.

#### Universal Binaries on Darwin

It is now possible to configure Base on Darwin to build universal binaries containing an installation-specific choice of 32- and 64-bit CPU architectures. This is controlled through the definition of the ARCH_CLASS variable in the configure/os/CONFIG_SITE.Common.<arch> file for the particular target architecture you are using (darwin-ppc, darwin-x86 or darwin-ppcx86). There are comments and example settings in those files. Note that to my knowledge EPICS Base has not been thoroughly tested on the 64-bit darwin architectures.

#### HPUX, SGI and VMS files deleted

We have not supported or tested EPICS Base on HPUX for several releases; the support files for this and other unsupported operating systems have been removed.

#### PINI Processing and PHAS values

The PINI field now has its own menu type with four more choices, `RUN`, `RUNNING`, `PAUSE` and `PAUSED`. The earlier `NO` and `YES` values for this field remain as before and cause the same processing as before. The new values cause records to be processed during the announcement of the new `initHookAtIocRun`, `initHookAfterIocRunning`, `initHookAtIocPause` and `initHookAfterIocPaused` states respectively.

Records with `PINI=YES` will be processed during the `iocBuild` stage of `iocInit`, follwed by records with `PINI=RUN` during the `iocRun` stage and records with `PINI=RUNNING` during the `initHookAfterIocRunning` stage. If an `iocPause` command is given, any records with `PINI=PAUSE` will be processed at the `initHookAtIocPause` stage followed by records with `PINI=PAUSED` will be processed at the `initHookAfterIocPaused` stage. A subsequent `iocRun` command causes the `PINI=RUN` and `PINI=RUNNING` records to be processed again.

The PHAS field now controls the order in which records are processed as a result of the PINI mechanism; within each stage, lower values of PHAS are scanned before higher ones.

#### Additional initHook states

Several new initHook states have been added which are announced while the IOC is being paused or restarted. The original states remain unchanged, although a couple of the later ones are deprecated where using the new states makes more sense. The enum that defines all the states is now:

>     typedef enum {
>         initHookAtIocBuild = 0,         /* Start of iocBuild/iocInit commands */
>         initHookAtBeginning,
>         initHookAfterCallbackInit,
>         initHookAfterCaLinkInit,
>         initHookAfterInitDrvSup,
>         initHookAfterInitRecSup,
>         initHookAfterInitDevSup,
>         initHookAfterInitDatabase,
>         initHookAfterFinishDevSup,
>         initHookAfterScanInit,
>         initHookAfterInitialProcess,
>         initHookAfterCaServerInit,
>         initHookAfterIocBuilt,          /* End of iocBuild command */

>         initHookAtIocRun,               /* Start of iocRun command */
>         initHookAfterDatabaseRunning,
>         initHookAfterCaServerRunning,
>         initHookAfterIocRunning,        /* End of iocRun/iocInit commands */

>         initHookAtIocPause,             /* Start of iocPause command */
>         initHookAfterCaServerPaused,
>         initHookAfterDatabasePaused,
>         initHookAfterIocPaused,         /* End of iocPause command */

>     /* Deprecated states, provided for backwards compatibility.
>      * These states are announced at the same point they were before,
>      * but will not be repeated if the IOC gets paused and restarted.
>      */
>         initHookAfterInterruptAccept,   /* After initHookAfterDatabaseRunning */
>         initHookAtEnd,                  /* Before initHookAfterIocRunning */
>     } initHookState;

The two deprecated states will only ever be announced once, whereas the newer ones will repeat as often as the `iocPause` and `iocRun` commands are executed.

#### Soft Channel ai device support and SMOO

The (probably unwritten) rules for ai device support have always required that any device support which sets the VAL field and returns "2" should also perform any other operations normally performed by the ai's convert() routine. In practice very few devices did this, but there are some which makes it impossible to move that smoothing function into the body of the record. This change adds the support for SMOO filtering to the soft channel device support for the ai record. The filter is short-circuited when a link recovers from a failure.

#### New link flags for alarm severity/status inheritance

Two new options have been introduced as alternatives to the existing NMS and MS flags: MSI (Maximize Severity INVALID) and MSS (Maximize Severity and Status).

When a link is flagged MSI the receiving record inherits the target's alarm severity just as it does with the MS flag, but only if that severity is INVALID.

When a link is flagged MSS the receiving record inherits the target's alarm status as well as its severity, thereby preserving the alarm status through MSS chains instead of setting that status to LINK.

#### Analog records get_alarm_double() semantics changed

The get_alarm_double() routine in several record types has been changed to make it easier for CA client applications to display the correct warning and alarm limits for a record.

Originally these routines would always return the current values from the associated alarm limit fields, but now they will return epicsNAN (not-a-number) instead if the severity field of the corresponding limit is NO_ALARM. This allows CA clients to suppress the display of unused limits.

#### New math constants epicsNAN and epicsINF

Two new math constants have been added to epicsMath.h: `epicsNAN` (not a number) and `epicsINF` (infinity).

#### New event type DBE_PROPERTY

A new event type (flag in the Channel Access event mask) has been added to support subscriptions that get events whenever a property of the PV changes. This will allow clients to get notified on changes of control limits, graphical limits, state strings etc.

The CA commandline tool camonitor and the CA Perl interface support the new event type. As a first working example, the mbbi and mbbo records have been extended to send a DBE_PROPERTY event when their status strings are modified. A more general mechanism to specify sending DBE_PROPERTY events through the DBD file will appear in 3.15.

Client application developers are encouraged to start using DBE_PROPERTY subscriptions to fetch channel attribute data.

#### Channel Access command line tool changes

The caget/caput/camonitor programs in src/catools now use '\' escape sequences for non-printable characters.

They provide a new option `-F` to set an output field separator to be used instead of the default space character.

#### New functions for escaping non-printables in epicsString.h

The existing routines used to escape non-printable characters have been replaced by a new set of functions that are prototyped in the epicsString.h header file:

    int epicsStrnRawFromEscaped(char *outbuf, size_t outsize, const char *inbuf, size_t inlen);
    epicsShareFunc int epicsStrnEscapedFromRaw(char *outbuf, size_t outsize, const char *inbuf, size_t inlen);
    epicsShareFunc size_t epicsStrnEscapedFromRawSize(const char *inbuf, size_t inlen);

Both conversion functions take the output buffer (and its size), and the input buffer (and its size) as argument. They will convert non-printable characters from/to their '\'-escaped versions. The third function scans a raw input string and returns the number of characters needed for the escaped version.

The existing function interfaces will be kept for compatibility, but their further use is deprecated.

#### epicsRingBytes

Partial puts are not supported. An attempt to put more bytes than currently free will be rejected.

#### Long string support

The IOC now provides support for strings longer than 40 characters through Channel Access in a manner that is fully backwards compatible with older versions of the CA library, although not all CA clients can make use of this at the moment.

Adding the suffix '$' to the field name of an IOC PV name (through either Channel Access or Database Access) causes the native type of that field to be reported as an array of DBF_CHAR, as long as the field type is DBF_STRING, DBF_INLINK, DBF_OUTLINK or DBF_FWDLINK. It is then possible to use a DBF_CHAR array to read, write and monitor values from that field, and the 40 character string length limit imposed by the DBF_STRING type is replaced by the amount of storage allocated for the string on the IOC (for link fields the limit is related to the maximum length of a record name).

The caget/caput/camonitor programs in src/catools can now use long strings by adding the command-line option `-S` which causes them to handle an array of DBF_CHAR as a string. Both MEDM and EDM can already present such DBF_CHAR arrays as strings in their text widgets (although you do have to configure the widget to format it as text), so this solution already works with some CA clients, although by no means all clients support it yet.

#### Darwin no longer uses _environ

The Darwin version of epicsEnvShow (in src/libCom/osi/os/Darwin/osdEnv.c) now uses _NSGetEnviron() to get the pointer to the environment string table.

#### gpHash argument type changed

Out-of-tree users of libCom's gpHash routines should change the type of their pointer to their gpHash table to avoid compiler warnings. The first argument to all of the `gph...()` routines used to be a `void *` (or a pointer to one for `gphInit()`) but is now a `struct gphPvt *` (`struct gphPvt **` for `gphInit`) for better type safety. The definition of the structure has not been made public, although a declaration is provided in `gpHash.h`.

#### New hash functions in epicsString.h

The existing routines used to hash strings have been replaced by a new pair of functions that are prototyped in the epicsString.h header file:

    unsigned int epicsStrHash(const char *str, unsigned int seed);
    unsigned int epicsMemHash(const char *str, size_t length, unsigned int seed);

The seed argument should normally be zero, but can be used to chain several hash calculations together to create a single value from multiple strings or memory buffers. The resulting value should be masked with the appropriate number of bits for the desired hash width. These functions both use the same algorithm, and on most CPUs should be faster that the previous hash functions used in Base. Use epicsStrHash() on nil-terminated strings, epicsMemHash() if the data might contain zero bytes.

#### Support for dynamic loading

The existing OSI epicsFindSymbol API has been expanded to support dynamic loading of binary files, on architectures where the facilities necessary to implement this are provided (currently Linux, Solaris, Darwin and vxWorks). A new but optional command is provided for iocsh which calls the new `epicsLoadLibrary()` function. In order to include this command in an IOC, you must include the `dlload.dbd` file; the command will then be installed when the IOC's `ioc_registerRecordDeviceDriver` routine is run.

To dynamically load a new routine for use with the sub or aSub record types, you also have to register the subroutines at runtime. You can use the EPICS build system and the registerRecordDeviceDriver.pl script to write the necessary code for you, you just have to create a .dbd file that declares the functions in the library and add the derived .cpp file to the library sources. The product of your build should be a `LOADABLE_LIBRARY` to ensure that the correct linker commands are used.

After a shared library is loaded into the IOC using the new iocsh `dlload` command you will usually have to run the `lib_registerRecordDeviceDriver` routine to register the components that were mentioned in the .dbd file. After registration the functions can be found as normal by setting the SNAM field of your sub or aSub record instances. Once loaded, shared libraries cannot be unloaded again as there is no way to be sure that some other part of the IOC doesn't still have a pointer to something inside the module.

Components provided by a shared library can include functions for sub and aSub records, iocsh commands, time providers and sequence programs. Record and device support code may be possible, but there are complications in creating the .dbd file so we don't recommend it yet. It is possible to load libraries after iocInit, but the code is not re-entrant so should only be used from the main thread. Adding new record types or device support will not work after iocInit.

#### Perl5 CA library

The `CA::put` and `CA::put_callback` methods now use the native type of the PV to determine which data type to use in all cases; earlier versions looked at the Perl data type for single-valued PVs, but this was truncating some double values into integers.

#### generalTime and epicsTime updates

Allow time providers to supply timestamps in interrupt context. A pair of new API routines in epicsTime.h `epicsTimeGetCurrentInt()` and `epicsTimeGetEventInt()` will check the most recently successful current-time or event-time provider and forward requests to the routine registered by that provider, if any. The priority list is not traversed, so if the latest provider has not registered an interrupt-safe routine by calling `generalTimeAddIntCurrentProvider()` or `generalTimeAddIntEventProvider()` as appropriate, these API routines will return failure. The resulting timestamp is not protected against backwards movement either.

Added a routine `generalTimeHighestCurrentName()` which returns the name of the highest prority registered current time provider. Comparing this with the name returned by `generalTimeCurrentProviderName()` permits an alarm to be generated if an IOC is not able to use the time provider it was designed to use. The General Time stringin device support keyword `@TOPTCP` has been added to make this name available in a database record.

The following routines have been renamed, but the old name may still be used since a macro with the old name has been added:

> Old Name | New Name
> --- | ---
> `generalTimeCurrentTpRegister` | `generalTimeRegisterCurrentProvider`
> `generalTimeEventTpRegister` | `generalTimeRegisterEventProvider`
> `generalTimeCurrentTpName` | `generalTimeCurrentProviderName`
> `generalTimeEventTpName` | `generalTimeEventProviderName`

The routine `generalTimeCreateSyncTimer()` was not useful in practice due to time provider initialization issues, nor was its implementation protected properly for use on SMP systems so it has been deleted. The deprecated and empty `synchronize()` method from the epicsTime class has also gone.

#### RTEMS Release

RTEMS release 4.9.2 or newer is required. EPICS now configures RTEMS to use unified executive/malloc memory pools if available (RTEMS 4.10 and up).

#### RTEMS

RTEMS stack sizes have been reduced. This allows more clients in machines with limited memory.

RTEMS file descriptor allocation has been increased.

#### Added record aliases

Record definitions can declare their own alias names along with the field values, or a separate alias statement can also be used:

>     record(ai,"canonicalName")
>     {
>        alias("firstAlias")
>     }
>     alias("canonicalName","secondAlias")

Aliases can only be created for records that have already been loaded by the IOC, although they don't have to appear in the same .db file. A CA client can discover that a record name is an alias by fetching its .NAME field, which will always return the canonical name for the record. These new routines in the dbStaticLib library handle aliases:

>     long dbCreateAlias(DBENTRY *pdbentry, const char *paliasName);
>     int dbIsAlias(DBENTRY *pdbentry);
>     int dbGetNAliases(DBENTRY *pdbentry)
>     long dbDeleteAliases(DBENTRY *pdbentry);

Aliases are located using the existing record instance API. Use `dbIsAlias()` to test whether a record is actually an alias or not. Aliasees can be deleted like record instances using `dbDeleteRecord()` which will not delete the underlying record if the DBENTRY refers to the alias (deleting a record instance does delete all its aliases though). The `dbDeleteAliases()` routine deletes all aliases of the selected record, and will return an error if used on an alias.

Any out-of-tree tools that scan through all the records in the database using `dbFirstRecord()` and `dbNextRecord()` may need modifying to avoid duplicate processing of aliased record instances. Also note that the set of info items for a record instance are not shared with its aliases, which each have their own info item namespace.

#### Added support for RTEMS-mvme2700

Supplied by Matt Rippa <mrippa@gemini.edu>. Should work for MVME2400, too.

#### CA Commandline tools: priority support

A new option `-p` was added to all Channel Access command line tools to allow specifying the CA priority.

#### Linux: Use libncurses

Changed linux builds to link against libncurses instead of libcurses (suggested by Peter Zumbruch).

## Changes between 3.14.9 and 3.14.10

#### GCC_EXEC_PREFIX references removed from configuration files

Definition of GCC_EXEC_PREFIX removed from CONFIG.CrossCommon and unexport of GCC_EXEC_PREFIX removed from vxWorks and RTEMS builds.

#### RTEMS Release

RTEMS release 4.9 or newer is required. If you are using the RTEMS NFS time provider you need to use RTEMS 4.9.1 or newer.

#### RTEMS epicsEventWaitWithTimeout

Correctly return epicsEventWaitTimeout when event is not pending and timeout value is 0.0 seconds.

#### epicsRingPointer, epicsRingBytes

Fixed a race condition exposed by compilers with more agressive optimization.

#### camonitor timestamp support

The `camonitor` program now supports the ability to display both server- and client-side timestamps, simultaneously if requested. The old command-line options `-r` `-i` and `-I` that controlled the timestamp display have been replaced with a new `-t` option that takes additional argument letters to control which timestamp sources and output format should be used.

See the Command Line Tools section of the Channel Access reference manual or run `camonitor -h` for a summary of the options.

#### New "stdio" stringout device support

A new device support has been added that allows a stringout record to output one-line messages to stdout, stderr or the errlog subsystem. Use DTYP="stdio" and set the OUT field to one of "@stdout", "@stderr" or "@errlog" to control the message destination. A newline is appended to the contents of the record's VAL field when printing.

#### General Time subsystem

The way in which EPICS gets the time has been significantly revised since R3.14.9 with the introduction of the General Time subsystem. Two kinds of pluggable time providers are now supported, which return either the current time or the latest timestamp of a numbered Time Event from a hardware event system. All IOCs must have at least one Current Time provider, but Event Time providers are optional. The General Time subsystem guarantees that the timestamps returned never step backwards, even when switching between time providers.

A Current Time Provider reports the current wall-clock time if it is able to when asked; if it can't it says so, and the time subsystem will then ask the next provider in its list and so on until someone replies with the time. Event Time providers are handled similarly, except that they are asked for the timestamp associated with a particular Time Event number rather than the current wall-clock time. The registered time providers can be listed using the IOC command `generalTimeReport(int interest)` and some time providers also have their own separate report commands.

Different target architectures come with different default Current Time providers in Base. The Unix-like architectures rely on the underlying operating system clock, which normally involves running something like ntpd as a separate process. The real-time operating systems vxWorks and RTEMS install two Current Time providers; the native operating system clock at the lowest priority (this provider includes a task to periodically reset the operating system clock from a higher priority time provider), and an NTP time provider which synchronizes the underlying operating sytem tick timer with an NTP server. Microsoft Windows targets using the Win32 API use a Windows-specific time provider which contains a built-in PLL.

There are no Event Time providers included with Base except for an optional "Last Resort" Event provider which can be installed if a site wants to be sure that every Time Event number will have a recent timestamp associated with it even if the hardware event system goes down. The Last Resort Event Time provider returns the current time for every Time Event number. To install this provider, run the command `installLastResortEventProvider` from your IOC startup script.

Additional information about General Time and the time providers included with Base can be found in the IOC Application Developers Guide for R3.14.10, sections 9.7 and 20.6. General Time was originally written by David H. Thompson and Sheng Peng at ORNL, subsequently worked on by Babak Kalantari and Timo Korhonen of PSI, and merged into Base by Peter Denison from Diamond. Andrew Johnson provided input into the design at various points and made various code revisions after the merge.

#### New ioc/dllPath.bat file for Win32

When creating an IOC with one of the win32-x86 target architectures, a file `dllPath.bat` is now generated in the iocBoot/iocxxx directory which can be run to adjust the PATH variable to include all of the support application bin directories which might contain DLLs that the IOC uses. The PATH also includes the IOC application's own bin directory, which simplifies starting up the IOC as well.

#### New epicsEndian.h header

Any C or C++ code can `#include "epicsEndian.h"` which defines four macros. The main one is EPICS_BYTE_ORDER and is defined to be either EPICS_ENDIAN_LITTLE or EPICS_ENDIAN_BIG (these are numeric constants 1234 and 4321 respectively). The fourth macro is called EPICS_FLOAT_WORD_ORDER and is needed because some ARM systems use mixed-endian format floats.

Note that just knowing the CPU's endianness doesn't tell you the complete story about the byte order that your hardware registers will present to the CPU; byte swapping is often performed automatically by PCI to VME bridge devices and by other kinds of bus converter, so "portable" drivers aren't always.

#### Array Subroutine Record added (aSub)

A heavily modified version of Andy Foster's genSub record type has been added, called the aSub (Array Subroutine) record type. The new name is so that genSub records can continue to be used in IOCs that need those features that have changed or been removed in creating the aSub record type. The main differences between genSub and aSub are:

- The fields `UFA..UFU`, `UFVA..UFVU`, `TOVA..TOVU` and `VERS` have been removed.
- The `INPA..INPU` and `OUTA..OUTU` link fields can now be changed at runtime.
- A new set of fields `NEA..NEU` and `NEVA..NEVU` have been added which hold the current element count for the associated input and ouput fields. These count fields ensure that putting an array to the `A..U` or `VALA..VALU` fields cannot permanently shorten the number of elements that the array fields can hold.
- The default value for the `FTA..FTU` and `FTVA..FTVU` fields has been changed from "STRING" to "DOUBLE", to reduce the memory footprint of unneeded fields.
- aSub subroutines can be asynchronous, using the usual method of setting prec->pact to `TRUE` before returning and arranging for the record's `process()` routine to be called to signal completion. The output links are not written until the asynchronous completion callback, and input links are not read at asnychronous completion.

#### epicsTimeEventDeviceTime support for soft channel input records

The Soft Channel device support for all input record types now supports the fetching of the timestamp along with the data when the record's TSE field is set to epicsTimeEventDeviceTime (-2). This works for both DB and CA links. However the timestamp will only be fetched if the record's TSEL link is not set, so you can't point TSEL to another record to read the -2 value into TSE (that's because to make this work properly would require that the TSEL link be read twice every time the record processes; once in the soft channel device support, and again when the record type calls `recGblGetTimeStamp()`.

#### devLib: CR/CSR Support added

Thanks to Eric Bjorklund for providing a patch to devLib that gives access to the CR/CSR address space (for those on a VME64 CPU with appropriate support from your BSP).

#### ascaStats, dbcaStats, seqcaStats

Query routines have been added that count CA client connections made by Access Security rules and Database Channel Access links. A similar routine will be added to version 2.0.12 of the sequencer for counting sequence program CA links:

>     void ascaStats(int *pchans, int *pdiscon);
>     void dbcaStats(int *pchans, int *pdiscon);
>     void seqcaStats(int *pchans, int *pdiscon);

The pchans parameter should point to integer storage which will be set to the total number of channels open, while the value at the pdiscon pointer will be set to the number of channels currently disconnected. Prototypes for these routines can be found in the header files asCa.h and dbCaTest.h (seqCom.h for the sequencer).

#### Messages from errlog

J. Lewis Muir provided patches to ensure that all messages printed on the IOC's console by the errlog subsystem are sent to the stderr output stream rather than to stdout.

#### ipToAsciiProxy

This thread calls upon vendor libraries which may use significant amounts of stack. Account for this by providing the ipToAsciiProxy thread with an epicsThreadStackBig stack.

#### iocBuild, iocRun and iocPause

These three new commands are mainly intended for use with DESY's redundant IOC software but they might have some uses for others too. `iocBuild` allow an IOC to be initialized and set up ready for a quick start without actually making it live; a subsequent `iocRun` will bring it to the same state as an `iocInit` would have. Once an IOC has been started (using either `iocInit` or `iocBuild` + `iocRun`) the `iocPause` command can be used to freeze it, disconnecting its PVs and stopping all scan activity. The `iocRun` command restarts the IOC from this state.

While this might seem like a useful thing to be able to do, we have not tested it on IOCs using real-world I/O, and it is not unlikely that pausing an operational IOC could cause irremdial havok to any device support, sequence programs and other software which is not expecting it, so use with care and make sure you test it first. An IOC that is kept paused for more than a minute or two could fill up its network buffers and become impossible to restart without rebooting.

#### IOC Support on 64-bit archs

A fairly significant number of changes have been that were necessary to allow the IOC code to run properly on 64-bit CPU architectures where a `long` is 64 bits wide. This was not as simple as replacing every instance of the typename `long` with `epicsInt32` because that would have broken a lot of external code unnecessarily. The generated record.h file now uses the typenames from epicsTypes.h to declare record fields, thus field sizes are the same on both 32- and 64-bit platforms (on 64-bit, a `DBF_LONG` does not map to `long` but to `int`). This change does not affect status return values, which are still implemented using the native `long` type for the platform.

#### Conversion of empty strings to character types

While changing the conversion routines in db/dbConvert.c and db/dbFastLinkConv.c to support 64-bit architectures as described above, it was noticed that an empty string converts to the value 0 for all types other than `DBF_CHAR` and `DBF_UCHAR` where it converts to the ASCII character `'0'`, value 0x30. Since these types are usually used for storing small integers or boolean values rather than ASCII characters, it was decided that this conversion is wrong so it has been changed to match the other numeric conversions.

#### epicsShareAPI deprecated inside IOC

APIs that are intended for use inside the IOC, the `epicsShareAPI` attribute is slowly being removed. This keyword is only used on MS Windows where it indicates to the compiler that the function should use Pascal calling conventions rather than C ones, and was necessary to be able to call such functions from MS Visual Basic. APIs for use by client code (CA and libCom) will generally retain the attribute if they already had it.

#### Record types ANSIfied

Thanks to John Hammonds at the EPICS Codeathon, the record type implementations have been converted from K&R to ANSI C prototypes.

#### Added Perl5 CA library

Base now provides a CA client library interface for Perl5 scripts in `src/cap5` and includes as examples some implementations of the catools programs written in Perl. Documentation on how to use the Perl library is available in `base/html/CA.html` after the build completes. This library cannot currently be built on Windows targets.

#### IOC ignores SIGHUP

iocInit() installs an signal handler for ignoring SIGHUP. This fixes a problem that appeared with soft IOCs run as a procServ child on some Linux systems, where a disconnecting CA client would cause the soft IOC to get a SIGHUP and exit.

#### Build System Reorganization

Several changes have been made to the build system, although these changes should not affect the contents of `Makefile`s or any applications using Base. They do however require that the version of GNU Make used be 3.81 or later. These changes are briefly:

- A new tool is provided that expands out `@VAR@` macros. By default it knows the value of `@TOP@`, `@ARCH@` and any paths defined in the application's `configure/RELEASE` file such as @EPICS_BASE@, but additional macros can be defined in the `Makefile` that uses it by adding to the `EXPAND_VARS` variable like the example following, which creates an `@EXE@` macro that expands out to `.exe` on windows targets and to nothing on other platforms:

        EXPAND_VARS += EXE=$(EXE)

  Files that contain `@VAR@` macros to be substituted must have an at sign `@` as the last character of their name and be listed in the `EXPAND` variable of their `Makefile`. The expanded file will have the same name as the original with the `@` suffix removed, and is then available for compiling or installing using any other build mechanism.

- Support has been added for installing Perl library modules. The `Makefile` variable `PERL_MODULES` can be set to a list of names of files to be installed into the `$(TOP)/lib/perl` directory. The above macro expansion facility can then be used in perl programs that use these libraries to set the perl search path to include that directory. The syntax for this is as follows:

        use lib '@TOP@/lib/perl';
        use MyModule;

  The filenames listed in `PERL_MODULES` can include subdirectory path components and the build system will preserve these in the installed result.

- The Perl scripts that were in `configure/tools` are now found in the new `src/tools` directory, and get installed into the appropriate `bin/hostarch` directory at build time. Some of these scripts are no longer required and have been removed, and others are being modified to make them more modular, extracting common routines into perl library modules.
- The generated files that were created by running make in the `configure` directory are no longer required, having been replaced by additional mechanisms inside the build system files. This removes a common source of build problems.

#### Access security configuration files

Rules and macros were added for creating an *.acf file, access security configuration file, from an *.acs file using the C preprocessor. An .acs file has the same format as an .acf file with the addition of '#include "<filename>"' and '#define <macroname> <value>' lines. The C preprocessor includes the #include files and performs the macro substitutions.

#### Changes to subArray record error behaviour

In previous versions the INDX field of a subArray record was set to zero if the array that it reads through its INP field became empty. From this release the INDX field will only be modified by the record's process() routine if INDX is greater than MALM. In the event that the no data is read through the INP link, the subArray's UDF field will be set and a UDF/INVALID alarm will be generated.

#### scanOnce(precord) argument

The argument to `scanOnce()` is a pointer to the record to be scanned. This used to be a `void *` pointer, but is now a `dbCommon *` pointer. Record types written in C that call `scanOnce()` will still compile without having to change the source code (although a comiler warning may be generated), but any record types implemented in C++ will have to be fixed to cast the record instance pointer to a `dbCommon *` instead.

#### New Architectures

The following target architectures have been added to this release, although the core developers lack the ability to test all of them:

- linux-cris
  - linux-cris_v10
  - linux-cris_v32
- linux-xscale_be (tested with MOXA UC-7408 Plus)

#### Added compile line header search directories

The compile line list of directories to search for header files now includes O.Common and the existing os subdirectories of SRC_DIRS <src_dir>/os/<OS_CLASS>, <src_dir>/os/posix, and <src_dir>/os/default.

#### Parallel make now supported

The `-j jobs` option is now supported for users of GNU Make version 3.80 or later. The `-j` option speeds up building by allowing multiple jobs (build commands) to be run in parallel; this will have the most effect on hosts with multiple symmetric processors, but can also speed up uni-processor builds. Builds still work as before when run without `-j`, but using the `-j` option with an earlier version of GNU make will fail since this relies on the `$(eval)` function which was introduced in GNU Make 3.80.

The `-j` option has been tested with this version of EPICS Base, but it may not work for Extensions or IOC applications unless their dependancies are specified correctly.

New DIRS directory dependancy specifications are required to determine the directory build order with `-j`. For example if we have 2 directories, src and configure, and the configure directory must be built before the src directory, the Makefile should contain:

>      DIRS = configure src
>      src_DEPEND_DIRS = configure

The directory dependancy specifications are only needed when `-j` is given to make. Without the `-j` the order of directories in the DIRS definition determines the build order as before.

#### Breakpoint tables

Some sites may be using breakpoint tables that are not monotonic in one direction. In R3.14.9 both axes of a breaktable had to be monotonic; a table will not be loaded if either the raw or engineering values change direction. There are situations where this check is too strict however, so a new variable named `dbBptNotMonotonic` has been added that disables this check if its value is non-zero.

Breakpoint tables are often included in an IOC's .dbd file, but they can also be loaded from a .db file (although VDCT will probably not understand them). Since there is no way to set the above variable inside the `dbExpand` program that expands out an IOC's .dbd file (which also rejects non-monotonic breaktables), all applications that use such tables will have to load those tables separately, using either `dbLoadDatabase` or `dbLoadRecords`.

#### RTEMS on processors with MOTLOAD bootstrap

Added support for more 'Global Environment Variables'. Documented in the EPICS/RTEMS tutorial.

#### RTEMS on processors with PPCBUG bootstrap

Set NTP server as well as nameserver and log server from server bootstrap settting.

#### RTEMS compiler flags

The -ansi flag has been removed from CONFORM_FLAGS_STRICT and CONFORM_CXXFLAGS_STRICT -- there are many useful library functions whose prototypes are disabled when -ansi is used.

#### SEL record (Mantis #295)

The value in the SELN field was not being checked against its limit, potentially causing a crash on some architectures.

#### Calc expressions

`VAL` keyword
  The keyword `VAL` is now supported in CALC expressions. In a calc or calcout record it returns the current contents of the VAL field (which can be written to by a CA put, so it might not be the result from last time the expression was evaluated). In Access Security expressions it returns the result of the previous evaluation of the rule expression. In other uses of the calcPerform engine, the result may not be well-defined.
`MIN`, `MAX`, `FINITE`, `ISNAN` functions
  Thanks to Benjamin Franksen these functions can now accept any number of arguments, thus `MAX(A,B,C,D,E,F,G,H,I,J,K,L)` and `MIN(A)`are now legal expressions. The `FINITE` function returns a non-zero value as long as none of its arguments are NaN or Inf values, while `ISNAN` returns non-zero if any of its arguments are NaN values.

#### softIoc now starts shell by default

To prevent an interactive shell from being started, give a `-S` (upper case) option on the softIoc command line. The old `-s` (lower case) option is still accepted, but now does nothing.

#### Error messages from dbLoadRecords

Some error messages output by the dbLoadRecords parser should be easier to understand, having been reworded to report what was actually the problem rather than just which routine found the error...

#### Command registration for iocsh

The iocsh command registration data and routines have been moved out of the `src/iocsh` directory (which now no longer exists) into a file for each library. At the same time, the iocsh implementation code has been moved into libCom. There is no `libiocsh.a` library created any more, so any applications (such as the sequencer) which explicitly list `iocsh` in a `xxx_LIBS` definition in their Makefile(s) will need to be modified to have the library name removed. In most cases though the library will have been included using the `EPICS_BASE_IOC_LIBS` or `EPICS_BASE_HOST_LIBS` variables that are set in Base, and thus no changes will be needed.

## Changes between 3.14.8.2 and 3.14.9

#### Cygwin Builds

The cygwin make version 3.81-1 does not handle MS-DOS path names and thus does not work for EPICS builds with RELEASE file definitions. From the discussion on the cygwin mailing list it looks like this will be fixed in make version 3.82. In the meantime make version 3.80 or a fixed make can be downloaded from this website.

#### New Architectures

The following target architectures have been added to this release, although the core developers lack the ability to test all of them:

- darwin-ppcx86
- darwin-x86
- freebsd-x86
- freebsd-x86_64
- interix-x86
- linux-arm
- osf-alpha
- osf-alpha-gnu
- vxWorks-mpc8540
- vxWorks-ppc604_altivec

#### vxWorks compiler optimization level

Wind River Systems do not support optimization levels beyond `-O2` for vxWorks applications compiled using gcc, so optimized vxWorks builds are now set to `-O2` only (we currently use `-O3` everywhere else).

#### cas

There was a bug in the portable channel access server library that prevented the PV Gateway from being able to handle and pass on alarm acknowledgements from the EPICS Alarm Handler ALH. This has been fixed in this release and should only require that the gatewey be recomplied against this version of Base.

#### dbLoadTemplate

The parser for the substitutions file accepted by dbLoadTemplate() has been revised, and is now stricter than it used to be — unmatched characters that were accepted and discarded without warning before will now generate errors. The quote characters at the two ends of a quoted string value must now match, although either single or double quotes can be used. Escaped characters inside a quoted string should pass safely through to the underlying dbLoadRecord() command. The characters permitted in a bareword parameter (i.e. a filename or value that is not inside quotes) have been reduced from the overly wide set allowed before; the permitted characters now comprise: `a-z A-Z 0-9 _ - + : . / \ [ ] < > ;`

#### Escaped characters in record fields

Field value strings loaded from a database file by dbLoadRecords() can now use C89-compatible escaped character codes such as \", \', \t, \n, \064 and \x7e. The parser also now checks for and reports strings that have a newline character in them as an error - if you want a newline in a field, use the \n escaped version. These escapes only apply to the value part of a field() entry in .db file though; no other strings have escape codes translated.

#### libCom/test and db/test

These test programs are no longer installed into the bin/arch directory. Running all these programs on any host architecture is as simple as typing `make runtests` in the base top level directory or in any appropriate subdirectory. The runtests target uses Perl's Test::Harness module to execute all of the test programs and summarize the result. It is also possible to run individual tests as desired, by executing them from the relevent O.<arch> directory; the program output is designed to be comprehensible to humans.

For vxWorks and RTEMS, a test harness has been created that will run all of the test programs in a suitable order. At a vxWorks target shell, type:

>     ld </path/to/base/bin/vxWorks-arch/vxTestHarness.munch
>     cd "/path/to/writable/directory"
>     epicsRunLibComTests

On RTEMS, boot the `bin/arch/rtemsTestHarness` binary.

You may wish to capture the output from running these to a file to more easily check the results, since there is no wrapper program to collect and summarize the results of the individual test programs.

#### Breakpoint tables

The handling of breakpoint table data has been reworked. It is now possible to give table data in either ascending or descending order, and the breakpoint data may have a negative slope such that the engineering values increase while the raw values decrease and vice versa. The only restriction on the data is that is must be monatonically increasing or decreasing, so you can't use a breakpoint table for curves that have local minima or maxima. This restriction is checked for when the breakpoint table is loaded.

#### Support for vxWorks 6

The build configuration support for vxWorks 6.x has changed significantly, having been recombined with the older vxWorks 5.x support. The two target architectures `vxWorks6-mv2100` and `vxWorks6-mv5100` have been removed; IOCs built under vxWorks 6.x using these architectures must revert to the original `vxWorks-ppc603_long` and `vxWorks-ppc604_long` architectures instead. The configuration file CONFIG_SITE.Common.vxWorksCommon now specifies the vxWorks version number, as well as the filesystem path to the installation of vxWorks using the WIND_BASE variable.

#### postfix and calcPerform

The calc expression parser and exective have undergone a signficant overhaul, although the API and expression language supported are backwards compatible with one minor exception, described below. Significant improvements have been made to both the API and the expression language: Multiple values can be calculated and assignments made in a calc expression; Error reporting for humans is now supported by the expression parser, and code can discover what inputs and outputs are needed and generated by an expression.

Assignment operations are now possible, using the new `:=` operator which must have an expression variable (`A` through `L`) to its immediate left. Multiple expressions can be included in the calculation string, separated by a semicolon `;`, all but one of which must be assignments. The value of the whole string is determined by the single non-assignment expression, which may appear anywhere in the string. For example, the following string causes a single CALC record to output the successive values of a sine curve in 1 degree intervals: `sin(a); a:=a+d2r`

Previously any expression that performed an invalid operation which would generate a NaN or Inf result would be stopped immediately and return an error to the caller. Now it is possible to perform operations that generate NaN or infinite results, and the results are returned as normal. The result of the expression or the value assigned to a variable may thus be a NaN or an infinity. To permit this to be checked within the expression, the new operators `finite()`, `isinf()` and `isnan()` have been added to the expression language. The literal values `Inf` and `NaN` are also now supported in expressions.

The only incompatible change to the expression language was to change the `NOT` operator from performing a unary minus operation to an integer bitwise not; the former meaning is illogical and as a result was probably not used much, if at all — nobody complained when I discussed this on tech-talk...

The extended API and the expression language are now discussed in detail in chapter 19 (libCom) of the R3.14.9 version of the IOC Application Developer's Guide.

#### calc and calcout record, asLib

As a result of the above changes to the calc expression parser and executive, both the calc and calcout records and the Access Security library have been modified to take advantage of the new error diagnostics. The Access Security library has been made to reject any expression that contains an assignment operation, to prevent any possible security holes that might be caused by this significant change to the expression rules.

The calc and calcout records have had some subtle changes applied: To mitigate the effects of the Inf/NaN behaviour change, the result of an expression is checked for NaN, which will result in the UDF field being set and an Undefined/INVALID_ALARM being raised as a result.

An empty string is no longer a legal expression, therefor the CALC and OCAL fields have been changed so that their default value is a literal `"0"` string. Also any calcout record device support must now add the line `#include "postfix.h"` before the `#include "calcoutRecord.h"` line in the source code.

#### recGblAlarmHook

The `recGblResetAlarms()` routine (which is called by all record types towards the end of record processing) now optionally calls a single hook routine via the function pointer `recGblAlarmHook` after it has updated a record's alarm status and severity. See regGbl.h for the hook routine prototype definition, the routine is also given the previous values of the record's status and severity. The hook routine must not block, since this would hold up record processing.

#### ai, bi, mbbi and mbbiDirect records

These record types now support raw simulation mode. If the value of the SIMM field is 2 (enum string "RAW"), the SIOL link value is placed into the RVAL field and passed through the raw to engineering units conversion process just like the real device support's raw value would be.

#### dbpr

The TIME field of a record is now displayed in a human readable format. TIME used to have an interest level of 4 since it was output in hex and not very easy to understand, but it has now been moved to interest level 2.

#### configure/RELEASE*

The `convertRelease.pl` parser now supports the use of `-include` statements in configure/RELEASE files as well as `include` statements.

#### MIPS support

Changes were needed to the `configure/tools/munch.pl` script to support vxWorks-MIPS targets.

#### epicsUnitTest

A new facility is provided in libCom for use in generating automated test programs. Many (but not all) of the test programs in `libCom/test` have been converted to use this facility.

#### dbStaticLib

Off-by-one buffer overflow error fixed in dbFindField() which only seemed to affect vxWorks-(intel) targets.

#### RTEMS

Create a POSIX-compliant TZ environment variable from EPICS_TIMEZONE. Previous versions had an incorrect format which was ignored by tzset().

Added space for user extensions. This provides the infrastructure for the spy command.

Fixed error in epicsThreadGetName for non-EPICS threads.

Added hooks for application routines to supply special network configuration parameters. The RTEMS startup code calls epicsRtemsInitPreSetBootConfigFromNVRAM just before reading values from NVRAM and epicsRtemsInitPostSetBootConfigFromNVRAM just afterwards. See epicsRtemsInitHooks.h for prototypes and global variables.

#### e_flex

`e_flex` has been modified to accept DOS line endings as well as Unix ones. The `scan.c` file was recreated using `e_flex` itself and the `flex.skel` file on the modified `scan.l.DISTRIB` source. `initscan.c` is not required or used for the EPICS build, so it has been removed.

#### devLib

devLib is now built for all architectures, whereas before it was only built on RTEMS and vxWorks. However for it to be usable there must be an appropriate table of OS-specific routines provided. For those OSs that don't implement these routines a default table is defined which will result in an error on any attempt to use devLib routines, but the default table can be overridden in an external library that provides an appropriate table. This subtle change was implemented to allow use of the SIS 3100 PCI to VME bridge from Linux, and needs no change to the other implementations of `devLibOSD.c`.

#### iocsh

Added epicsThreadResume command.

#### libCom

mallocMustSucceed and callocMustSucceed accept 0-byte requests. Note that these routines may return a NULL pointer in such cases.

#### Mac OS X (Darwin)

Added support for EPICS_HOST_ARCH=darwin-ppcx86 for building libraries/applications which will run on both PowerPC and Intel x86 targets.

Added support for EPICS_HOST_ARCH=darwin-x86.

## Changes between 3.14.8.1 and 3.14.8.2

#### epicsStrtod

On architectures whose native version of strtod() actually works properly (i.e. converts +/-Inf[inity] and NaN strings to their double equivalents) we managed to break the use of this in the R3.14.8.1 release. This is now fixed.

## Changes between 3.14.8 and 3.14.8.1

#### Version Numbering

This release adds a fourth level of version number, which we haven't used since R3.13.1.1. The intention is to imply that R3.14.8.1 includes some small but important changes since R3.14.8 but no signficant new behaviours or API modifications. This fourth level has required us to modify the version number system and the macros in the epicsVersion.h file slightly though. We have taken the opportunity to introduce a new variable `EPICS_SITE_VERSION` to the file configure/CONFIG_SITE that adds an optional site-specific version number; sites that were achieving this by editing the configure/CONFIG_BASE_VERSION file should switch to setting `EPICS_SITE_VERSION` instead.

#### CA

Mantis entries fixed:

232 - non-preemptive mode client relying on ca_poll does not always reconnect

#### Win32 symbol changes

These changes are required to allow software outside of Base to be built on win32 architectures.

- win32 epicsShareAPI changes to libCom

  The win32 Pascal calling convention (epicsShareAPI) has been removed from the following header files in libCom/misc: adjustment.h, cantProceed.h, epicsConvert.h, epicsStdlib.h, epicsString.h.

- epicsString

  A new function epicsStrtok_r has been added because win32 does not implement strtok_r.

- epicsStdlib

  All function described in epicsStdlib.h are now implemented in epicsStdlib.c

- win32 epicsShareExtern changes in dbStaticLib

  The type name mapping array mapdbfType defined in dbFldTypes.h has had the correct export modifier keywords added to it for use on win32.

## Changes between 3.14.7 and 3.14.8

#### New host targets

Configure files are now available to support the win32-x86-mingw (MinGW C++ compiler) and win32-x86-cygwin (WIN32 API with cygwin C++ compiler) host targets.

Configure files were also added for linux-x86_64 and solaris-sparc64 but these files are for experimental purposes only and to show that we are working on these targets. Currently these two 64 bit targets are not passing our test suite, so they must not be used in production systems.

#### Runtime Hardware Address Changes

An Extended Device Support mechanism has been introduced which is designed as a safe way to widen the API between iocCore and the device support software it interfaces with. An extended device support can now be notified of changes to a record's hardware address, and is given the chance to approve or reject that change.

As a result of introducing this notification mechanism, any device support that was capable of handling runtime address changes in prior versions of Base will have to be updated to provide the new interface, since the absence of extended device support is now taken to mean that runtime address changes are not understood by the device support. This requirement is not expected to affect many EPICS sites.

#### POSIX thread priority scheduling

POSIX thread priority scheduling is now supported. There is a new user option USE_POSIX_THREAD_PRIORITY_SCHEDULING in the CONFIG_SITE configure file for using POSIX thread priority scheduling. For now the default value is NO. This has only been tested on a few versions of linux. On linux, in order, to use real time priorities the option must be set to YES and the ioc must be started with root privilages.

#### VX_DIR

The definition VX_DIR was removed from configure/RELEASE and moved to configure/os/CONFIG_SITE.Common.vxWorksCommon. The configure/RELEASE* files should contain location definitions for EPICS modules only.

#### RTEMS_BASE

The definition RTEMS_BASE (and RTEMS_VERSION) were removed from configure/RELEASE and moved to configure/os/CONFIG_SITE.Common.RTEMS. The configure/RELEASE* files should contain location definitions for EPICS modules only.

#### event generator and event receiver record support

All apsEvent specific record support has been removed from base

#### drvTS and apsEvent support

The following files have been removed from base: drvTS.h drvTS.c, egDefs.h egRecord.c egRecord.dbd egeventRecord.c egeventRecord.c egeventRecord.dbd erDefs.h erDefs.h erRecord.c erRecord.dbd ereventDefs.h ereventRecord.c ereventRecord.dbd

These are removed from EPICS base. The version that previously came with base was the version that worked with the APS event system. It is available from APS. The version that works with the newer event systems that evolved from the APS system is available from the Swiss Light Source.

#### task watchdog

It was possible for taskwd (task watchdog) to not detect when some of the standard tasks failed. This is because they were passing their threadid rather than using epicsThreadGetIdSelf. It was possible to call taskwdInsert before the threadid was actually set.

#### dbLock and dbBkpt

dbLockGetLockId incorrectly always returned 0. dbBkpt (database breakpoint facility) is the only code that needed this. This caused unknown errors if the dbBkpt facility is used.

#### gpHashLib.c

The maximum size was initialized to 65636 instead of 65536.

#### epicsExport.h

Add additional cast to prevent 'strict aliaising' warnings.

#### iocsh

I/O redirection from vxWorks startup scripts now works.

#### dbRecordsOnceOnly

This new variable which can be controlled using the iocsh `var` command (or by simple assignment in the vxWorks shell) allows users to change the behaviour of `dbLoadRecords()` when it finds a duplicate record definition. The default behaviour has always been to permit multiple record() statements for the same record name when loading record instances, but by setting `dbRecordsOnceOnly` to any non-zero value, duplicates will instead generate an error message instead. It is expected that this will only be used in special circumstances, to detect the presence of unintentional duplicates where it is known that they should not exist.

#### select record

This record now sets and posts monitors on its SELN field indicating which of the inputs was selected, independent of which selection mechanism was selected via the SELM field. This makes it much more useful, especially when the High, Low or Median mechanisms are chosen.

#### macLib

Macro expansions in any program using the macLib facility from libCom can now include a default value which will be used if the macro named is not defined at the moment of substitution. The syntax for this is `$(name=default)` or `${name=default}`. The default string can itself contain other macros like this: `$(name=$(default))`. This feature has actually been present since R3.14.6.

#### errlog

On a powerPC, during iocInit, a crash could occur. In particular the SYNAPPS version of save_restore experienced crashes. This is now fixed.

#### ca

Mantis entries fixed.

221 - should shutdown full duplex comm on udp sockets if not used

192 - concurrency bug in channel access to local DB

181 - ca_host_name() now returns the host name of the client, not the host:port of the server

161 - issues surrounding manipulation of CA contexts

153 - CA (caput) client does not reconnect after server suspend-continue-shutdown cycle

111 - non-preemptive clients disconnect if ca_poll() isnt called regularly

#### portable ca server

Mantis entries fixed.

196 - portable server library intermittent hang on UNIX systems

191 - corrupt value when doing a put through portable server (little endian host)

175 - example portable server array PV 'alan' does not have time stamps

#### gdd (used by portable server)

Mantis entries fixed.

211 - GDD: aitConvertStringEnum16 does nothing if pEnumStringTable==NULL

#### RTEMS port

Added support for setting NFS server/mount information from PPCBUG argument strings.

rtems_shutdown_executive is now called on IOC exit. On many BSPs this will return control to the bootstrap PROM.

Set POSIX TZ environment variable from NVRAM, or failing that, from EPICS_TIMEZONE.

Cleaned up support for obtaining network configuration from NVRAM.

Added support for some additional boards.

Set iocsh prompt from host name.

Initialize in-memory filesystem from tar image following executable in bootstrap flash memory. This allows for fully standalone IOCs -- no TFTP/NFS server required.

Set IOC_NAME and IOC_STARTUP_SCRIPT environment variables from bootstrap parameters.

#### vxWorks port

Fixed mantis entry.

179 -base does not build with vxWorks 6.0

225 - On vxWorks epicsThreadCreate returned -1 instead of 0 if a thread could not be created. This is fixed.

#### OS X port

Builds on Tiger.

Readline now used by default.

#### WIN32 port

Fixed mantis entries.

195 - explicitly unloading Com.dll causes crash

230 - assert fail of caget, caput, etc under msvc 8

231 - manifest files not installed under visual C++ 8

#### POSIX port

Fixed mantis entries.

186 - failure after exit command if log client is running

222 - osiSpawnDetachedProcess doesnt close open files in dupicate process on POSIX

## Changes between 3.14.6 and 3.14.7

#### selRecord

The select record type has for a long time made use of a coule of magic numbers (1e+30 and -1e+30) to mean "not a real value", which prevents the record from working properly if one or other of these appears as an actual data value. These have been changed to use +Inf and -Inf or NaN instead, so +/-1e+30 may be used as a data value.

#### ai, ao, dfanout and subroutine Records

These record types have been modified to respond better to NaN values as follows: if the VAL field contains a NaN value, the UDF field will be set and an undefined value alarm will be triggered.

#### epicsStdlib.h/epicsStrtod()

epicsStdlib.h declares epicsStrtod() which provides a version of strtod which handles NAN/INF on all architectures. All uses of strtod() in base have been converted to use epicsStrtod().

epicsStdlib.h also declares epicsScanFloat() and epicsScanDouble() which replace calls to sscanf with routines which handle NAN/INF on all architectures.

#### epicsThreadCreate Stacksize Posix

The posix implementation of epicsThreadCreate() now makes pthread calls to set the stack size. The sizes returned by epicsThreadGetStackSize() for the inputs epicsThreadStackSmall, epicsThreadStackMedium and epicsThreadStackBig are 128K, 256K and 512K respectively on at least the architectures Linux, Solaris, HPUX and Darwin (different values are used on vxWorks and RTEMS). This allows creation of many more threads on most systems.

#### dbNotify

dbNotifyCancel now waits if the userCallback is active when dbNotifyCancel is called. Previously it just returned. NOTE CAREFULLY. This means that the userCallback must not free the putNotify structure.

#### CA commandline tools

caget and camonitor now have an additional "-s" option to explicitly request server-side string conversion, which - in case of the regular CA server - leads to "precision" info (e.g. the PREC field of an EPICS record) being honoured.

#### POSIX signals

Signals are blocked in all but the main thread. Applications/drivers which require signal delivery to a subthread will need to be modified.

#### epicsExit

Three new functions are implemented: `epicsExit`, `epicsExitCallAtExits`, and `epicsAtExit`. These are similar to `exit` and `atexit`, i.e. they provide the ability to register a function to be called when the process exits. They are provided becase neither vxWorks or win32 properly implement `exit` and `atexit`. Note that they apply to an IOC stopping NOT to a thread exiting.

#### epicsStdio and epicsStdioRedirect

In order to support iocsh redirection of `stdin`, `stdout`, and `stderr`, `epicsStdio.h` defines the following new functions: `epicsGetStdin`, `epicsGetStdout`, `epicsGetStderr`, `epicsSetStdin`, `epicsSetStdout`, `epicsSetStderr`, and `epicsStdoutPrintf`. `epicsStdioRedirect.h` defines macros that redefine `stdin`, `stdout`, `stderr`, and `printf`.

Any code that includes `epicsStdioRedirect.h` will automatically have it's stdio redirected. It has been added to many files in base. If code called by dbior wants it's output redirected, it must also include this file.

#### IOC Test Facilities

Any command that previously had an argument for a report file name no longer has the argument. The new iocsh redirection capability is now used. For example the former command:

        dbl "0" reportName

    Is now:

        dbl > reportName

Note that this does NOT work on the vxWorks shell only on iocsh. On the vxWorks shell the following command can be given:

        iocshCmd("dbl > reportName")

#### errlog

errlog now calls `epicsAtExit` and releases all resources when `epicsExitCallAtExits` is called.

#### libCom

epicsStrGlobMatch() routine added.

#### iocsh

Input/output redirection added.

iocshCmd routine added (callable from vxWorks shell).

help command uses globbing.

#### calcoutRecord

The ODLY (Output Delay) was not handled properly. This is fixed.

#### compressRecord

make sure reset gets called when size of INP array changes.

#### dbAccess DBR_ENUM_STRS for field DTYP

Data Base Request Option DBR_ENUM_STRS for the DTYP field of soft records can cause an IOC to crash.

#### RTEMS

RTEMS implementation of epicsMessageQueuePending() now works.

Added support for MVME2100 BSP.

Added support for building RTEMS bootable images.

#### iocBoot/ioc* build change

The cdCommands and envPaths files are now created in ioc* directory only when the ARCH defined in the ioc*/Makefile is present in BUILD_ARCHS for the build.

## Changes between 3.14.5 and 3.14.6

#### CA command line tools complete

The complete set of Channel Access command line tools (caget, caput, camonitor, cainfo) is available as announced during the May 2004 Collab. meeting. Documentation is part of the CA Reference Manual. Be aware of possible name conflicts with existing local tools.

#### IOC template file configure/RULES.iocBoot removed

The directory name wildcards that were defined here have been moved to iocBoot/Makefile, which as a result is no longer unique in having its own configure/RULES file.

#### APS Virtual Linac template removed

This is really a demo and a complete EPICS IOC application, not a template. It will be made available separately.

#### EPICS_HOST_ARCH win32-x86-cygwin renamed to cygwin-x86

The EPICS_HOST_ARCH win32-x86-cygwin was renamed cygwin-x86 to avoid confusion about what OS interfaces are used on Windows: native win32 or cygwin's emulation of POSIX. Now we have

- win32-x86 Uses native win32 interfaces with MS compiler.
- win32-x86-borland Uses native win32 interfaces with borland compiler.
- win32-x86-gnu Uses native win32 interfaces with cygwin gnu compiler. (Not implemented yet.)
- cygwin-x86 Uses cygwin POSIX interfaces with cygwin gnu compiler.

#### EPICS_TS_NTP_INET

The time server's IP address used by the vxWorks clock routines was not reading the default value from the generated envData.c file but going straight to the boot host if no environment variable by that name was set.

#### CONFIG_ENV and CONFIG_SITE_ENV

These files are now parsed by a program that recognizes and ignores comment lines. Previous versions of this parser would extract settings from these files even if they appear on a line starting with a '#' character, so the last line containing a setting for any variable would give the value used as the default. This was first noticed in R3.14.5 where a commented-out setting for the `EPICS_TIMEZONE` parameter was added after the uncommented version.

#### db test shell commands

Many of the commands crashed if given no arguments. They are now more crash proof.

#### db_access - conversion of double to float

When a CA user asked for display or control limits as a float a 0 value was returned as -1.17549435E-38. This is now fixed.

#### New DBD rule

A new dbd rule will create a <name>Include.dbd from files specified in a <name>_DBD macro definition. An include line will be placed in the <name>Include.dbd for each file specified in the <name>_DBD definition. If a Makefile contains

            DBD=xxx.dbd
            xxx_DBD = f1.dbd f2.dbd f3.dbd

an xxxInclude.dbd file will be created containing the lines

            include "f1.dbd"
            include "f2.dbd"
            include "f1.dbd"

and dbExpand will be invoked to create the xxx.dbd file from the xxxInclude.dbd.

#### Solaris Builds

Old solaris 6 specific compiler options have been removed.

#### New make targets cvsclean and archclean

The new top level Makefile only target, cvsclean, removes cvs .#* files in all dirs of the top directory tree.

The new archclean target is like the clean target except that O.Common directories are not removed.

#### epicsString

Add epicsSnStrPrintEscaped.

#### epicsExport

epicsExportAddress(typ,obj) now generates an extern named pvar_typ_obj and epicsExportRegistrar(func) an extern named pvar_func_obj. Previously both just named the variable pobj.

epicsRegisterFunction(name) in conjunction with the dbd 'function' keyword can be used to register functions referred to by record subroutine name fields.

#### Access Security

The access security configuration rules now accept quoted strings where just names were allowed previously.

All dump routines now have FP version.

A new shell command "ascar(int level)" is now available. It produces a report of the INP channel access connections. Level (0,1,2) produces (a summary report, summary plus unconnected channels, summary plus report of all channels)

#### Channel Access Client Library

- Fixed "subscription updates intermittently do not resume when unresponsive circuit reconnects" bug
  - Scope:

    This bug was introduced in R3.14.5 and does not exist in any other release.

  - Symptom:

    Subscription updates intermittently do not resume depending on circumstances when unresponsive circuit reconnects

  - Additional Information:

    A decision was made to add a change to EPICS R3.14.5 so that when a TCP circuit is temporarily unresponsive the channel, but not the circuit, is immediately disconnected. This change was determined to be necessary to improve overall system robustness in the face of IOC or network overload. Unfortunately, an error was made when installing these changes. I am sorry about any inconvenience that this has caused. Thanks to Ken Evans at the APS for discovering this problem.

- Fixed "ca_replace_access_rights_event() fails if passed a nill function pointer" bug
  - Scope:

    This bug probably exists in all R3.14 releases.

  - Symptom:

    Passing a nill function pointer to ca_replace_access_rights_event() should install a noop handler, but this currently causes a failure.

  - Additional information:

    Regression tests have been installed to detect this mistake.

- Fixed "CA client library crash when clear channel request occurs in get callback handler" bug
  - Scope:

    This bug was introduced in R3.14.5 and does not exist in any other release.

  - Symptom:

    CA client library crash when clear channel request occurs in get callback handler

  - Additional information:

    When testing the striptool application, Ken Evans, discovered a bug in the CA client library occurring when a clear channel request occurs in get callback handler. Regression tests have been updated so that this mistake will not slip through testing undetected in a future release.

- Fixed "Double server subscription install when subscription request occurs in connection callback handler" bug
  - Scope:

    This bug was introduced in R3.14.5 and does not exist in any other release. Subscription request must be made from within connection callback handler

  - Symptom:

    It has been discovered (by Ken Evans while testing the gateway) that certain subscription requests were persisting in the gateway after clients had deleted them. This bug causes additional resources to be consumed, but does not result in a crash.

  - Additional information

    Additional debugging has revealed that the CA client library in this situation inadvertently made the subscription request twice: once at the users’ request, and later on again when the library auto installed subscriptions for disconnected channels.

- Fixed "failure when deleting channel in get callback handler" bug
  - Scope:

    Probably introduced in a previous R3.14 release.

  - Symptom:

    An intermittent C++ exceptions during regression testing.

- Behavior Changes
  - Process blocks attempting to exit if the application does not call ca_context_destroy()

    In EPICS release R3.14 the CA client library is implemented using axillary threads. If the application does not call ca_context_destroy() these threads will still be running, and depending on operating system conventions the process may not exit if the main thread exits, but axillary threads are still running. Note that ca_context_destroy() is functionally equivalent to the deprecated call ca_task_exit().

#### Channel Access Portable Server (used by the CA gateway and others)

- Fixed "assert fail when writing string through Portable CA Server" bug
  - Scope:

    This bug is only present in the portable CA server and so it does not impact IOC based applications. The bug is present in the CA gateway and any portable CA server based application. This problem may have been recently introduced when GDD was patched to properly handle fixed sized strings.

  - Symptom:

    Failure, when writing large string through the portable CA server. There appears to be a possibility of the wrong string being written when a smaller string is used. You may see the following message.

    A call to "assert (! this->pValue->unreference ())" failed in ..\..\..\..\include\smartGDDPointer.h line 88.

  - Additional Information:

    Thanks to Stephanie Alison at SLAC for discovering the bug and to Ken Evans at the APS for reminding me to fix it.

## Changes between 3.14.4 and 3.14.5

#### dbtr

Don't seg-fault if no argument is passed to dbtr.

#### New build targets.

New files have been created in configure/os to allow CROSS_COMPILER_TARGET_ARCHS to include solaris-sparc-gnu and solaris-sparc-debug when EPICS_HOST_ARCH is solaris-sparc. Also CROSS_COMPILER_TARGET_ARCHS can now include linux-x86-debug when EPICS_HOST_ARCH is linux-x86.

#### New epicsString.h function

A new function epicsStrnCaseCmp has been added. It is like strncmp except that it ignores case.

#### R3.13 compatability files

R3.13 compatability files are no longer generated automatically during the build. configure/CONFIG_SITE contains two new macros for building compatibility files. They are set to NO but can be set to YES. The macros are:

- COMPAT_TOOLS_313

  This will install the compatibility files needed to build R3.13 extensions built with this R3.14 base.

- COMPAT_313

  This will install the compatibility files needed to build R3.13 extensions and IOC applications built with this R3.14 base.

#### APS Virtual LINAC Templates

A new set of templates has been included in R3.14.5 to implement a Virtual LINAC in an ioc using databases and sequence programs. The Virtual LINAC simulates the generation and transmission of an electron beam down a LINAC. Several steering coils, BPMs, and other typical accelerator components are simulated to provide a realistic interaction between the operator and the "LINAC". Since it is an entirely soft application, it will work on any platform. An medm display is provided as the primary GUI. It can also be used to experiment with other CA client tools.

To install the templates, use the following commands:

      mkdir <top>
      cd <top>
      <base>/bin/<arch>/makeBaseApp.pl -t vlinac vlinac
      <base>/bin/<arch>/makeBaseApp.pl -i -t vlinac vlinac

For further information, see:

      <top>/vlinacApp/misc/README
      <top>/vlinacApp/misc/Virtual_Linac_Info.pdf

#### Stringin record time-stamp soft device support

Add simple device support for converting time to nicely-formatted string using INP field as epicsTimeToStrftime format string:

    record(stringin, "$(user)now")
    {
        field(DESC, "Current time and date")
        field(DTYP, "Soft Timestamp")
        field(INP, "@%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S.%03f")
    }

#### Channel Access Portable Server (used by the CA gateway and others)

- Fixed failure occurring if client disconnected while asynchronous PV attach was outstanding, or, for enumerated native type process variables, while enumerated string table cache asynchronous IO was outstanding. This problem does not occur in IOCs because they are not yet based on the portable server library. This bug was first detected by Ken Evans in the production CA gateway at the APS.

#### Channel Access Original Server (used in IOC)

- A bug causing the server threads to become stuck in a state where they process requests, but no longer send responses, if in the past the system was experiencing network buffer starvation has been fixed. This problem existed probably in all previous EPICS releases, but network buffer starvation issues have become more prevalent starting with Tornado 2.0.
- Users noticed that UDP related output from the casr diagnostic was easily confused with the information from casr for TCP circuits. This has been fixed.

#### Channel Access Client Library

- Disconnect behavior is now more robust in response to congestion. When a channel times out, the channel is disconnected, but not the circuit. The circuit is only disconnected when the internal TCP/IP keepalive timer fires or if teh IOC reboots with the same IP address. This will result in less UDP search traffic during periods of congestion and also less TCP/IP circuit thrashing. A side effect will be that if a user turns off a vxWorks IOC, changes its IP address, and then reboots it, then the user will need to wait out the full duration of the TCP/IP keepalive timer before the client will reconnect. This is undoubtedly a negative side effect, but it is felt that the improvements in robustness justify the confusion resulting in the small number of situations that a vxWorks IOC's IP address is changed.
- In previous releases if a directory service returns the address of a CA server that does not have the PV that is being sought then the client library could end up sending search requests at a very high rate. This problem has been fixed by placing all disconnected channels in a queue implementing a short delay prior to there being ready again for periodic name resolution requests.
- In previous R3.14 releases the CA client library's search datagram interval exponential backoff was flawed. CA's search datagram interval exponential backoff should proceed following the sequence 30mS, 60mS, 120mS, 240mS, and so on. Or a similar behavior with higher initial delays resulting from a round trip time delay estimate greater than 30 mS. However, instead the backoff delays were 30mS, 30mS, 30mS, 30mS, 30mS, 30mS, 60mS, 120mS, 240mS, and on. This bug also impacted what CA does when a channel disconnects or there is a beacon anomaly ( a new server event). The intent was to start the search delay for disconnected channels in these situations at 2 seconds but due to the above bug the delay was more like 64mS. This bug appears only in earlier versions of EPICS R3.14.
- A bug has been found in the CA repeater supplied with EPICS R3.14.2 through R3.14.4 (inclusive). The symptom will be clients running for more than a few minuites do not connect to a newly introduced server. Fixed in R3.14.5.

#### dbCa

Better error messages are now generated.

dbCaPutLinkCallback is a new function. It provides the ability to implement record/driver support that does not complete until a channel access put callback has completed. See the Application Developer's Guide for details.

dbCaAddLinkCallback is a new function. The caller can provide a connect and monitor callback. See the Application Developer's Guide for details.

#### devXxSoftCallback

Soft device that uses dbCaPutLinkCallback has been written for ao, bo, calcout, longout, mbbo, mbboDirect, and stringout records. The dbd definitions have been added to devSoft.dbd. In other to use the new support the DTYP field is defined:

        field(DTYP,"Async Soft Channel")

#### calcoutRecord

The CALC and OCAL fields now have a size of 40 so that they are the same as the calcRecord.

calcoutRecord now has associated device support. The default support will act just like the old calcout. Support bis also available that uses dbCaPutLinkCallback.

#### mbbiRecord

The fields ZRST,...,FFST are now special(SPC_MOD).

#### mbboRecord

The fields ZRST,...,FFST are now special(SPC_MOD). init_record now checks to see if state strings or values are defined during pass 0. Previously if another record had a DBR_STRING link to an mbboRecord it thought the field was a USHORT instead of an ENUM.

#### epicsString

A new function has been added epicsStrPrintEscaped, which converts the standard C escape characters to \xxx characters.

#### IOC shell system command

The 'system' command has been added to the IOC shell. To enable this command, add `registrar(iocshSystemCommand)` to an application database description file.

## Changes between 3.14.3 and 3.14.4

#### sCalcPostfix

This has been removed from base.

#### Format string checking

'printf-style' functions like errlogPrintf have their arguments verified against their format string when compiled with gcc.

#### IOC shell command-line editing on vxWorks

The IOC shell now uses the vxWorks ledLib routines so command-line editing is now the same in the IOC shell as it is in the vxWorks shell.

#### CA client library crashes when the same PV name is on multiple servers

If the CA client library was searching for a PV name that was hosted on more than one server a segmentation violation occurred when printing a diagnostic message resulting in a failure of the CA client library. The bug was introduced in R3.14.3. The code was tested on WIN32 prior to release, but the problem has so far been reproduced only on Linux.

Thanks to Ernest Williams at the SNS for discovering and helping to diagnose the problem.

#### Disconnection callback function called when CA channel known to be disconnected

If a CA circuit timed out during the connect sequence then the CA client library called the applications's disconnect callback function indicating a disconnect state transition when the channel was already known to be disconnected. This has caused the sequencer to improperly maintain its connected channel count. Other CA client side tools may also be impacted.

Recent versions of vxWorks appear to experience a connect failure if the vxWorks IP kernel reassigns the same ephemeral TCP port number as was assigned during a previous lifetime. The IP kernel on the vxWorks system hosting the CA server might have a stale entry for this ephemeral port that has not yet timed out which prevents the client from connecting with the ephemeral port assigned by the IP kernel. Eventually, after EPICS_CA_CONN_TMO seconds, the TCP connect sequence is aborted and the client library closes the socket, opens a new socket, receives a new ephemeral port assignment, and successfully connects.

Thanks to Mark Rivers for initially reporting the bug and energetically assisting with identifying the cause.

## Changes between 3.14.2 and 3.14.3

#### TPRO output

The record processing trace output generated when the `.TPRO` field of a record is non-zero now includes the name of the thread that is actually doing the processing.

#### calcRecord and calcoutRecord

Previously if a dbGetLink failed on one of the input links, dbGetLink was not called for the remaining links. Now it is.

#### put notify

put notify did not act properly if a record had disp=TRUE, i.e. if puts are disabled. It now returns putNotifyPutDisabled.

#### fastlock.h

This is no longer supported

#### devLib

devLib is now supported on vxWorks and RTEMS. It has been moved from src/vxWorks/src to src/libCom/osi. devLibVirtualOS has been extended to support allocating A24 addresss and an init method.

#### vxWorks dependent modules moved

The following have been moved from src/vxWorks/src to src/libCom/osi/os/vxWorks: camacLib.h, drvTS.c, drvTS.h, epicsDynLink.c, epicsDynLink.h, module_types.h, task_params.h, veclist.c. Brief documentation has been added to the Application Developer's Guide.

#### Close-On-Exec flag set for all sockets created in EPICS base

On POSIX systems if a Channel Access application spawns off 3rd party software with an exec() call then all open file desriptors are inherited unless the close-on-exec flag is set for each file descriptor. A new wrapper function was created so that all sockets created in EPICS base will have the close-on-exec flag set on POSIX systems. The function which spawns the CA repeater with exec() used to close all open files except stdin/stdout/stderr. This step was no longer required and therefore was removed from the code.

#### Temporary Files on Windows

The tmpfile() function on windows requires that all temporary files be stored in the root folder. The antelope (yacc) tool in base was calling tmpfile() and this was causing problems at sites where win32 systems use remotely mounted secure file systems. A wrapper function called "FILE * epicsTempFile()" that creates a temporary file on WIN32 with a name epicsNNN using one of the following paths was installed into libCom. It searches starting with (1) below and stops when it finds a specified path that exists. On POSIX systems, and systems that default to POSIX behavior, epicsTempFile() simply calls tmpfile().

1. where the TMP environment variable specifies
2. in c:\tmp
3. in the current working directory

#### envPaths file

For operating systems other than vxWorks, there is now a target file created in each `iocBoot/ioc` directory called `envPaths`, which performs the same functions as the `cdCommands` file in vxWorks but using environment variables. The entries in `envPaths` are derived from the contents of the application's `configure/RELEASE` file.

#### Macros in database filenames

Database (`.db` and `.dbd`) filenames passed to `dbLoadDatabase`, `dbLoadRecords` and inside `dbLoadTemplate` substitutions files will now have environment variable macros expanded before opening. These are expressed using the standard `${MACRO}` syntax. Inside a template substitutions file the filename must be enclosed in double quotation marks if macros are used.

#### registerRecordDeviceDriver output subroutine renamed

The registration routine generated by the registerRecordDeviceDriver.pl perl script now includes the name of the application, thus requiring a one-line change to any IOC startup files produced with earlier R3.14 releases of base. The actual name is taken from a second command line argument supplied to the script by the modified make rules, and is derived from the name of the fully expanded dbd file from which the necessary information is extracted. The change needed to every startup script involves using this new name in place of the old `registerRecordDeviceDriver`. Assuming that your application's fully expanded dbd file is called `example.dbd` you would modify the lines

>     dbLoadDatabase("dbd/example.dbd",0,0)
>     registerRecordDeviceDriver(pdbbase)

to become

>     dbLoadDatabase("dbd/example.dbd",0,0)
>     example_registerRecordDeviceDriver(pdbbase)

#### dbExpand `-o outfile` option

A commandline option `-o` has been added to the dbExpand program to allow the name of its output file to be specified. If there are any errors in the input file(s) the output file will not be generated or modified at all. The rules to expand DBD files have been changed to make use of this.

#### New keyword `variable()` supported in dbd files

Database definition (.dbd) files can now contain declarations of simple static variables, a facility intended for driver debugging purposes. These `variable(name)` or `variable(name,type)` declarations are preserved by dbExpand (`type` is `int` if omitted), and will be converted by registerRecordDeviceDriver.pl into code that registers them with iocsh. The variables themselves must be defined in some existing C or C++ code and marked using the macro `epicsExportAddress(type,name)`. Only plain `int` and `double` types are supported.

macEnvExpand

A facility for performing macro expansion using environment variables as macro definitions has been added to libCom/macLib. The ioc shell now performs macro expansion using this on all input lines (other than comments) before printing and executing the line.

iocsh var command

For simple applications such as controlling the value of debugging flags. Devlopers with more complex expression handling requirements should consider use of the cexp package. The available variables are defined by the new `variable` dbd file keyword.

iocshArgPersistentString

Tell iocsh to make a copy of the argument string before passing it to the handler function.

epicsStrDup

Operating-system independent replacement for strdup().

epicsMessageQueue

The epicsMessageQueue API has been changed. All functions and methods to receive a message now have an additional argument which specifies the size of the receiver buffer. The receive functions/methods return -1 and the received message is discarded if the received message will not fit in the buffer. See the Application Developer's Guide (libCom OSI) for details.

This is an incompatible change. All R3.14.2 applications which use epicsMessageQueue must be modified before they can be compiled and used with R3.14.3

#### Error Message Logging

A bug occurring only in Microsoft Windows port of the error message logging client was fixed. The symptoms were problems getting a Microsoft Windows based IOC to make entries in the log file.

A bug occurring in the error message logging server where a partial message arrives w/o a <CR> and then a <CR> from a previous message was found in the input buffer was fixed. The problem must have existed for a long time but probably was not occurring frequently. The symptom was garbled output in the log file.

An IP kernel deadlock vulnerability occurring when vxWorks's tNetTask calls logMsg because of a transient mbuf starvation situation has been fixed. The fix was to not call logFdAdd for the log client's socket and instead create a specialized vxWorks device driver which calls errlogPrintf for each incoming message and then call logFdAdd for a file descriptor opened with that device driver. The desirable functional change being errlogPrintf's capability to discard messages when it gets behind (because of a transient mbuf starvation situation). The fix also means that any code that calls errlogAddListener on vxWorks, e.g. CMLOG, will now receive the logMsg messages.

#### Channel Access Client Library Client Context Cleanup Race Condition

The symptom is a CA client program that fails with a segmentation violation on Linux shortly after calling ca_task_exit()or ca_context_destroy(). A fix will show up in R3.14.3. Regression tests were updated to detect this type of problem.

#### Red Hat 7.3 Linux Process Rundown Bug

There appears to be a bug in the Red Hat 7.3 process rundown where posix thread support is defective when file scope destructors are being run. The symptom was a hang during process exit. A workaround was installed.

#### Multiple CA Servers on MAC OSX

A patch was made to allow multiple CA servers on MAC OSX. OSX is a recent branch off of BSD and therefore requires socket option SO_REUSEPORT.

## Changes between 3.14.1 and 3.14.2

Build System

Major changes have been made to the build system. The good news is that the rules for support and ioc applications are now greatly simplified. The bad news is that it does mean changes for existing 3.14.1 applications. Please see:

ConvertingR3.14.1AppsToR3.14.2

for details. If you are using the function DBD keyword it no longer exists. Please read this conversion document for details.

Application Developer's Guide

The old chapter "New Feature's for 3.14" has been replaced by a new chapter "Getting Started". Please read it. It provides a simplified set of rules that can be used to build most support and ioc applications. Many minor changes have also been made.

dbGetLink

A bug in dbGetLink resulted in nRequest not being given the value 0 if the link is a constant link. This in turn caused the waveform record to always set NORD=NELEM. Thus if an application trys to write a waveform via the steps:

        prset->get_array_info(paddr,&no_elements,&offset);
        write nNew elements into array >>
        prset->put_array_info(paddr,nNew);

This sets NORD = nNew. But because of the dbGetLink bug, the soft device support attached to the waveform record sets NORD to NELM.

This problem is fixed. The actual bug was in macros in dbAccessDefs.h

Access Security

The host names are now converted to lower case. This fixes incompatibilities between various platforms.

string records

Both the stringin and stringout records have two new DBF_MENU fields: APST and MPST. These control whether CA monitors are fired if the new VAL field string is identical to the old one. The default (zero) menu value is "On Change" with behaviour identical to before, set to "Always" if you want a record to fire monitors every time the record is processed (analagous to setting ADEL/MDEL=-1 for numeric record types).

epicsMessageQueue

A new facility that provides the capabilities of vxWorks msgQLib. See the Application Developer's Guide (libCom OSI) for details.

epicsStdio and errlogPrintf

A new facility has been added to libCom described by epicsStdio.h. It contains the functions epicsSnprintf and epicsVsnprintf. These are like the C99 functions snprintf and vsnprintf, which are like sprintf and vsprintf except that they accept a argument limiting the number of characters written.

The errlogPrintf facility has been modified to use this facility. Thus it is not longer subject to a possible buffer overflow.

scanPeriod

This is a new function provided by the Database Scanning facility. Given an index for the choices defined by menuScan.h, it returns the scan period in seconds. The argument can just be the scan field of a database record. If the index is not associated with a periodic scan rate, the value 0.0 is returned.

New epicsString.h function

A new function epicsStrCaseCmp has been added. It is like strcmp except that it ignores case.

macLib

macParseDefns did not check for handle==NULL. The documentation for macParseDefns was not correct.

## Changes between 3.14.0beta2 and 3.14.1

function - New Database Definition Keyword

dbStaticLib and related programs now accept a new keyword in DBD files:

    function(name)

Where `name` is the name of a function with "C" linkage that is included in the IOC binary. This function will be automatically registered with the registry at the same time as the record/device/driver tables, and is intended to make using subroutine records much easier on non-vxWorks systems.. Prior R3.14 releases required there to be a static registration routine for such subroutines.

dbStaticLib has two additional routines to support this, dbDumpFunction() and dbWriteFunctionFP(). dbDumpFunction has been added to the iocsh command table.

iocsh

When executing commands from a script file, iocsh now echoes each command to the terminal before execution. This makes it much easier to see where errors are being reported.

Solaris build requirement

`uname` must be defined for builds on solaris hosts because it is used to determine the solaris version.

Linux build note

Under linux-x86 only, when SHARED_LIBRARIES=YES it is now possible to have one or more directory paths burned into products as run-time locations for the shared libraries. In configure/os/CONFIG_SITE.Common.linux-x86 add any such absolute paths to the new make variable SHRLIB_SEARCH_DIRS (lib/<arch> will be automatically appended to each directory given).

RULES.Db

A `*[nn].db` file will be created from an `*.template` and a `*[nn].substitutions` file ,where `nn` has a value between 0 and 99.

Support for 64 bit long

Many changes were made to support architectures on which a long is a 64 bit integer. The basic change was to change:

- long => epicsInt32 for anything that might get transfered to/from network buffers
- unsigned long => epicsUInt32 for anything that might get transfered to/from network buffers

The changes include the following:

- cvtFast
- xxxRecord.h NOTE: In addition to the changes for long all enum fields are now epicsEnum16
- dbStaticLib
- db_access
- dbConvert and dbFastLinkConv

Hardware Link Definitions

The various parts of hardware link definitions now accept HEX values, e.g.

    field(INP,"L0 A1 C0 S0xa @")

NOTES:

- This may not be compatible with Database Configuration Tools
- If records are written via dbStaticLib the falues will NOT be written in HEX.

dbDumpFldDes

A macro has been defined so that client code can be written that is compatible between 3.13 and 3.14.

epicsMutex for posix

- No longer supports epicsMutexLockWithTimeout. This was done to allow a more efficient posix implementation.
- If PTHREAD_MUTEX_RECURSIVE is provided then the implementation uses only pthread_mutex. This is much faster (2 to 3 times as fast) as the previous implementation.

Mac OS X

Now supported as development platform and as IOC.

RTEMS

Additional RTEMS-pc386 network drivers are available

iocsh

Configurable iocsh command-line editing support (none, readline, libtecla)

CA Reference Manual

Many additions.

CA Client Library

Bugs related to connection speed when creating new channels and other channels are not found fixed. Bugs related to proper schedualing in file descriptor manager based clients fixed. Many other bugs were fixed. Performance was significantly improved.

Original CA Server Library (still employed in R3.14 by iocCore)

A bug was fixed where the server was in rare situations using excessive CPU.

Portable CA Server LIbrary

Several bugs were fixed when performing integration testing with the channel access gateway.

GDD

Many bugs and missing features fixed.

## Changes since beta1

dbCommon.dbd

Field UDF now has a promptgroup. This allows users to set UDF false via DCTs.

errlog

errlog no longer contains an atexit that calls errlogFlush. This did not work on all operating systems. cantProceed, iocsh, and ca_task_exit all call errlogFlush. Other applications may also have to call if before terminating.

mbboRecord

mbboRecord now implements method cvt_dbaddr for the VAL field. If no state vales or state strings are defined then it sets field_type and dbr_field_type to DBF_USHORT.

timeStamp changes

Changes have been made to:

- Allow device support to set the time stamp (field TIME) of a record.
- Allow a record to receive it's time stamp from another record,

epicsTime.h now has the definitions:

    #define epicsTimeEventBestTime -1
    #define epicsTimeEventDeviceTime -2

These are values for the TSE field of dbCommon.

- epicsTimeEventBestTime means that code supplying the time stamp should get the most accurate time possible. Currently this only has meaning on vxWorks and if drvTS is supplying the time via some hardware timing system. It means get the latest time from the hardware system rather than from the vxWorks tick time. drvTs previously accepted a hardcoded value of -1.
- epicsTimeEventDeviceTime means that recGblGetTimeStamp doesn't modify the time field. This allows device support to supply the time stamp.

If the TSEL field refers to the TIME field of a record then recGblGetTimeStamp sets TIME equal to the time it gets from the record the TSEL references. This works for both database and channel access links. In this case field TSE is not used.

aiRecord and aoRecord: Setting eoff=egul

Instead of init_record executing code like

        if ((pai->linr == menuConvertLINEAR) && pdset->special_linconv) {
            pai->eoff = pai->egul;
        }

It now executes:

        if ((pai->eslo==1.0) && (pai->eoff==0.0)) {
            pai->eoff = pai->egul;
        }

aoRecord has a similar change

This was done so that old device support which does not implement special_linconv still works.

CA puts to disabled record

If a CA client issues a put to a disabled record then, when the record is ena bled, database puts to the record will not make the record process until a CA pu t is again issued. This is fixed.

TPRO - trace processing

If dbProcess is called recursively by different tasks, it did not properly handle TPRO. Consider the following database:

    record(ao,"mrkao") {
        field(OUT,"mrkai CA")
        field(TPRO,"1")
    }
    record(ai,"mrkai") {
        field(TPRO,"1")
    }

If a channel access put is sent to mrkao, no message is issued when mrkai is processed.

This is now fixed.

TSconfigure

If in your st.cmd file you issue the command.

TSconfigure(0,0,0,0,0,0,1)

And set the TSE field of any record to a non zero value, then a crash will occur when recGblGetTimeStamp is called.

This is now fixed.

calcoutRecord

nsev not sevr must be checked to decide if dbPutLink should be called.

dbCa

Whenever a connection is made, a request to retrieve the control, display, and alarm linits and the precision and units is automatically issued. Previously this was only done if dbCaGetAttributes was called. This it is no longer necessary to call dbCaGetAttributes.

calcPerform

This now returns a non zero value if the result is nan (not a number).

Record Name Length

The size of the name field has been expanded from 29 to 61, i.e. record names can now have 60 characters.

iocInit

initialProcess is now called before interruptAccept. This means that initial processing will be done before periodically scanned and I/O Inter scanned records start processing.

ellLib

Casts have been removed that suppressed valuable error messages

mbbiRecord

All existing manipulations of UDF in process() are removed and udf is set FALSE when the raw value is successfully read.

selRecord

In do_sel udf is not set false at the beginning. If selm has an invalid value recGblSetSevr(psel,SOFT_ALARM,MAJOR_ALARM) is called.

cdCommands file

Fixed a bug and revised the use of the IOCS_APPL_TOP setting in an application's <top>/configure/CONFIG file (which specifies the path to <top> as seen by the IOC) to apply the same modifications to all paths output in the cdCommands file.

dbStaticLib

All routines with Recdes of Fielddes in their name are obsolete and removed. A new routine dbDumpField replaces dbDumpFldDes.

## Changes since alpha2

All changes for release 3.13.5 that also apply to 3.14 have been made.

devAiSoftRaw and devAoSoftRaw

A new state is defined for the LINR field. The name is "SLOPE", which allows any device type to be used with manual settings of the EOFF and ESLO fields. With this setting, the device support's special_linconv() routine is only called when LINR=LINEAR.

The RTEMS TFTP remote filesystem driver now supports a limited form of the chdir() system call. One restriction is that all pathnames passed to chdir() must end in a / character, so IOC shell commands to change directories must be given as

cd ../db/

# EPICS Release base 3.14.0alpha2

Since the alpha1 release some major changes were made to the build system, to some of the libCom facilities, and to the iocsh facilities.

The unbundled version of the sequencer has been build and tested with this release. You must obtain a version of the sequencer that has been built against alpha2.

A verion of the HPlanGpib support has been built and tested with this release. Again you must obtain a version that builds with alpha2.

A new update to the Application Developer's Guide is available for this release.

### Build changes

- Operating system independant builds are now done in an O.Common subdirectory and then installed instead of being performed directly in an install directory.
- Build definition names (e.g. RECTYPES, MENUS, DBDNAME, and BPTS) have been changed to specify the name of the file to be created and installed instead of the source file name.
- All db and dbd related definitions and rules have been moved into base/configure/RULES.Db file. The rules now allow multiple dbd files and registerRecordDeviceDriver files to be created in a single Makefile.
- "gnumake depends" no longer depends on a complete buildInstall.

### Converting alpha1 applications to alpha2

Build modifications in alpha2 require the following changes to existing R3.14 applications.

- Remove the now unused RULES files

  > ./configure/RULES.Db
  > ./configure/RULES.registerRecordDeviceDriver

- Delete the following line in ./configure/RULES

  > include $(TOP)/configure/RULES.registerRecordDeviceDriver

- In <top>/configure/Makefile change

  > @$(PERL) $(TOOLS)/makeConfigAppInclude.pl $(T_A) $@ $(TOP)

  to

  > @$(PERL) $(TOOLS)/makeConfigAppInclude.pl $(EPICS_HOST_ARCH) $(T_A) $@ $(TOP)

  and add the line

  > depends: install

  to the bottom of the Makefile.
- In all *App/*Db/Makefiles change

  > include $(TOP)/configure/RULES.Db

  to

  > include $(TOP)/configure/RULES

- In all *App/src/Makefile files change

  > DBDNAME = <name>App

  to

  > DBD += <name>

  and remove the line

  > DBDEXPAND = <name>Include.dbd

  NOTE: If any of your *App/*Db/Makefiles contain "DBDNAME =" lines you should make these same changes in that *Db dirctory.
- In all *App/src/Makefile Makefiles change

  > RECTYPES=<name>.h

  to

  > DBDINC+=<name>

  change

  > MENUS=<name>.h

  to

  > DBDINC+=<name>

  change

  > BPTS

  to

  > DBD

  change

  > INSTALLDB

  to

  > DB

  change

  > DBDINSTALL

  to

  > DBD

- In all example *App/src/Makefile files change

  > example_SRCS_DEFAULT += registerRecordDeviceDriver.c

  to

  > example_SRCS_DEFAULT += <name>_registerRecordDeviceDriver.cpp

  where <name> is the base name of a <name>.dbd file which was created from a <name>Include.dbd file and which will be loaded in a st.cmd or stcmd.host script (e.g. example).
- In ./iocBoot/ioc<name>/st.cmd files change

  > dbLoadDatabase("dbd/exampleApp.dbd")

  to

  > dbLoadDatabase("dbd/example.dbd")

- In <top>/iocBoot/ioc<name>/stcmd.host files change

  > dbLoadDatabase("../../dbd/exampleApp.dbd",0,0)

  to

  > dbLoadDatabase("../../dbd/example.dbd",0,0)

### EPICS_HOST_ARCH changes

GNU compiler builds are now determined by the value of EPICS_HOST_ARCH and are no longer specified in CONFIG_SITE. All references to the ANSI (ACC/GCC) and CPLUSPLUS (CCC/G++) macros have been removed.

### libCom

Most of the library routines and files starting with the prefix osi have been changed to start with epics. Several also had major changes to their user interface. See the latest version of the Application Developer's Guide for details.

## EPICS Release base 3.14.0alpha1 Notes

This is the first release of 3.14. This is the first release that supports iocCore on platforms besides vxWorks.

iocCore is now supported on the following platforms:

- vxWorks

  > Tornado II is required.

- RTEMS

  > An open source real time operating system. It has been tested on MVME167 and MC68360 processors. RTEMS also supports powerPC.

- solaris

  > Has been tested on solaris 2.6 and solaris 8 with Sun workshop 6.0 (C++ 5.2). Sun workshop 5.0 (C++ 5.0) will not compile this version of EPICS.

- Linux

  > Has been tested on Redhat x86 platforms.

- winNT

  > Testing has been done with visual C++ 6.0.

A new version of the Application Developers Guide is available. The following gives links to the new Application Developer's Guide and to RTEMS information.

> http://www.aps.anl.gov/epics/base/R3-14/index.php

Most of the Application Developer's Guide has only minor changes. The following are new.

- Chapter 2 describes the new features for 3.14.
- Chapter 4 describes the build facility for 3.14
- Chapters 19 and 20 describe libCom, which was not previously documented.

It must be emphasized that this is an alpha release.

- Please don't use it for existing operational systems
- Don't build your operational CA clients with it.
- The APIs for new components in libCom are still evolving so if you use them be prepared for changes.
- HPUX - No support currently because we could not find good support for multithreading.

#### Building Applications

- For new applications see Chapters 2 (New Features) and Chapter 4 (Build Facility) of the Application Developer's Guide.
- For existing applications the old config rules are still supported. Some changes, however, are needed. Documentation is being prepared and will appear in these release notes sooon.