126 lines
5.4 KiB
HTML
126 lines
5.4 KiB
HTML
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"
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"http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">
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<html>
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<head>
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<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
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<title>EPICS Base R3.16.0 Release Notes</title>
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</head>
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<body lang="en">
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<h1 align="center">EPICS Base Release 3.16.0</h1>
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<p style="color:red">This version of EPICS Base has not been released yet.</p>
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<h2 align="center">Changes between 3.15.x and 3.16.0</h2>
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<!-- Insert new items immediately below this template ...
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<h3>Title...</h3>
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<p>Description</p>
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-->
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<h3>Build support for CapFast and dbst removed</h3>
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<p>The build rules associated with the CapFast-related tools <tt>sch2edif</tt>
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and <tt>e2db</tt> and the <q>database optimization</q> tool <tt>dbst</tt> have
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been removed, along with the <tt>DB_OPT</tt> build configuration variable.</p>
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<h3>compressRecord buffering order</h3>
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<p>The compressRecord has a new field <tt>BALG</tt> which can select between
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FIFO (append) and LIFO (prepend) ordering for insertion of new elements. FIFO
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ordering is the default, matching the behviour of previous versions.</p>
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<h3>Valgrind Instrumentation</h3>
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<p>Valgrind is a software debugging suite provided by many Linux distributions.
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The header valgrind/valgrind.h is now included in, and installed by, Base.
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When included by a C or C++ source file this header defines some macros which
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expand to provide hints to the Valgrind runtime.
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These have no effect on normal operation of the software, but when run using the
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valgrind tool they can help to find memory leaks and buffer overflows.
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Suitable hints have been added to several free-lists within libCom, including
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freeListLib, allowing valgrind to provide more accurate information about the
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source of potential leaks.</p>
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<p>valgrind.h automatically disables itself when the build target is not
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supported by the valgrind tool.
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It can also explicitly be disabled by defining the macro <em>NVALGRIND</em>.
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See <em>src/libCom/Makefile</em> for a commented-out example.</p>
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<p>As a matter of policy valgrind.h will never be included by any header file
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installed by Base, so its use will remain purely an implementation
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detail hidden from application software.
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Support modules which choose to use valgrind.h are advised to do
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likewise.</p>
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<h3>Database Multi-locking</h3>
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<p>dbLock.c is re-written with an expanded API, and the removal of global mutex locks.</p>
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<p>The new API functions center around dbScanLockMany(), which behaves like dbScanLock()
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applied to an arbitrary group of records. dbLockerAlloc() is used to prepare a list
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or record pointers, then dbScanLockMany() is called. When it returns, all of the records
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listed may be accessed (in any order) until dbScanUnlockMany() is called.</p>
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<p>The Application Developer's Guide has been updated to describe the API and implementation
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is more detail.</p>
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<p>Previously a global mutex 'lockSetModifyLock' was locked and unlocked
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during dbScanLock(), acting as a sequencing point for otherwise unrelated calls.
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The new dbLock.c implementation does not include any global mutex in dbScanLock() or dbScanLockMany().
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Locking/unlocking of unrelated lock sets is now completely concurrent.</p>
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<h3>Generate Version Header</h3>
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<p>A Perl script and Makefile rules have been added to allow modules to generate
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a C header file with a macro defined with an automatically updated identifier.
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This is a VCS revision ID (Darcs, Git, Mercurial, Subversion, and Bazaar are
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supported) or the date/time of the build if no VCS system is in use.</p>
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<p>The makeBaseApp example template has been updated with a new device support
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which makes this identifier visible via a lsi (long string input) record.</p>
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<h3>epicsTime API return status</h3>
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<p>The epicsTime routines that used to return epicsTimeERROR now return a specific
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S_time_ status value, allowing the caller to discover the reason for any failure.
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The identifier <tt>epicsTimeERROR</tt> is no longer defined, so any references to
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it in source code will no longer compile. The identifier epicsTimeOK still exists
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and has the value 0 as before, so most code that uses these APIs can be changed in
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a way that is backwards-compatible with the previous return status.</p>
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<p>Time providers that have to return a status value and still need to be built
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with earlier versions of Base can define the necessary status symbols like this:</p>
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<blockquote><pre>
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#include "epicsTime.h"
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#ifndef M_time
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/* S_time_... status values were not provided before Base 3.16 */
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#define S_time_unsynchronized epicsTimeERROR
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#define S_time_...whatever... epicsTimeERROR
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#endif
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</pre></blockquote>
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<h3>Refactoring of epicsReadline</h3>
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<p>The epicsReadline code has been reorganized to allow the commandline history
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editor to be disabled at runtime. The EPICS_COMMANDLINE_LIBRARY build setting
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still selects the preferred editor, but the new <tt>IOCSH_HISTEDIT_DISABLE</tt>
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environment variable can be set at runtime to disable history editing and make
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the IOC or other program use the basic editor instead. This is useful when
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starting and controlling an IOC from another program through its stdin and
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stdout streams since history editors often insert invisible escape codes into
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the stdout stream, making it hard to parse.</p>
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<h3>Callback subsystem API</h3>
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<p>Added a new macro <tt>callbackGetPriority(prio, callback)</tt> to the
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callback.h header and removed the need for dbScan.c to reach into the internals
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of its CALLBACK objects.</p>
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</body>
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</html>
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