We are pleased to announce a new developer snapshot release of GNU Classpath.
GNU Classpath, essential libraries for the java, is a project to create free core class libraries for use with runtimes, compilers and tools for the java programming language. GNU Classpath 0.13 can be downloaded from ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/classpath/ or one of the ftp.gnu.org mirrors http://www.gnu.org/order/ftp.html File: classpath-0.13.tar.gz MD5sum: 9920904c15f2cdb15e38c4a44968c4f9 SHA1sum: f431a24d7f25259123ae8a897b4d71be76ac76ea Some highlights of this release (more extensive list below): Includes HTTP/1.1 and FTP URL handlers. Added java.beans XMLEncoder and XMLDecoder classes. More than 250 locales are supported now. SAX, DOM, XSL and XPath implementations for javax.xml (JAXP 1.3) have been added. Better AWT on gtk+ and Swing support. An AWT Robot implementation based on the XServer XTest Extension for the gtk+ peers has been added. GNU Classpath uses the Mauve test suite for Compatibility, Completeness and Correctness checking. This release passes 23131 of 23729 mauve tests. Conformance reports for the included jaxp support can be found in the doc/README.jaxp file. 22 people are listed in the ChangeLog file (full list below) and there were 245 commits to CVS since the last release. Included, but not activated by default in this release is a Graphics2D implementation based on the Cairo Graphics framework (http://www.cairographics.org/). Enabling this makes programs like JFreeChart work on GNU Classpath based runtimes. Note that this release needs a cairo CVS build. [It is recommended that people wanting to experiment with the Graphics2D implementation follow the instructions for building gcj with jhbuild which automatically builds the latest CVS version of GCJ and Cairo at http://people.redhat.com/fitzsim/gcj-and-jhbuild.html] Not yet included is an implementation of Generic collection classes and classes for other 1.5 language extensions. Work on this is being done on a special development branch that will be included in a future GNU Classpath release when free runtimes, compilers and tools have all been upgraded to support these new language features. Here are answers to some questions you might have about this project and this release. 1). Who should use this software? Although GNU Classpath is already capable of supporting many applications written in the java programming language, this is a development release. As such, there are still some unfinished components, and some problems are to be expected. You should install it if you are interested in GNU Classpath development or reporting bugs. We appreciate both. For end users we recommend to use one of the development environments based on GNU Classpath which combine the core libraries with compilers and other tools needed for creating applications and libraries. * GCC with GCJ (http://gcc.gnu.org/java/) * Kaffe (http://www.kaffe.org/) Both projects have CVS versions which track GNU Classpath closely. 2). What is required to build/install/run? GNU Classpath requires a working GNU build environment and a byte code compiler such as jikes, gcj or kjc. When creating native code you will also need a working C compiler and up to date Gnome development libraries (gtk+, libart and gdk-pixbuf). More information on the precise version numbers for the tools and libraries can be found in the INSTALL file. You will also need a runtime environment. The following runtime environments (which don't include compilers or other tools, see above) work out of the box with GNU Classpath (tested by and recommended for GNU Classpath hackers). * JamVM (1.2.3) (http://jamvm.sourceforge.net/) * Kissme (CVS) (http://kissme.sourceforge.net/) Other runtimes known to work with the latest or a previous release are JikesRVM, IKVM.NET, JC, SableVM (-Xgnuclasspath) and CACAO. (You might need staging, development or CVS versions for support of the latest GNU Classpath release with some of these.) Note that these are just byte code execution runtimes. For development of programs written in the java programming language you will also need compilers and other tools for creating libraries and/or executables (see question 1). For other environments that might need modified version of the current release see the README file. A complete list of virtual machines and compilers known to be based on GNU Classpath can be found at our website: http://www.gnu.org/software/classpath/stories.html 2). What platforms are supported? GNU/Linux and FreeBSD on x86 and powerpc are regularly tested by the developers. Since 0.12 there is also support for cygwin. We plan to eventually support many others. 5). Where do I go for more information? The project home page with information on our mailing list can be found at http://www.gnu.org/software/classpath/ A good overview of the current status can be found on the GNU Classpath at FOSDEM'04 page which describes the last GNU Classpath hacker meeting. It includes reports and presentations on the current status and future plans: http://www.gnu.org/software/classpath/events/fosdem04.html The following presentation given during the Desktop Developers Conference shows how to integrate GNU Claspath and GCJ more with the Free Desktop environments: http://people.redhat.com/fitzsim/ddc2004/ 6). How do I extend the functionality of the core classes? Besides combining GNU Classpath with the runtimes and compilers above you might want to add support for additional encryption libraries and algorithms as provided by GNU Crypto (http://www.gnu.org/software/gnu-crypto/). And for additional extension libraries (mail, activation, infobus, servlet, etc.) check out GNU ClasspathX (http://www.gnu.org/software/classpathx). Additional network protocol support is provided by a sub-project called GNU Classpath Inetlib, an extension library to provide extra network protocol support (ftp, finger, gopher) for GNU Classpath, but it can also standalone to ease adding http, imap, pop3 and smtp client support to applictions. Also distributed from <ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/classpath/> The following projects extend the functionality of GNU Classpath with additional algorithms, new core packages and tools. All are released under GPL compatible licenses: * Jessie: A free implementation of the JSSE. Secure Sockets Extension. http://www.nongnu.org/jessie/ * Tritonus: A implementation of the javax.sound API. http://www.tritonus.org/ * gcjwebplugin: A plugin for the execution of applets in web browsers. http://www.nongnu.org/gcjwebplugin/ Note that the above libraries might already have been included in the various platforms that also integrate GNU Classpath like done by the Kaffe project. 6). What is new in this release? New in release 0.13 (Jan 6, 2005) (See the ChangeLog file for a full list of changes.) * The http url protocol handler has been replaced with a full HTTP/1.1 version from GNU inetlib. * A new ftp url protocol handler has been added also from GNU inetlib. * java.beans has been updated to 1.4 including support for XMLEncoder and XMLDecoder. * The java.util.Locale support is now based on the Common Locale Data Repository (CLDR) Project (see http://www.unicode.org/cldr/). GNU Classpath provides support for more than 250 locales now. This new support is experimental and the GNU Classpath hackers are working together with runtime developers and the unicode consortium to improve them in the future. If your runtime misdetects your locale or if the default locale gives problems please try running with -Duser.language=en and -Duser.region=US to fall back on a known good locale. * Added implementations of javax.xml (JAXP 1.3), org.xml.sax (SAX2) and org.w3c.dom (DOM Level 3) interfaces. It is possible to switch between different implementations AElfred2, GNU DOM, GNU XSL, libxmlj SAX, libxmlj DOM and libxmlj XSL by setting different system properties. Also provided is a preliminary XPath 1.0 implementation. The libxmlj versions are build around libxml2 and libxslt and have to be enabled during build time by the --enable-xmlj configure flag. The current support is equal to the last released GNU JAXP 1.3 release. These packages will be maintained as part of the GNU Classpath core classes in the future. For more information, conformance results and documentation on selecting different implementations see doc/README.jaxp. * More AWT accessible support. * AWT gtk+ peers component layout, dialog placement, keyboard focus handling and text positioning have been improved. * ImageIO interfaces are more complete. * JList, JTable and JTree have been hugely improved. * java.awt.Robot support with GdkRobot in the gtk+ awt peers. Needs XTest Extension (libXtst) XServer support. * New --disable-examples configure argument. Runtime interface changes: * Added a new method (VMRuntime.enableShutdownHooks) that enables the VM to lazily register an exit handler. * The java.lang.Class constructor now automatically sets the protection domain for array classes, based on the protection domain of the component type class. * New gnu.classpath.VMSystemProperties class. This replaces the system properties initialization in VMRuntime. Note that it is now the VMs responsibility to set one additional property: gnu.cpu.endian should be set to "big" or "little". * VMRuntime.nativeGetLibname() has been renamed to VMRuntime.mapLibraryName() and has only one argument, the name of the library. * String and StringBuffer now call VMSystem.arraycopy() directly and don't go through java.lang.System. Be careful to not initialize java.lang.System early in the bootstrap sequence in your VM runtime interface classes. * Some (wrong) documentation about the behavior of VMThread.sleep(0, 0) has been updated. Also, VMThread.sleep() now has a default non-native implementation, but it is a generic implementation that ignores the nano-seconds argument. Runtime hackers are encouraged to provide a more efficient version. * There is prelimenary support for nio direct byte buffers. See VMDirectByteBuffer. Please contact the GNU Classpath mailinglist when you add support for this to your runtime. The following people helped with this release: Andrew John Hughes (Locale, Currency and java.text updates), Archie Cobbs (Thread improvements), Bryce McKinlay (ResourceBundle speedups), Casey Marshall (FileLock fixes), Chris Burdess (locale generator, xml integration, http and ftp handlers), Craig Black (BeanInfoEmbryo improvements), David Gilbert (AWT and geom documentation), Graydon Hoare (Graphics2D and BufferedImage improvements), Guilhem Lavaux (CLDR parser and Object stream serialization improvements), Ito Kazumitsu (nio ByteBuffer fixes), Jeroen Frijters (Runtime interfaces improvements, including shutdown hooks and system properties, nio and zip fixes), Jerry Quinn (AWT accessibility support), Mark Wielaard (packaging and integration), Michael Koch (Locale, Swing, InetAddress, ImageIO, nio improvements and libgcj integration), Olga Rodimina (JTable improvements), Patrik Reali (website maintenance), Paul Jenner (ImageIcon additions), Ranjit Mathew (IdentityHashMap fix), Robert Schuster (java.beans updates, XMLEncode and XMLDecoder implementations and JComboBox improvements), Sven de Marothy (Graphics2D, java.awt.image and java.awt.geom fixes), Thomas Fitzsimmons (GdkRobot, gtk+ peers component layout, dialog placement, keyboard focus handling and text positioning), Tom Tromey (gcjx support, zip and ResourceBundle fixes)
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