GNU Classpath delivers core libraries for upcoming GCC and Kaffe releases We are pleased to announce a new developer snapshot release of GNU Classpath.
GNU Classpath, essential libraries for java, is a project to create free core class libraries for use with runtimes, compilers and tools for the java programming language. The GNU Classpath developer snapshot releases are not directly aimed at the end user but are meant to be integrated into larger development platforms. This 0.14 release snapshot can be seen as the feature complete base library that will be used in the upcoming GCC 4.0 (gcj) and Kaffe 1.1.5 runtimes, compilers and tools collections. Developers wanting to have a look at the core library classes provided by these upcoming releases can take a look at the new GNU Classpath developers site. http://developer.classpath.org/ provides detailed information on how to start with helping the GNU Classpath project and gives an overview of the core class library packages currently provided. With this release generated documentation is provided through the new GNU Classpath Tools gjdoc 0.7.x series. A large update of the documentation generation framework for java source files used by the GNU project. See http://developer.classpath.org/doc/. One of the major focusses of the GNU Classpath project is expanding and using the Mauve test suite for Compatibility, Completeness and Correctness checking. Various groups around GNU Classpath collaborate on the free software Mauve test suite which contains more then 25.000 library tests. Mauve has various modules for testing core class library implementations, byte code verifiers, source to byte code and native code compiler tests. Mauve also contains the Wonka visual test suite and the Jacks Compiler Killer Suite. This release passes 25442 of the mauve core library tests. The GNU Classpath developer recently held a conference during Fosdem. This was a standing room event and provided lot of communication between the GNU Classpath, Kaffe, GCJ, IKVM, Apache, java-gnome and Cacao hackers and users. The presentations of this event have been publised and should give a good overview of the current status and future plans of the project: http://www.gnu.org/software/classpath/events/escape_fosdem05.html Some highlights of changes in this release (more extensive list below): ImageIO support through gdkpixbuf, lots of new nio character encoders and decoders, fully automated class documentation generation, generic VMStackWalker support for runtimes, lots of bug fixes, optimizations and new swing support. Included, but not activated by default in this release is a Graphics2D implementation based on the Cairo Graphics framework (http://www.cairographics.org). Enabling this makes programs like JFreeChart and JEdit work on GNU Classpath based runtimes. To enable this support install the cairo 0.3.0 snapshot, configure GNU Classpath with --enable-gtk-cairo and make sure the system property gnu.java.awt.peer.gtk.Graphics=Graphics2D is set. 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. 29 people actively contributed code to this release and made 232 CVS commits during the last two months of development. diffstat since 0.13: 1189 files changed, 31388 insertions(+), 13744 deletions(-) More details below. GNU Classpath 0.14 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-0.14.tar.gz MD5sum: 227beb20b927c042628539601c867614 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/) 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 should work out of the box with GNU Classpath * JamVM (http://jamvm.sourceforge.net/) * Jikes RVM (http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/oss/jikesrvm/) * Kissme (http://kissme.sourceforge.net/) 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. Many more architectures and platforms are supported. Check the actual runtime you use together with GNU Classpath for detailed information on the supported platforms. 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 Escape The Java Trap event held at FOSDEM this year. It includes reports and presentations on the current status and future plans: http://www.gnu.org/software/classpath/events/escape-fosdem05.html 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, xml, activation, infobus, servlet) 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 0.14 (Feb 25, 2005) (See the ChangeLog file for a full list of changes.) * Character encoders and decoders have been added for: iso-8859-6 (arabic), iso-8859-7 (greek), iso-8859-8 (hebrew), iso-8859-9 (latin-5), iso-8859-13, iso-8859-15 (latin-9), cp1047 (ebcdic), ebcdic-xml-us,ascii, windows-1250, windows-1252, UTF-16BE (Big Endian), UTF-16LE (Little Endian), UTF-32BE (Big Endian), UTF-32LE (Little Endian). * Full documentation for all classes can be generated (again) by using the --with-gjdoc configure option. * javax.awt.imageio support through gdkpixbuf. Runtime interface changes: * VMSecurityManager has been replaced by gnu.classpath.VMStackWalker. currentClassLoader() is no longer needed, and there are also two new methods with non-native implementations. VM implementors are encouraged to provide more efficient versions. * VMRuntime.nativeLoad() now takes an additional ClassLoader parameter. The following people helped with this release: Andrew Haley (nio optimizations) Andrew John Hughes (Locale, java.text fixes and generics work) Anthony Green (rmi cleanup) Archie Cobbs (Throwable simplification) Audrius Meskauskas (Swing JComboBox, JTextArea, and Timer fixes) Bryce McKinlay (serialization fixes) C. Brian Jones (rmi cleanups) Chris Burdess (Base64 fix, gnu.xml cleanups, http connection fixes) Craig Black (native state library, and gtk+ awt peer fixes) Dalibor Topic (PropertyAction cleanups, inner class and dead code cleanups) David Gilbert (DefaultListModel, Font text transform fixes and documentation) Graydon Hoare (Lots of GdkGraphics updates) Ito Kazumitsu (nio charset provider, FileChannel and SimpleDateFormat fixes) Jeroen Frijters (Serialization and Collator fixes) Julian Scheid (UTF8 fix and lots of gjdoc work) Mark Wielaard (JarFile, TimeZone, URLClassLoader, serialization and packaging) Michael Koch (AWT Window and Checkbox fixes, code cleanup, LocalInformation maintenance, checkstyle cleanups, swing and nio updates) Olga Rodimina (Jtable updates) Patrik Reali (Website maintenance) Quentin Anciaux (Lots of new character encoders and decoders) Ranjit Mathew (IdentityHashMap bug fix) Robert Schuster (nio charset and ChannelReader implementations) Roman Kennke (Better swing BasicLookAndFeel) Rutger Ovidius (GNU security provider update) Steven Augart (OpenBSD script fixes and stack walker documentation) Sven de Marothy (Lots of Calendar and TimeZone fixes and SpinnerDateModel Thomas Fitzsimmons (Much awt gtk+ peer and Robot work) Timo Lindfors (regex fixes) Tom Tromey (generics work, classloader and xml fixes) -- Escape the Java Trap with GNU Classpath! http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/java-trap.html Join the community at http://planet.classpath.org/
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