path: root/RELEASENOTES

This file contains a brief overview of the changes made in each release.
A detailed description of changes are available in the CHANGES.current
and CHANGES files.

Release Notes
=============
SWIG-2.0.4 summary:
- This is mainly a Python oriented release including support for Python
  built-in types for superior performance with the new -builtin option.
  The -builtin option is especially suitable for performance-critical
  libraries and applications that call wrapped methods repeatedly.
  See the python-specific chapter of the SWIG manual for more info.
- Python 3.2 support has also been added and various Python bugs have
  been fixed.
- Octave 3.4 support has also been added.
- There are also the usual minor generic improvements, as well as bug
  fixes and enhancements for D, Guile, Lua, Octave, Perl and Tcl. 

SWIG-2.0.3 summary:
- A bug fix release including a couple of fixes for regressions in the
  2.0 series.

SWIG-2.0.2 summary:
- Support for the D language has been added.
- Various bug fixes and minor enhancements.
- Bug fixes particular to the Clisp, C#, Go, MzScheme, Ocaml, PHP, R,
  Ruby target languages.

SWIG-2.0.1 summary:
- Support for the Go language has been added.
- New regular expression (regex) encoder for renaming symbols based on
  the Perl Compatible Regular Expressions (PCRE) library.
- Numerous fixes in reporting file and line numbers in error and warning
  messages.
- Various bug fixes and improvements in the C#, Lua, Perl, PHP, Ruby
  and Python language modules.

SWIG-2.0.0 summary:
- License changes, see LICENSE file and http://www.swig.org/legal.html.
- Much better nested class/struct support.
- Much improved template partial specialization and explicit
  specialization handling.
- Namespace support improved with the 'nspace' feature where namespaces
  can be automatically translated into Java packages or C# namespaces.
- Improved typemap and symbol table debugging.
- Numerous subtle typemap matching rule changes when using the default
  (SWIGTYPE) type. These now work much like C++ class template partial
  specialization matching.
- Other small enhancements for typemaps. Typemap fragments are also now
  official and documented.
- Warning and error display refinements.
- Wrapping of shared_ptr is improved and documented now.
- Numerous C++ unary scope operator (::) fixes.
- Better support for boolean expressions.
- Various bug fixes and improvements in the Allegrocl, C#, Java, Lua,
  Octave, PHP, Python, R, Ruby and XML modules.

SWIG-1.3.40 summary:
- SWIG now supports directors for PHP.
- PHP support improved in general.
- Octave 3.2 support added.
- Various bug fixes/enhancements for Allegrocl, C#, Java, Octave, Perl,
  Python, Ruby and Tcl.
- Other generic fixes and minor new features.

SWIG-1.3.39 summary:
- Some new small feature enhancements.
- Improved C# std::vector wrappers.
- Bug fixes: mainly Python, but also Perl, MzScheme, CFFI, Allegrocl 
  and Ruby

SWIG-1.3.38 summary:
- Output directory regression fix and other minor bug fixes

SWIG-1.3.37 summary:
- Python 3 support added
- SWIG now ships with a version of ccache that can be used with SWIG.
  This enables the files generated by SWIG to be cached so that repeated
  use of SWIG on unchanged input files speeds up builds quite considerably.
- PHP 4 support removed and PHP support improved in general
- Improved C# array support
- Numerous Allegro CL improvements
- Bug fixes/enhancements for Python, PHP, Java, C#, Chicken, Allegro CL,
  CFFI, Ruby, Tcl, Perl, R, Lua.
- Other minor generic bug fixes and enhancements

SWIG-1.3.36 summary:
- Enhancement to directors to wrap all protected members
- Optimisation feature for objects returned by value
- A few bugs fixes in the PHP, Java, Ruby, R, C#, Python, Lua and 
  Perl modules
- Other minor generic bug fixes

SWIG-1.3.35 summary:
- Octave language module added
- Bug fixes in Python, Lua, Java, C#, Perl modules
- A few other generic bugs and runtime assertions fixed

SWIG-1.3.34 summary:
- shared_ptr support for Python
- Support for latest R - version 2.6
- Various minor improvements/bug fixes for R, Lua, Python, Java, C#
- A few other generic bug fixes, mainly for templates and using statements

SWIG-1.3.33 summary:
- Fix regression for Perl where C++ wrappers would not compile
- Fix regression parsing macros

SWIG-1.3.32 summary:
- shared_ptr support for Java and C#
- Enhanced STL support for Ruby
- Windows support for R
- Fixed long-standing memory leak in PHP Module
- Numerous fixes and minor enhancements for Allegrocl, C#, cffi, Chicken, Guile,
  Java, Lua, Ocaml, Perl, PHP, Python, Ruby, Tcl.
- Improved warning support

SWIG-1.3.31 summary:
- Python modern classes regression fix

SWIG-1.3.30 summary:
- Python-2.5 support
- New language module: R
- Director support added for C#
- Numerous director fixes and improvements
- Improved mingw/msys support
- Better constants support in Guile and chicken modules
- Support for generating PHP5 class wrappers
- Important Java premature garbage collection fix
- Minor improvements/fixes in cffi, php, allegrocl, perl, chicken, lua, ruby,
  ocaml, python, java, c# and guile language modules
- Many many other bug fixes

SWIG-1.3.29 summary:
- Numerous important bug fixes
- Few minor new features
- Some performance improvements in generated code for Python

SWIG-1.3.28 summary:
- More powerful renaming (%rename) capability.
- More user friendly warning handling.
- Add finer control for default constructors and destructors. We discourage
  the use of the 'nodefault' option, which disables both constructors and
  destructors, leading to possible memory leaks. Use instead 'nodefaultctor'
  and/or 'nodefaultdtor'.
- Automatic copy constructor wrapper generation via the 'copyctor' option/feature.
- Better handling of Windows extensions and types.
- Better runtime error reporting.
- Add the %catches directive to catch and dispatch exceptions.
- Add the %naturalvar directive for more 'natural' variable wrapping.
- Better default handling of std::string variables using the %naturalvar directive.
- Add the %allowexcept and %exceptionvar directives to handle exceptions when
  accessing a variable.
- Add the %delobject directive to mark methods that act like destructors.
- Add the -fastdispatch option to enable smaller and faster overload dispatch
  mechanism.
- Template support for %rename, %feature and %typemap improved.
- Add/doc more debug options, such as -dump_module, -debug_typemaps, etc.
- Unified typemap library (UTL) potentially providing core typemaps for all
  scripting languages based on the recently evolving Python typemaps.
- New language module: Common Lisp with CFFI.
- Python, Ruby, Perl and Tcl use the new UTL, many old reported and hidden 
  errors with typemaps are now fixed.
- Initial Java support for languages using the UTL via GCJ, you can now use 
  Java libraries in your favorite script language using gcj + swig.
- Tcl support for std::wstring.
- PHP4 module update, many error fixes and actively maintained again.
- Allegrocl support for C++, also enhanced C support.
- Ruby support for bang methods.
- Ruby support for user classes as native exceptions.
- Perl improved dispatching in overloaded functions via the new cast and rank
  mechanism.
- Perl improved backward compatibility, 5.004 and later tested and working.
- Python improved backward compatibility, 1.5.2 and later tested and working.
- Python can use the same cast/rank mechanism via the -castmode option.
- Python implicit conversion mechanism similar to C++, via the %implicitconv
  directive (replaces and improves the implicit.i library). 
- Python threading support added.
- Python STL support improved, iterators are supported and STL containers can
  use now the native PyObject type.
- Python many performance options and improvements, try the -O option to test
  all of them. Python runtime benchmarks show up to 20 times better performance
  compared to 1.3.27 and older versions.
- Python support for 'multi-inheritance' on the python side.
- Python simplified proxy classes, now swig doesn't need to generate the
  additional 'ClassPtr' classes.
- Python extended support for smart pointers.
- Python better support for static member variables.
- Python backward compatibility improved, many projects that used to work
  only with  swig-1.3.21 to swig-1.3.24 are working again with swig-1.3.28
- Python test-suite is now 'valgrinded' before release, and swig also
  reports memory leaks due to missing destructors.
- Minor bug fixes and improvements to the Lua, Ruby, Java, C#, Python, Guile,
  Chicken, Tcl and Perl modules.

SWIG-1.3.27 summary:
- Fix bug in anonymous typedef structures which was leading to strange behaviour

SWIG-1.3.26 summary:
- New language modules: Lua, CLISP and Common Lisp with UFFI.
- Big overhaul to the PHP module.
- Change to the way 'extern' is handled.
- Minor bug fixes specific to  C#, Java, Modula3, Ocaml, Allegro CL,
  XML, Lisp s-expressions, Tcl, Ruby and Python modules.
- Other minor improvements and bug fixes.

SWIG-1.3.25 summary:
- Improved runtime type system.  Speed of module loading improved in
  modules with lots of types.  SWIG_RUNTIME_VERSION has been increased
  from 1 to 2, but the API is exactly the same; only internal changes
  were made.
- The languages that use the runtime type system now support external
  access to the runtime type system.
- Various improvements with typemaps and template handling.
- Fewer warnings in generated code.
- Improved colour documentation.
- Many C# module improvements (exception handling, prevention of early
  garbage collection, C# attributes support added, more flexible type
  marshalling/asymmetric types.)
- Minor improvements and bug fixes specific to the C#, Java, TCL, Guile,
  Chicken, MzScheme, Perl, Php, Python, Ruby and Ocaml modules).
- Various other bug fixes and memory leak fixes.

SWIG-1.3.24 summary:
- Improved enum handling
- More runtime library options
- More bugs fixes for templates and template default arguments, directors
  and other areas.
- Better smart pointer support, including data members, static members
  and %extend.

SWIG-1.3.23 summary:
- Improved support for callbacks
- Python docstring support and better error handling
- C++ default argument support for Java and C# added.
- Improved c++ default argument support for the scripting languages plus
  option to use original (compact) default arguments.
- %feature and %ignore/%rename bug fixes and mods - they might need default
  arguments specified to maintain compatible behaviour when using the new
  default arguments wrapping.
- Runtime library changes: Runtime code can now exist in more than one module
  and so need not be compiled into just one module
- Further improved support for templates and namespaces
- Overloaded templated function support added
- More powerful default typemaps (mixed default typemaps)
- Some important %extend and director code bug fixes
- Guile now defaults to using SCM API.  The old interface can be obtained by
  the -gh option.
- Various minor improvements and bug fixes for C#, Chicken, Guile, Java, 
  MzScheme, Perl, Python and Ruby
- Improved dependencies generation for constructing Makefiles.

SWIG-1.3.22 summary:
- Improved exception handling and translation of C errors or C++
  exceptions into target language exceptions.
- Improved enum support, mapping to built-in Java 1.5 enums and C#
  enums or the typesafe enum pattern for these two languages.
- Python - much better STL suppport and support for std::wstring,
  wchar_t and FILE *.
- Initial support for Modula3 and Allegro CL.
- 64 bit TCL support.
- Java and C#'s proxy classes are now nearly 100% generated from
  typemaps and/or features for finer control on the generated code.
- SWIG runtime library support deprecation.
- Improved documentation. SWIG now additionally provides documentation
  in the form of a single HTML page as well as a pdf document.
- Enhanced C++ friend declaration support.
- Better support for reference counted classes.
- Various %fragment improvements.
- RPM fixes.
- Various minor improvements and bug fixes for C#, Chicken, Guile, Java, 
  MzScheme, Perl, Php, Python, Ruby and XML.