GCL 2.6.8 RELEASE NOTES

Greetings! The GCL team is happy to announce the release of version 2.6.8, the latest achievement in the 'stable' (as opposed to 'development') series. Please see http://www.gnu.org/software/gcl for downloading information.
This release is a significant modification of 2.6.7, incorporating many bug fixes, portability improvements, and greatly expanded native relocation support. From the changelog:

• New upstream release
• fdollars in identifiers and gcc 4.0 for arm
• Fix 64bit fixnum coersion bug using code from cvs HEAD
• 64bit fixnum fasd data format fix from cvs head
• Fix long-call gcc configure bug for ppc
• revert 64bit coersion (gmp_big.c, maybe_replace_big) and replace with code in siLnani (main.c) to get addresses from bignums. 2.7.0 will have 64bit fixnums on 64bit machines, but this should not be backported to 2.6.x
• Remove gcc-3.3 for arm in debian/rules
• make default maxpage depend on SIZEOF_LONG and PAGEWIDTH in a sane fashion
• Fix read-char-no-hang
• Strip emacs warnings when finding site-lisp directory
• mach-o update for latest binutils
• Latext bfd mach-o support from Aurelien
• revert to locbfd default on ppc-macosx
• More ppc macosx fixes from Aurelien
• revert a few macosx changes
• default to void
• prototype on my_sbrk for latest macosx pending Aureliens #ifdef
• Fix plt.h parsing on macosx
• Fix leading_underscore detection on mac
• macosx name mangling fixes
• multi-process safe gazonk names in compiler::*tmp-dir*
• Add underscore-mangled setjmp calls to plttest.c for macosx
• Fix POTFILES.in, Closes: #336207.
• Update templates, Closes: #324636
• New French and Swedish translations, Closes: #333654, Closes: #336757.
• Add feof to plttest.c for macosx
• Cleanup LEADING_UNDERSCORE case in plt.c et.al for macosx et.al.
• pass devices if present in compiler::get-temp-dir, fix disassemble for new gazonk name pattern
• fix configure
• Add mount declaration to plt.c
• Use internal gettext for bfd
• Restore xgcl2
• Set compiler::*tmp-dir* at runtime
• report tmp-dir setting with system-banner to enable clean -eval - batch operation; fix listen on socket streams; use (abs (getpid)) in tmp names for Windows
• fix configure unbalanced quotes
• support for bignums in nth et.al.
• Fix branch cut of atanh
• Fix typep on simple-arrays
• prevent nested free errors
• revert atanh branch cut change
• Fix function documentation wrapping by compile
• cond evalmacro from cvs head
• Fix fixnum declarations in new smallnthcdr/bignthcdr
• fix simple-array typep
• updates for lsp/sys-proclaim
• fix read-char-no-hang
• string comparison functions are not predicates
• xgcl integration
• Add missing build dependencies, omit html generation to avoid non-free dependencies, CLoses: #372574.
• Remove references to null constant in gcl_Xinit.lsp
• Fix cs.po
• update fr and sv po files
• clean xgcl-2/gmon.out
• xgcl merge from cvs head
• cleanup latest gcc warnings
• defentry C proclamations and xgcl cleanup
• remove emacs build dependency
• synch xgcl-2 with Novak edits
• fix build errors
• Remove power of two limit to MAXPAGE;fix X lib paths
• configure cleanup
• delete-file works on directories;build xgcl the old way;latest xgcl from Gordon Novak
• xgcl upgrade
• parse_number from cvs head with *read-base* fixes
• fix object_to_string
• install xgcl-2/sysdef.lisp
• fix info dir and emacs site lisp dir installation
• New xgcl readme
• Remove bashism from debian/rules
• Fix dwdoc doc-base error
• fix ia64 build
• fix socket write error
• HAVE_SYS_SOCKIO_H for solaris
• autolocbfd for solaris
• no -Wall when no gcc
• no -fomit-frame-pointer on m68k
• no profiling on mips
• $(AWK) instead of awk
• si::stat function
• fix 'the boolean type coersion error
• no varargs on cygwin
• while eval macro
• gensym counter fixes
• xgcl updates
• fix lstat for mingw
• backoff to gcc-3.4 on alpha,arm,hppa, and m68k
• build-dep on gcc3.4 where appropriate
• Newer standards
• fix typeo in object_to_string
• Fix large float read bug in c1constant-value
• more default stack space
• unrestricted gcc for alpha
• si::gettimeofday function for HOL88 build
• macosx fixes
• unrestricted gcc for m68k
• no profiling for hppa, allow C optimization on hppa
• make sure *tmp-dir* is set
• makeinfo is optional
• no C optimization on hppa, gcc 4.x on hppa
• update cs.po, Closes: #389211
• static function pointers for hppa
• Fix leading underscore behavior of my_plt
• add sqrt to plttest.c
• disable-nls added to the binutils subconfigures to avoid msgfmt dependency
• remove -lintl from powerpc-macosx.defs
• update to make-user-init from cvs head to support hol88, fix link on mingw
• solaris-i386 support
• fix read-char-no-hang on mingw
• fast compile without wrap-literals
• sigaltstack support
• fix cerror
• add read-byte,read-sequence,write-byte,write-sequence support
• fix some float parsing inaccuracies
• support GNU_HASH sections, Closes: #426135
• safety 2 for certain low level functions in gcl_listlib.lsp, CLoses: #415266
• solaris i386 is little endian
• drop gcc-3.4 on arm, Closes: #440421
• Depend on emacs22 | emacsen, Closes: #440190
• debconf translations Closes: #410683, Closes: #419736, Closes: #423706, Closes: #441408
• statsysbfd in Debian, incoporating modules into libgcl.a for compiler::link support
• Non-maintainer upload to fix pending l10n issues
• Debconf templates and debian/control reviewed by the debian-l10n- english team as part of the Smith review project. Closes: #457025
• [Debconf translation updates] - Portuguese. Closes: #457576 - Czech. Closes: #457677 - French. Closes: #458120 - Finnish. Closes: #458255 - Galician. Closes: #458529 - Vietnamese. Closes: #459008 - Russian. Closes: #459308 - Dutch. Closes: #459541 - German. Closes: #459887
• [Lintian] Correct FSF address in debian/copyright
• [Lintian] Remove extra whitespaces at the end of debian/in.gcl-doc.doc-base.tk
• [Lintian] Correct section in doc-base documents from Apps/Programming to Programming
• Accept NMU
• Bug fix: "[INTL:sv] po-debconf file for gcl", thanks to Martin Ågren (Closes: #492241).
• Bug fix: "gcl: FTBFS [amd64]: cannot trap sbrk", thanks to Daniel Schepler (Closes: #487435). Modified and applied personality handling patch.
• Bug fix: "gcl: Builds broken package with gcc-4.3", thanks to Daniel Schepler (Closes: #467474). Added sincos to plttest.c
• No infinite unrandomization loops
• gcc 4.2 for mips/mipsel for now
• __divdi3 et. al. symbols for ia64 and arm
• clean some compiler warnings
• default gcc with pic enabled on mips/mipsel
• more div/rem symbols for arm and hppa
• more div/rem symbols for alpha
• redo unrandomize.h to enable compilation under -O2 -- FIXME; Closes: 494153
• backoff arm opts
• more careful handling of GCL_GPROF_START
• proper word order detection macro, fixes armel
• support newer binutils with output_bfd element
• Fix 64bit interrupt bug
• reader error fix
• Ensure plt entries are not blank
• plt table reading fix
• Bug fix: "FTBFS: current binutils static libs need -lz", thanks to Daniel Schepler (Closes: #521929).
• Bug fix: "replacing libreadline5-dev build dependency with libreadline-dev", thanks to Matthias Klose (Closes: #553761).
• Bug fix: "crash after ctrl-C", thanks to Miroslaw Kwasniak (Closes: #519903).
• Bug fix: "FTBFS with binutils-gold", thanks to Peter Fritzsche (Closes: #554418). -ldl added to bfd linker args
• Bug fix: "[INTL:es] Spanish debconf template translation for gcl", thanks to Francisco Javier Cuadrado (Closes: #508728).
• Bug fix: "[INTL:it] Italian translation", thanks to Vincenzo Campanella (Closes: #560364).
• gcc error/warning cleanups
• fix plt table awk
• Bug fix: "configure: error: Need zlib for bfd linking", thanks to Cyril Brulebois (Closes: #560761).
• Bug fix: "Disfunctional maintainer address", thanks to Joerg Jaspert (Closes: #560752).
• round to nearest in ratio to double
• Bug fix: "/bin/sh: line 6: /bin/gcl: Permission denied", thanks to Nobuhiro Iwamatsu (Closes: #561554).
• gcc 4.4 warning cleanups
• user_match escapes once only
• SIGINFO for kfreebsd-386
• revert round ratio to nearest
• robustify user_match, unrandomize, read-char-no-hang for sockets
• SA_SIGINFO for 386-linux
• if cmpinclude.h is not available, use *cmpinclude-string* in compiler-pass2
• SGC fix, debian override fix, xgcl update
• SGC fix for relocatable and contiguous gmp storage
• __builtin___clear_cache on arm
• gcc-4.3 on alpha
• static function pointer wrapper for gcl_gmp_allocfun, stabilizing gmp on hppa/ia64
• hurd support
• sh4 support
• macosx support
• windows/wine support
• custreloc support with no plt
• default debian custreloc builds where supported (all but ia64 and hppa)
• mingw/wine path fixes
• mips local got relocs
• VOL fix to prog.c and print.d, thanks Jerry James
• support new mips relocs
• lower opt to work around gcc 4.6 bug on arm
• configure time check for -Wno-unused-but-set-variable
• libtirpc check for newest glibc;read_preserving_whitespace fix;armhf reloc support; s390x support; try C_GC_OFFSET for sparc64
• s390x support
• lower C optimization on ia64, arm and mips for now
• remove gprof on arm as mcount calls are 24/22bit -- marginally accessible
• remove C_GC_OFFSET for sparc64
• remove ncurses dependency for readline
• Bug fix: "FTBFS: dpkg-buildpackage: error: dpkg-source -b gcl-2.6.7 gave error exit status 2", thanks to Didier Raboud (Closes: #643131).
• Bug fix: "drops readline support if rebuilt", thanks to Sven Joachim (Closes: #646735).
• lower opts on sparc64 asof gcc 4.6.1
• optimize unwind at O0 to workaround gcc bug; centralize on __builtin__clear_cache when available;arm_thm_call reloc support
• clear_cache after mprotect
• better XDR detection; no __builtin_clear_cache on sh4
• evade __builtin___clear_cache on hppa
• make-array;make-sequence;replace;coerce
• restore traditional make-sequence,make-array, and coerce, and optimize replace, as 2.6.8 compiler is still too weak re: inlines
• case default error checking
• nil case keylist support
• add alpha, ppc, ppc64, and ia64 to __builtin__clear_cache exception list as per gcc maintainers
• Fix hash key distribution bug, bitvector equal bug
• distinguish car position in equal-hash of lists
• do not modify conffiles
• trim excess digits from printed floats
• more arm relocs supported;check default timezone dynamically;follow bash ~ semantics in user-homedir-pathname

For the latest information, capabilities, and status of GCL stable, please see the 2.6.2 release notes here