1  Erl_interface Release Notes

1 Erl_interface Release Notes

This document describes the changes made to the Erl_interface application.

  • erl_call now prints an error when the arguments cannot be parsed.

    Own Id: OTP-17626

  • The ei API for decoding/encoding terms is not fully 64-bit compatible since terms that have a representation on the external term format larger than 2 GB cannot be handled.

    Own Id: OTP-16607 Aux Id: OTP-16608

  • Commit of generated configure script.

    Own Id: OTP-17420 Aux Id: OTP-17398, GH-4821

  • Two options have been added to erl_call. The -fetch_stdout option fetches stdout data resulting from the code invoked by erl_call. The -fetch_stdout option disables printing of the result term. In order to implement the first of these two options a new function called ei_xrpc_from has been added to erl_interface. For details see the erl_call documentation and erl_interface documentation.

    Own Id: OTP-17132

  • Accept 64-bit process identifiers from external nodes. This is the first step in an upgrade path toward using 64-bit pids in a future OTP release.

    Own Id: OTP-16720 Aux Id: PR-2680

  • The experimental HiPE application has been removed, together with all related functionality in other applications.

    *** POTENTIAL INCOMPATIBILITY ***

    Own Id: OTP-16963

  • The registry functionality part of erl_interface has been removed. It was as of OTP 23 deprecated and scheduled for removal in OTP 24.

    *** POTENTIAL INCOMPATIBILITY ***

    Own Id: OTP-16970

  • Accept references up to a size of 160-bits from remote nodes. This is the first step in an upgrade path toward using references up to 160-bits in a future OTP release.

    Own Id: OTP-17005 Aux Id: OTP-16718

  • Accept 64-bit port identifiers from external nodes. This is the first step in an upgrade path toward using 64-bit port identifiers in a future OTP release.

    Own Id: OTP-17007

  • Support the new link protocol in order to be able to phase out the old link protocol in the future. erl_interface does not support setting up or removing links from the erl_interface side, so the bug present with the old protocol did not effect erl_interface. This since both participants of a link simultaneously needed to operate on the link in order to trigger the bug.

    Own Id: OTP-17270 Aux Id: OTP-17127

  • The ei API for decoding/encoding terms is not fully 64-bit compatible since terms that have a representation on the external term format larger than 2 GB cannot be handled.

    Own Id: OTP-16607 Aux Id: OTP-16608

  • Commit of generated configure script.

    Own Id: OTP-17420 Aux Id: OTP-17398, GH-4821

  • The ei API for decoding/encoding terms is not fully 64-bit compatible since terms that have a representation on the external term format larger than 2 GB cannot be handled.

    Own Id: OTP-16607 Aux Id: OTP-16608

  • Fix bug where sending of large data with ei_send_*/ei_rpc with infinite timeout could fail when the tcp buffer becomes full.

    Fault has existed since OTP-21.

    Own Id: OTP-17358 Aux Id: ERLERL-610

  • The ei API for decoding/encoding terms is not fully 64-bit compatible since terms that have a representation on the external term format larger than 2 GB cannot be handled.

    Own Id: OTP-16607 Aux Id: OTP-16608

  • Fix bug where sending of large data with ei_send_*/ei_rpc with infinite timeout could fail when the tcp buffer becomes full.

    Fault has existed since OTP-21.

    Own Id: OTP-17358 Aux Id: ERLERL-610

  • Integers outside of the range [-(1 bsl 32) - 1, (1 bsl 32) -1] were previously intended to be printed in an internal bignum format by ei_print_term() and ei_s_print_term(). Unfortunately the implementation has been buggy since OTP R13B02 and since then produced results with random content which also could crash the calling program.

    This fix replaces the printing of the internal format with printing in hexadecimal form and extend the range for printing in decimal form. Currently integers in the range [-(1 bsl 64), (1 bsl 64)] are printed in decimal form and integers outside of this range in Erlang hexadecimal form.

    Own Id: OTP-17099 Aux Id: ERIERL-585

  • The ei API for decoding/encoding terms is not fully 64-bit compatible since terms that have a representation on the external term format larger than 2 GB cannot be handled.

    Own Id: OTP-16607 Aux Id: OTP-16608

  • Fix erl_interface on windows to be compiled with correct flags to make internal primitives reentrant.

    Own Id: OTP-16740

  • Fixed ei_get_type to set *size to zero for floats, pids, port and refs according to documentation.

    Own Id: OTP-16753 Aux Id: ERL-1288, PR-2678

  • Fix ei_connect when using a dynamic node name to force usage of distribution version 6.

    This bug caused erl_call -R -address to not work properly.

    Own Id: OTP-16786

  • Changes in order to build on the Haiku operating system.

    Thanks to Calvin Buckley

    Own Id: OTP-16707 Aux Id: PR-2638

  • The ei API for decoding/encoding terms is not fully 64-bit compatible since terms that have a representation on the external term format larger than 2 GB cannot be handled.

    Own Id: OTP-16607 Aux Id: OTP-16608

  • Fix various compiler warnings on 64-bit Windows.

    Own Id: OTP-15800

  • erl_call will now work properly on systems that cannot resolve their own hostname.

    Own Id: OTP-16604

  • Various bug fixes:

    • Internal error checking in various functions.
    • ei_rpc() accepted any 2-tuple message as an rpc response.
    • ei_decode_ref() now refuse to write outside of allocated memory in case a huge reference is decoded.
    • ei_decode_ei_term() now reports the same term types as ei_get_type().

    Own Id: OTP-16623

  • A client node can receive its node name dynamically from the node that it first connects to. This featured can by used by

    • starting with erl -sname undefined

    • erl_interface functions ei_connect_init and friends

    • erl_call -R

    Own Id: OTP-13812

  • Increased size of node incarnation numbers (aka "creation"), from 2 bits to 32 bits. This will reduce the risk of pids/ports/refs, from different node incarnation with the same name, being mixed up.

    Own Id: OTP-15603

  • Fix various build issues when compiling Erlang/OTP to the IBM AIX platform.

    Own Id: OTP-15866 Aux Id: PR-2110

  • Improved node connection setup handshake protocol. Made possible to agree on protocol version without dependence on epmd or other prior knowledge of peer node version. Also added exchange of node incarnation ("creation") values and expanded the distribution capability flag field from 32 to 64 bits.

    Own Id: OTP-16229

  • New erl_call option -address [Host]:Port to connect directly to a node without being dependent on epmd to resolve the node name.

    Own Id: OTP-16251

  • As announced in OTP 22.0, the deprecated parts of erl_interface have now been removed (essentially all C functions with prefix erl_).

    *** POTENTIAL INCOMPATIBILITY ***

    Own Id: OTP-16328

  • As announced in OTP 22.0, the previously existing limited support for VxWorks has now been removed.

    *** POTENTIAL INCOMPATIBILITY ***

    Own Id: OTP-16329 Aux Id: OTP-15621

  • New function ei_connect_host_port and friends to allow node connection without being dependent on epmd for node name resolution.

    Own Id: OTP-16496 Aux Id: OTP-16251

  • A number of new functions have been added to the erl_interface API:

    Own Id: OTP-16594

  • Added a -timeout option to erl_call.

    Own Id: OTP-16624

  • The erl_interface registry functionality is deprecated as of OTP 23, and will be removed in OTP 24. Reasonably new gcc compilers will issue deprecation warnings when using this functionality. In order to disable these warnings, define the macro EI_NO_DEPR_WARN.

    *** POTENTIAL INCOMPATIBILITY ***

    Own Id: OTP-16630

  • Documentation improvements.

    Own Id: OTP-16633

  • The ei API for decoding/encoding terms is not fully 64-bit compatible since terms that have a representation on the external term format larger than 2 GB cannot be handled.

    Own Id: OTP-16607 Aux Id: OTP-16608

  • Commit of generated configure script.

    Own Id: OTP-17420 Aux Id: OTP-17398, GH-4821

  • The ei API for decoding/encoding terms is not fully 64-bit compatible since terms that have a representation on the external term format larger than 2 GB cannot be handled.

    Own Id: OTP-16607 Aux Id: OTP-16608

  • Fix bug where sending of large data with ei_send_*/ei_rpc with infinite timeout could fail when the tcp buffer becomes full.

    Fault has existed since OTP-21.

    Own Id: OTP-17358 Aux Id: ERLERL-610

  • The ei API for decoding/encoding terms is not fully 64-bit compatible since terms that have a representation on the external term format larger than 2 GB cannot be handled.

    Own Id: OTP-16607 Aux Id: OTP-16608

  • Fix bug where sending of large data with ei_send_*/ei_rpc with infinite timeout could fail when the tcp buffer becomes full.

    Fault has existed since OTP-21.

    Own Id: OTP-17358 Aux Id: ERIERL-610

  • Fix link error "multiple definition of `ei_default_socket_callbacks'" for gcc version 10 or when built with gcc option -fno-common. Error exists since OTP-21.3.

    Own Id: OTP-16412 Aux Id: PR-2503

  • Fix user supplied socket implementation for Windows and other platforms without gcc atomics.

    Own Id: OTP-16308

  • Fix bugs in ei_print_term for binaries and bit strings causing incorrect output.

    Own Id: OTP-15917

  • Fixed bug in ei_decode_fun for very old fun encoding format. Bug exist since OTP 22.0.

    Own Id: OTP-15996

  • ei_print_term() now supports printing of maps and funs.

    Own Id: OTP-15814

  • The vxworks configure has been updated to respect the environment CFLAGS.

    Own Id: OTP-15773

  • Minor adjustments made to build system for parallel configure.

    Own Id: OTP-15340 Aux Id: OTP-14625

  • The limited support for VxWorks is deprecated as of OTP 22, and will be removed in OTP 23.

    *** POTENTIAL INCOMPATIBILITY ***

    Own Id: OTP-15621

  • The old legacy erl_interface library (functions with prefix erl_) is deprecated as of OTP 22, and will be removed in OTP 23. This does not apply to the ei library. Reasonably new gcc compilers will issue deprecation warnings. In order to disable these warnings, define the macro EI_NO_DEPR_WARN.

    *** POTENTIAL INCOMPATIBILITY ***

    Own Id: OTP-15622

  • Added support to receive, decode, encode and send both bit strings and export funs (fun M:F/A).

    New functions ei_decode_bitstring and ei_encode_bitstring have been added in order to decode and encode bit strings where the number of bits is not necessary divisible by 8 (a whole number of bytes). The existing functions ei_decode_fun and ei_encode_fun can now also handle export funs.

    Before this change, bit strings and export funs sent to an erl_interface c-node were encoded using an undocumented fallback tuple format. For bit strings {Binary,BitsInLastByte} and for export funs {M,F}. Existing c-node implementations expecting these tuples must be changed to instead use ei_decode_bitstring and ei_decode_fun. As a temporary solution you can also build erl_interface with macro EI_COMPAT=21 or call ei_set_compat_rel(21) to receive the old fallback tuples.

    *** POTENTIAL INCOMPATIBILITY ***

    Own Id: OTP-15712 Aux Id: OTP-15774

  • Fix bug where sending of large data with ei_send_*/ei_rpc with infinite timeout could fail when the tcp buffer becomes full.

    Fault has existed since OTP-21.

    Own Id: OTP-17358 Aux Id: ERLERL-610

  • The ei API for decoding/encoding terms is not fully 64-bit compatible since terms that have a representation on the external term format larger than 2 GB cannot be handled.

    Own Id: OTP-16607 Aux Id: OTP-16608

  • Fix link error "multiple definition of `ei_default_socket_callbacks'" for gcc version 10 or when built with gcc option -fno-common. Error exists since OTP-21.3.

    Own Id: OTP-16412 Aux Id: PR-2503

  • The ei API for decoding/encoding terms is not fully 64-bit compatible since terms that have a representation on the external term format larger than 2 GB cannot be handled.

    Own Id: OTP-16607 Aux Id: OTP-16608

  • erl_interface/ei refused to use node names with an alive name (the part of the node name preceding the @ sign) longer than 63 characters and a host name longer than 64 characters. The total amount of characters allowed in a node name (alivename@hostname) was thus limited to 128 characters. These limits applied both to the own node name as well as node names of other nodes. Ordinary Erlang nodes limit the node name length to 256 characters, which meant that you could not communicate with certain Erlang nodes due to their node name used.

    erl_interface/ei now allow the total amount of characters in a node name to be up to 256 characters. These characters may be distributed between alive name and host name in whatever way needed. That is, the maximum amount of characters in the alive name may be 254 and the maximum amount of characters in the host name may be 254, but in total the node name must not exceed 256 characters.

    Own Id: OTP-15781 Aux Id: ERIERL-356

  • erl_interface/ei refused to use node names with an alive name (the part of the node name preceding the @ sign) longer than 63 characters and a host name longer than 64 characters. The total amount of characters allowed in a node name (alivename@hostname) was thus limited to 128 characters. These limits applied both to the own node name as well as node names of other nodes. Ordinary Erlang nodes limit the node name length to 256 characters, which meant that you could not communicate with certain Erlang nodes due to their node name used.

    erl_interface/ei now allow the total amount of characters in a node name to be up to 256 characters. These characters may be distributed between alive name and host name in whatever way needed. That is, the maximum amount of characters in the alive name may be 254 and the maximum amount of characters in the host name may be 254, but in total the node name must not exceed 256 characters.

    Own Id: OTP-15781 Aux Id: ERIERL-356

  • Fix handling of Makefile dependencies so that parallel make works properly.

    Own Id: OTP-15757

  • Fixed two bugs in the erl_call program. A missing initialization (introduced in erl_interface-3.11) which either caused a crash or failure to connect to or start a node, and an incorrectly calculated timeout which could cause failure to start an erlang node. These bugs only caused failures on some platforms.

    Own Id: OTP-15676 Aux Id: OTP-15442, ERL-881

  • Make ei_connect and friends also accept state ok_simultaneous during handshake, which means the other node has initiated a connection setup that will be cancelled in favor of this connection.

    Own Id: OTP-15161 Aux Id: ERIERL-191

  • Fixed bug in ei_receive_msg, ei_xreceive_msg, ei_receive_msg_tmo and ei_xreceive_msg_tmo. The x->index was set to entire buffer size instead of the number of bytes actually received.

    Own Id: OTP-15171

  • Fixed bug in ei_connect_init which could be provoked if called by concurrent threads. ei_connect_init called posix interface gethostbyname which is documented as not thread safe.

    Own Id: OTP-15191

  • Fixed bug in erl_compare_ext() ignoring the tail of lists of otherwise equal content. Example: [a | b] and [a | c] compared equal and {[a], b} and {[a], c} compared equal.

    Own Id: OTP-15277 Aux Id: PR-1929

  • Fix bug where calling erl_init on certain platforms could result in a buffer overflow bug.

    Own Id: OTP-15033

  • Fixed erl_call -m to not deallocate module source binary before it has been read.

    Own Id: OTP-15105 Aux Id: ERL-629

  • The program erl_call calls erl_eval:eval_str/1 when it used to call lib:eval_str/1. This means that erl_call will fail when trying interact with an Erlang node running Erlang/OTP 20 or earlier.

    Own Id: OTP-15114 Aux Id: OTP-15072, ERL-634

  • Fix handling of Makefile dependencies so that parallel make works properly.

    Own Id: OTP-15757

  • Make ei_connect and friends also accept state ok_simultaneous during handshake, which means the other node has initiated a connection setup that will be cancelled in favor of this connection.

    Own Id: OTP-15161 Aux Id: ERIERL-191

  • Fix bug in ei_connect functions that may cause failure due to insufficient buffer space for gethostbyname_r.

    Own Id: OTP-15022 Aux Id: ERIERL-163

  • Optimize encoding/decoding for pure 7-bit ascii atoms.

    Own Id: OTP-15023 Aux Id: ERIERL-150

  • Removed all old unused files in the documentation.

    Own Id: OTP-14475 Aux Id: ERL-409, PR-1493

  • Fix bug where gethostname would incorrectly fail with enametoolong on Linux.

    Own Id: OTP-14310

  • Remove generation of atoms in old latin1 external format in the distribution between erlang nodes, erl_interface, and jinterface. The new utf8 format for atoms was introduced in OTP R16. An OTP 20 node can therefore not connect to nodes older than R16.

    Atoms that can be encoded using latin1 are still encoded by term_to_binary() using latin1 encoding. Note that all atoms will by default be encoded using utf8 in a future Erlang/OTP release. For more information see the documentation of erlang:term_to_binary/2.

    Own Id: OTP-14337

  • Minor documentation update

    Own Id: OTP-14233 Aux Id: PR-1343

  • Fix ei_connect_init and ei_connect_xinit to adjust the creation argument to be compatible with nodes older than OTP-19.

    Own Id: OTP-13981

  • Editorial documentation changes

    Own Id: OTP-13980

  • Look for .erlang.cookie in windows system directory if HOMEDRIVE and HOMEPATH is not set. The same behaviour as the VM.

    Own Id: OTP-13849

  • Fix decoding of LLONG_MIN in erl_decode

    Own Id: OTP-13666 Aux Id: ERL-158

  • On windows ei_decode_ulong and ei_decode_long now correctly returns an error when trying to decode a number that does not fit in a long. Fixed a bug on windows where enabling ei tracing would cause a segmentation fault.

    Own Id: OTP-13673

  • Handle terms (pids,ports and refs) from nodes with a 'creation' value larger than 3. This is a preparation of the distribution protocol to allow OTP 19 nodes to correctly communicate with future nodes (20 or higher). The 'creation' value differentiates different incarnations of the same node (name).

    Own Id: OTP-13488

  • Fix Erl_Interface build error on Debian/Hurd and Debian/kFreeBSD. (Thanks to Sergei Golovan)

    Own Id: OTP-13328

  • EPMD supports both IPv4 and IPv6

    Also affects oldest supported windows version.

    Own Id: OTP-13364

  • Fix the conditional selection of gethostbyname_r and gethostbyaddr_r.

    Own Id: OTP-13188

  • Do not accept Nan and Infinity values

    Erlang does not accept these values, so we return an error in the C interface rather than letting them through to the Erlang VM, which rejects the message with a somewhat cryptic "bad external term".

    Own Id: OTP-12801

  • Use C99 function isfinite() instead of finite() when available on non GCC compilers.

    Own Id: OTP-12268

  • Distribute autoconf helpers to applications at build time instead of having multiple identical copies committed in the repository.

    Own Id: OTP-12348

  • Added an .appup file for the application.

    Own Id: OTP-12358 Aux Id: OTP-12178

  • Added a .app file for the application.

    Own Id: OTP-12178

  • Implement --enable-sanitizers[=sanitizers]. Similar to debugging with Valgrind, it's very useful to enable -fsanitize= switches to catch bugs at runtime.

    Own Id: OTP-12153

  • Now works with Visual Studio.

    Own Id: OTP-11984

  • Fix memcheck warning in gen_challange (Thanks to Olivier Girondel)

    Own Id: OTP-11608

  • Silence warnings (Thanks to Anthony Ramine)

    Own Id: OTP-11517

  • Introduced functionality for inspection of system and build configuration.

    Own Id: OTP-11196

  • Header and library files from ic and erl_interface are now installed into usr/{include,lib}. Note that these directories are unversioned, so the latest installed version will be the one in the directory.

    Own Id: OTP-11284

  • Fix location of true binary under Mac OSX. Thanks to Simon Cornish.

    Own Id: OTP-11289

  • A guard was added to check if file descriptor is valid before closing it.

    Own Id: OTP-11167

  • Superfluous trailing comma in enum erlang_char_encoding causing compile error for g++ with --pedantic option.

    Own Id: OTP-10913 Aux Id: seq12264

  • Revert the structs erlang_pid, erlang_port and erlang_ref as they were before R16A (without node_org_enc) in order to be backward compatible with user code that accesses the fields of these structs.

    Own Id: OTP-10885 Aux Id: seq12256

  • Where necessary a comment stating encoding has been added to Erlang files. The comment is meant to be removed in Erlang/OTP R17B when UTF-8 becomes the default encoding.

    Own Id: OTP-10630

  • Limited support for unicode atoms in the external format and in the internal representation of the vm. This is a preparative feature in order to support communication with future releases of Erlang/OTP that may create unicode atoms.

    Own Id: OTP-10753

  • Teach lib/erl_interface/configure.in to look for pthreads support in libc (where it can be found on QNX)

    A minor tweak such that this configure *fails* if you pass --enable-threads and no pthreads support can be found.

    (Thanks to Per Hedeland)

    Own Id: OTP-10581

  • Detect when middle endian doubles are used by a platform and account for it when decoding floats. (Thanks to Mike Sperber)

    Own Id: OTP-10209

  • Minor suppressions and fixes of compilation warnings

    Own Id: OTP-10016

  • An error when getting global names on OS X Lion has been fixed. The error caused truncated strings to be returned from the function.

    Own Id: OTP-9799

  • Erlang/OTP can now be built using parallel make if you limit the number of jobs, for instance using 'make -j6' or 'make -j10'. 'make -j' does not work at the moment because of some missing dependencies.

    Own Id: OTP-9451

  • Eliminate use of deprecated regexp module

    Own Id: OTP-9810

  • Align ei buffer according to size of pointers

    Own Id: OTP-9390

  • XML files have been corrected.

    Own Id: OTP-9550 Aux Id: OTP-9541

  • Make comment and documentation reflect code in erl_interface/src/misc/ei_decode_term.c (Thanks to Anneli Cuss)

    Own Id: OTP-9559

  • ei: integer overflow in string/atom encoding

    ei_encode_atom() and ei_encode_string() use strlen() to get the length of the buffer. As strlen() returns an unsigned long long and both ei functions take a signed integer, the length fields may overflow.

    Check so that the results of strlen can be held in a signed integer. (Thanks to Michael Santos)

    Own Id: OTP-9530

  • Fix using sizeof() for array given as function argument

    When using the sizeof() operator for an array given as function argument it returns the size of the pointer. In this case, the affected function hex(char digest[16], char buff[33]) will just print 4 or 8 byte instead of the full length of 16 bytes, on 32bit and 64bit systems respectively. (Thanks to Cristian greco)

    Own Id: OTP-9151

  • Initialize to and to_name in erl_receive_msg. (Thanks to Göran Larsson)

    Own Id: OTP-9241

  • erl_interface: fix compile error(Thanks to Michael Santos)

    Own Id: OTP-9252

  • Some malformed distribution messages could cause VM to crash, this is now corrected.

    Own Id: OTP-8993

  • Strengthen string copy check (Thanks to Michael Santos).

    Own Id: OTP-9071

  • Strengthen atom length check when decoding atoms (Thanks to Michael Santos).

    Own Id: OTP-9072

  • Fix global registration. C node needed DFLAG_DIST_MONITOR_FLAT set when connecting. Fix list compare in erl_compare_ext to return correct result. (Thanks to Vitaliy Batichko and Evgeny Khirin)

    Own Id: OTP-9015

  • erl_call: remove get_hostent

    get_hostent does not properly handle IPv4 addresses on little endian platforms and fails with hostnames beginning with a number. Remove get_hostent and use ei_gethostbyname directly since gethostbyname supports IPv4 addresses.

    (Thanks to Michael Santos)

    Own Id: OTP-8890

  • teach ei_x_format to handle unary - and + (Thanks to Steve Vinoski)

    Own Id: OTP-8891

  • Fix zero byte allocation in registry. (Thanks to Michael Santos)

    Own Id: OTP-8893

  • Check the length of the node name to prevent an overflow. Memory error control of ei_alloc_big. (Thanks to Michael Santos)

    Own Id: OTP-8943

  • erl_term_len() in erl_interface could returned too large values for integers (since R14B) and too small values for refs (since R9B).

    Own Id: OTP-8945

  • The erl_interface tracelevel for erlang messages was incorrect. This has now been fixed.

    Own Id: OTP-8874

  • Removed unused variable in ei_decode_term.c.

    Fixed faulty deallocation in erl_call.

    Own Id: OTP-8748

  • ei_connect: correct man page examples (Thanks to Michael Santos)

    Own Id: OTP-8813

  • ei: prevent overflow in ei_connect_init and ei_xconnect

    Add length check of the buffer before copying. (Thanks to Michael Santos)

    Own Id: OTP-8814

  • Remove DECLSPEC feature which fails on Windows Vista and use the fallback implementation instead.

    Own Id: OTP-8826

  • erl_call: fix multiple buffer overflows (Thanks to Michael Santos)

    Own Id: OTP-8827

  • Fix incorrect writev iovec buffer handling in erl_interface (Thanks to Steve Vinoski)

    Own Id: OTP-8837

  • compact IEEE 754 double encoding in external binary format for ei

    • Implement the compact IEEE 754 double encoding in external binary format for ei. Encoding for ei now always produces the NEW_FLOAT_EXT format. Decoding and term printing handle both the old ERL_FLOAT_EXT encoding and the new NEW_FLOAT_EXT encoding.

    • Legacy erl_interface code also handles the new encoding, but still produces the ERL_FLOAT_EXT encoding by default.

    • Also enable the DFLAG_NEW_FLOATS distribution flag.

    • ei_get_type() will return ERL_FLOAT_EXT regardless if the external format is encoded with ERL_FLOAT_EXT or NEW_FLOAT_EXT for doubles.

    • Reduce the number of copies of the code for encoding and decoding doubles throughout ei and erl_interface by instead calling the ei encoding and decoding functions wherever possible.

    • Restore commented-out float tests in ei_decode_SUITE and ei_encode_SUITE in lib/erl_interface/test. Modify them to make them match the style of other tests in the same suites.

    These changes are based on an ei float patch from Serge Aleynikov originally submitted against R12B-2 in July 2008 and reworked by Steve Vinoski May 2010.

    *** POTENTIAL INCOMPATIBILITY ***

    Own Id: OTP-8684

  • Document debug support.

    Debug trace output for connection activity could be enabled setting the trace level as an integer to the EI_TRACELEVEL environment variable. This option could also be read and set from a running program using ei_get_tracelevel(void) and ei_set_tracelevel(int).

    Own Id: OTP-5037

  • Cross compilation improvements and other build system improvements.

    Most notable:

    • Lots of cross compilation improvements. The old cross compilation support was more or less non-existing as well as broken. Please, note that the cross compilation support should still be considered as experimental. Also note that old cross compilation configurations cannot be used without modifications. For more information on cross compiling Erlang/OTP see the $ERL_TOP/INSTALL-CROSS.md file.
    • Support for staged install using DESTDIR. The old broken INSTALL_PREFIX has also been fixed. For more information see the $ERL_TOP/INSTALL.md file.
    • Documentation of the release target of the top Makefile. For more information see the $ERL_TOP/INSTALL.md file.
    • make install now by default creates relative symbolic links instead of absolute ones. For more information see the $ERL_TOP/INSTALL.md file.
    • $ERL_TOP/configure --help=recursive now works and prints help for all applications with configure scripts.
    • Doing make install, or make release directly after make all no longer triggers miscellaneous rebuilds.
    • Existing bootstrap system is now used when doing make install, or make release without a preceding make all.
    • The crypto and ssl applications use the same runtime library path when dynamically linking against libssl.so and libcrypto.so. The runtime library search path has also been extended.
    • The configure scripts of erl_interface and odbc now search for thread libraries and thread library quirks the same way as erts do.
    • The configure script of the odbc application now also looks for odbc libraries in lib64 and lib/64 directories when building on a 64-bit system.
    • The config.h.in file in the erl_interface application is now automatically generated in instead of statically updated which reduces the risk of configure tests without any effect.

    (Thanks to Henrik Riomar for suggestions and testing)

    (Thanks to Winston Smith for the AVR32-Linux cross configuration and testing)

    *** POTENTIAL INCOMPATIBILITY ***

    Own Id: OTP-8323

  • Change erroneous "\\0" in documentation files erl_notes.xml and erl_eterm.xml.

    Own Id: OTP-8326

  • Allow erl_match() to match ERL_LONGLONG and ERL_U_LONGLONG terms (Thanks to Scott Lystig Fritchie).

    Own Id: OTP-8400

  • The documentation is now built with open source tools (xsltproc and fop) that exists on most platforms. One visible change is that the frames are removed.

    Own Id: OTP-8201

  • The manual states that erl_receive() return the reason in the ErlMessage struct. This was not the case and the function is now corrected.

    *** POTENTIAL INCOMPATIBILITY ***

    Own Id: OTP-4969

  • In send_exit.c an errorneous size of memory allocation could occur when reallocating a buffer.

    In ei_decode_trace.c the index could be updated when the decoding failed.

    In ei_printterm.c the index could be updated when the decoding failed in lists and tuples.

    In ei_decode_term.c when decoding a double (ERL_FLOAT_EXT) no check was done to ensure that the last of the 31 bytes was null terminated.

    In ei_decode_term.c when decoding references, only the first 3 bytes are read, but the index did not increment by the total size.

    In ei_decode_fun.c no check of correct buffer allocation or data length was done.

    In ei_decode_string.c the integer list string case did not decode the NIL tail correctly.

    These errors has now been fixed. (Thanks to Romain Lenglet, Paul Mineiro and Paul Guyot).

    Own Id: OTP-6117

  • ei_decode_big could be decoded with a garbage byte.

    ei_encode_big and ei_x_encode_big is now available.

    Own Id: OTP-7554

  • The function erl_init_resolve() did not conform to C99 standard which caused a build error on some platforms. This has now been fixed.

    Own Id: OTP-8093

  • Makefile.in has been updated to use the LDFLAGS environment variable (if set). (Thanks to Davide Pesavento.)

    Own Id: OTP-8157

  • Added support for 64-bit integers in encoding/decoding.

    Added support for better printouts of binaries.

    Own Id: OTP-6091

  • A problem with gethostbyname in erl_start.c could cause a buffer overflow. This has now been fixed.

    Clean up of code and removed compiler warnings.

    Own Id: OTP-7978

  • A faulty validation in ei_reg_getpval caused it to never return the key-value. This has now been fixed. (Thanks to Matt Stancliff)

    Own Id: OTP-7960

  • Minor update to the configure script.

    Own Id: OTP-7959

  • Minor update to the configure script.

    Own Id: OTP-7959

  • Nodes belonging to different independent clusters can now co-exist on the same host with the help of a new environment variable setting ERL_EPMD_PORT.

    Own Id: OTP-7826

  • A type-casting bug in ei_skip_term and ei_printterm on 64bit platforms rendering undefined results is now corrected.

    Own Id: OTP-7577

  • A bug in the hostent copying code of erl_interface on MacOS X/Darwin is now corrected.

    Own Id: OTP-7593

  • A problem with building erl_interface on FreeBSD has been fixed (Thanks to Akira Kitada).

    Own Id: OTP-7611

  • Fixed bug in erl_interface when decoding broken data

    Own Id: OTP-7448

  • An erroneous freeing of memory could occur when using ei_x_format_wo_ver in erl_interface, resulting in a segmentation fault.

    Own Id: OTP-6795

  • A faulty compare in erl_marshal has now been fixed. (Thanks to Simon Cornish and Paul Mineiro)

    Own Id: OTP-7368

  • Minor documentation fixes.

    Own Id: OTP-7183 Aux Id: OTP-7118

  • The symbol __erl_errno was undefined in the single thread version of the ei library, but is now defined.

    Own Id: OTP-6887

  • Corrected FreeBSD build error.

    Own Id: OTP-7093

  • Calls to alloca in erl_marshal.c have been removed. A static buffer is now used instead to store node names temporarily.

    Own Id: OTP-6331 Aux Id: seq10468

  • ei_print_term interprets a list of integers with values from 0 to 255 as a string. If the original list contains the integer 0, this is considered terminator of the string. This is incorrect. The function has now been modified to not look for '\0' in a string, but always print all characters.

    Own Id: OTP-6339 Aux Id: seq10492

  • The combination of xeon processors with 64bit x86 extensions and a 32bit linux could cause ei_decode_long and ei_decode_longlong to fail for the value LONG_MIN and LONGLONG_MIN. The conversion is now made more portable.

    Own Id: OTP-6216

  • Portability enhancements.

    Own Id: OTP-6132

  • Different (and old) config.guess files in the erts and erl_interface applications would cause build problems on the new Intel-based iMacs. (Thanks to Sebastion Strollo.)

    Own Id: OTP-5967

  • pthread header and library mismatch on linux systems (at least some SuSE and Debian) with both NPTL and Linuxthreads libraries installed.

    Own Id: OTP-5981

  • Support for a C node to connect to an Erlang node on a standalone host has been added.

    Own Id: OTP-5883 Aux Id: seq10170

  • A configuration test error caused erl_interface to be built without support for threads. This has been corrected.

    Own Id: OTP-5456

  • Changes and improvements have been made to the build and test environment to solve problems with failing erl_interface test cases.

    Own Id: OTP-5295 Aux Id: OTP-5387

  • Process identifiers and port identifiers have been made more unique. Previously 18 bits were used as id in the internal representation of process and port identifiers. Now 28 bits are used.

    The maximum limit on the number of concurrently existing processes due to the representation of pids has been increased to 268435456 processes. The same is true for ports. This limit will at least on a 32-bit architecture be impossible to reach due to memory shortage.

    NOTE: By default, the ERTS, and the erl_interface, ei, and jinterface libraries are now only guaranteed to be compatible with other Erlang/OTP components from the same release. It is possible to set each component in compatibility mode of an earlier release, though. See the documentation for respective component on how to set it in compatibility mode.

    *** POTENTIAL INCOMPATIBILITY ***

    Own Id: OTP-4968 Aux Id: OTP-4196

  • Corrections for mistakes done for patch erl_605/OTP-4874.

    Own Id: OTP-4995 Aux Id: OTP-4874

  • A small optimization in ei_rpc*() was added and a bug in ei_decode_longlong() was corrected.

    Own Id: OTP-4784

  • Strings longer than 65535 bytes were encoded wrong in ei/erl_interface.

    Own Id: OTP-4865 Aux Id: EABln07451

  • erl_call -a parsed erlang terms incorrectly due to a bug in ei_format, which is now corrected.

    Own Id: OTP-4777 Aux Id: seq8099

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