Tcl/Tk 8.2b2 Release Announcement
August 5th, 1999

We are pleased to announce the 8.2b2 releases of the Tcl scripting language and 
the Tk toolkit. This release fixes a number of bugs found in 8.2b1. Despite the
"beta" designation, we regard this release as being more stable than 8.1.1.

We plan to make another beta release next week to fix three known outstanding 
issues. If nothing major is found in the interim, the final release of 8.2 will 
happen in a couple of weeks. 

The list of contributors on the Scriptics web site has been updated to 
acknowledge those members of the Tcl community whose code or ideas found their 
way into this release.

Where to get the new releases:
-----------------------------

Tcl 8.2b2 and Tk 8.2b2 are available by public FTP from ftp.scriptics.com in the
directory /pub/tcl/tcl8_2. Within a few days, they will appear at numerous
mirror sites around the internet. The easiest way to retrieve these releases is
via the Scriptics web page for the 8.2 releases
        http://www.scriptics.com/software/download82.html

For additional information
--------------------------

For complete information about all the Tcl/Tk resources available on the internet,
visit the Tcl Resource Center at Scriptics:
        http://www.scriptics.com/resource/


Summary of Changes since Tcl 8.2b1
----------------------------------

1. Implemented modified socket driver for Windows that
uses a thread to manage the socket event window.  Code works the same
on all supported versions of Windows and was based on original 8.1.0
code.  [Bug: 2178 2256 2259 2329 2323 2355]

2. Added Tcl_SetNotifier to stub table. [Bug: 2364]

3. Fixed bug in info complete. [Bug: 2383 2466] 

4. Added #if blocks around #includes of sys/*.h header
files, to allow an extension author on Windows to use the MetroWerks
compiler. [Bug: 2385] 

5. Applied fixed Trf patch from Andreas Kupries. [Bug: 2386] 

6. Applied patch from Ulrich Ring to remove ANSI-style prototypes in the 
code.  [Bug: 2391]

7. Allow tcl to open CON and NUL, even for redirection of std 
channels.  [Bug: 2393 2392 2209 2458] 

8. The install-sh script must be given execute permissions prior to running.  
[Bug: 2413]

9. Fixed crashing during "array set a(b) {}". [Bug: 2427] 

10. Added functions to stub table, patch provided by Jan Nijtmans. [Bug: 2445]

11. Applied patch to fix threading on Irix 6.5, patch provided by James 
Dennett.  [Bug: 2450] 

12. Applied Don Porter patch to fix typo in .SH NAME line in doc/Encoding.n 
[Bug: 2451].  

13. Applied Don Porter patch to avoid linking pack.n to pack-old.n [Bug: 2469].

14. Added check for Alpha/Linux to correct the IEEE  floating point flag,
patch from Don Porter. 

15. Applied patch from Rolf Schroedter to add -pollinterval option to 
fconfigure for Windows serial ports.  Allows the maxblocktime to be
modified to control how often serial ports are checked for fileevents.  
Also added documentation for \\.\comX notation for opening serial ports 
on Windows.

16. Merged 8.0.5 code to handle tcl_library properly,
also fixed a bug that caused TCL_LIBRARY to be ignored.

17. Changed APIs in stub tables to use "unsigned long" instead of the 
platform-specific "size_t", primarily after SunOS 4 users could no 
longer compile.

18. Fixed terminating of helper threads by holding any
mutexes from the primary thread while waiting for the helper thread to
terminate.  Fixes dual-CPU WinNT hangs, only one rare sporadic hang
that still exists with dual-CPU WinNT.  Also fixed test cases so that
they would not depend as much on timing for dual-CPU WinNT. 

19. Fixed launching of 16bit applications on Win9x from wish.  The command 
line was being primed with tclpip82.dll, but it was ignored later. 

20. Changed Windows socket driver to terminate threads
by sending a message to the window rather than calling
TerminateThread(), which seems to leak about 4k from the helper
thread's stack space. 


In addition the following changes were made to Tk for 8.2b2

1. Block out sys/stat.h include with #if to allow extension writers 
to use the MetroWerks compiler on Windows. [Bug: 2385] 

2. Wrapped #define of panic() inside #ifndef blocks to avoid compiler 
errors on Macintosh.  Patch from Vince Darley.  [Bug: 2389] 

3. Allow tcl to opn CON and NUL on Windows, moved check
to Tk Console code instead.  [Bug: 2393 2392 2209 2458] 

4. Make install-sh have executable permissions before
calling from the Makefile. [Bug: 2413] 

5. Applied patch from Jeff Hobbs to fix library/menu.tcl. [Bug: 2425] 

6. Added XFillRectangle to stub table, patch from Jan Nijtmans.  [Bug: 2446]