[fpc-pascal] Freepascal 2.2.0 released

[Joost van der Sluis]

The Free Pascal Compiler team is pleased to announce the release of FPC 
2.2.0! 

An overview of most changes is available below, but some highlights are:

* Architectures: PowerPC/64 and ARM support
* Platforms: Windows x64, Windows CE, Mac OS X/Intel, Game Boy  
Advance, and Game Boy DS support
* Linker: fast and lean internal linker for Windows platforms
* Debugging: Dwarf support and the ability to automatically fill  
variables with several values to more easily detect uninitialised uses
* Language: support for interface delegation, bit packed records and
arrays and support for COM/OLE variants and dispinterfaces
* Infrastructure: better variants support, multiple resource files  
support, widestrings are COM/OLE compatible on Windows, improved  
database support

Downloads are available at http://www.freepascal.org/download.var

Enjoy!

The Free Pascal Compiler Team



******************************************************************************
                              What's New in 2.2.0
******************************************************************************

Free Pascal 2.2.0 contains a lot of bug-fixes and new features. The work on
Free Pascal 2.2.0 started halfway during the year 2005. A lot has been improved
since then.

Please also see http://wiki.freepascal.org/User_Changes_2.2.0 for a list
of changes which may affect the behaviour of previously working code, and
how to cope with these changes.

Platforms:
  * New platform: Win64. FPC is the first open source compiler for 64-bit
     Windows operating systems.
  * New processor architecture: 64-bit PowerPC
    * PowerPC/64 support for Linux
  * Mac OS X on Intel (i386) is now supported
  * New platform: Windows CE (Windows Mobile)
  * New platform: Nintendo Game Boy Advance
  * New platform: Nintendo DS
  * Native support for ARM-platform
  * GO32V2 DOS platform got a long needed update

Compiler:
  * Internal linker for win32, win64 and wince, resulting in smaller
    executables, less memory used during compilation, and faster compile
    times for programs using large frameworks like for example the Lazarus
    Component Library.
  * Generics (experimental)
  * Bit packed arrays and records
  * Resourcestrings can now be smartlinked, resulting in smaller executables
  * Multiple resource files support
  * pointer[low..high] syntax to pass C-style pointer arrays to procedures
    using open arrays
  * Interface delegation
  * Proper safecall implementation
  * Wide strings are COM/OLE compatible on Windows
  * Added several speed optimisations, for example:
    * Compiler can omit stack frames (x86 and ARM)
    * Compiler can store records in registers
    * Tail recursion expansion
    * Register renaming optimizations
  * Improved optimizer for ARM CPU
  * Compiler can initialise local variables, function results, and "out"
    parameters with several values (command line parameters -gt till -gtttt)
    to help find uses of uninitialised variables
  * Compiler can now properly deal with paths > 255 characters in all cases
  * Dwarf debug format support
  * Reduced memory usage during compilation
  * Lot of small bugs and compatibility fixes

RTL:
  * Heap uses less memory
  * Improved variants support
  * Improved currency support
  * Exception handling can be used without SysUtils unit
  * Lot of small bug and compatibility fixes

FCL:
  * Improved database support
  * The obsolete sqlitedataset, interbase, fpodbc, ddg, mysqldb3 and mysqldb4
    units are removed
  * Lot of small bugs and compatibility fixes

Packages:
  * Added a new fppkg package manager
  * Improved database support
  * Added Delphi compatible RichEdit unit
  * Apple universal interfaces updated to r204 of the common FPC/GPC/MW
    interfaces
  * Lot of small bugs and compatibility fixes

Free Vision:
  * Now uses resourcestrings

IDE:
  * Evaluate window
  * Improved HTML rendering
  * Improved xterm support
  * Small bug fixes

Misc:
  * Improved documentation
  * Better cross compilation support

For a detailed list of reported bugs that are fixed in this release see the
bugtracker report at http://www.freepascal.org/mantis/changelog_page.php