[fpc-announce] Free Pascal 2.6.0rc1 released

[Marco van de Voort]

Hello,

We have placed the first release-candidate of the Free Pascal Compiler
version 2.6.0 on our ftp-servers.

You can help improve the upcoming 2.6.0 release by downloading and
testing this release. If you want you can report what you have done here:
http://wiki.freepascal.org/Testers_2.6.0

Changes that may break backwards compatibility are documented at:
http://wiki.freepascal.org/User_Changes_2.6.0

Downloads are available at the FTP server at:

ftp://freepascal.stack.nl/pub/fpc/beta/2.6.0-rc1/

Enjoy!

The Free Pascal Compiler Team


                            Free Pascal Compiler

                                Version 2.6.0rc1

******************************************************************************
                              What's New in 2.6.0rc1
******************************************************************************

Free Pascal 2.6.0 is a new major version of the Free Pascal compiler.

Please also see http://wiki.freepascal.org/User_Changes_2.6.0 for a list
of changes that may affect the behaviour of previously working code, and
how to cope with these changes.

Some highlights are:

Platforms:
  * iPhoneSimulator target

Compiler:
  * Many new language features:
     * Objective-Pascal dialect, supported on all Mac OS X and iOS targets
     * constref parameter modifier for "const by reference"
     * Pascal boolean types with multiple sizes (boolean16/32/64)
     * ISO 7185 language mode (except for I/O). Features amongst others:
        * nested procedure variables
        * non-local goto's
     * Mac Pascal mode improvements
        * nested procedure variables
        * univ modifier
     * Intrinsics
        * sar (shift arithmetic right)
        * bsf/bsr (bitscan forward/reverse)
     * Delphi compatibility mode improvements
        * Nested types, class variables and class local constants
        * Advanced records syntax (no constructors yet)
        * (for..in) Enumerators in records
        * Class and record helpers
        * Generic records, arrays and procedural types
        * Delphi-compatibility of generics improved
        * Scoped enumerations
        * Custom messages for "deprecated" directive
        * Ability to use "&" for escaping keywords
  * New ARM code generator features
     * ARM VFPv2 and VFPv3 floating point unit support
     * Thumb-2 support

Packages:
  * Many improvements to the rtl
  * Many improvements to the database units (fcl-db)
  * Objective-Pascal interfaces to Foundation, AppKit, CoreData and WebCore
  * OpenGL headers updated to OpenGL 4.0
  
Details about these new features can be found at
http://wiki.freepascal.org/FPC_New_Features_2.6.0

See http://bugs.freepascal.org/changelog_page.php for the list of reported
bugs that have been fixed in this release.