= NEWS

This document is a list of user visible feature changes made between
releases excluding bug fixes.

Note that each entry is kept so brief that no reason behind or
reference information is supplied with.  For a full list of changes
with all sufficient information, see the ChangeLog file.

== Changes with Ruby 1.8.5

=== New platforms/build tools support

* IA64 HP-UX

* Visual C++ 8 SP1

* autoconf 2.6x

=== Library updates (outstanding ones only)

* date

  * Updated based on date2 4.0.3.

* digest

  * New internal APIs for C and Ruby.

  * Support for autoloading.

  * See below for new features and compatibility issues.

* nkf

  * Updated based on nkf as of 2007-01-28.

* tk

  * Tk::X_Scrollable (Y_Scrollable) is renamed to Tk::XScrollable
    (YScrollable). Tk::X_Scrollable (Y_Scrollable) is still available,
    but it is an alias name.

  * Updated Tile extension support based on Tile 0.7.8.

  * Support --without-X11 configure option for non-X11 versions of
    Tcl/Tk (e.g. Tcl/Tk Aqua).

  * New sample script: irbtkw.rbw -- IRB on Ruby/Tk. It has no trouble
    about STDIN blocking on Windows.

=== New methods and features

* builtin classes

  * New method: Kernel#instance_variable_defined?

  * New method: Module#class_variable_defined?

  * New feature: Dir::glob() can now take an array of glob patterns.

* digest

  * New digest class methods: file

  * New digest instance methods: clone, reset, new,
    inspect, digest_length (alias size or length),
    block_length()

  * New library: digest/bubblebabble

  * New function: Digest(name)

* fileutils

  * New option for FileUtils.cp_r(): :remove_destination

* thread

  * Replaced with much faster mutex implementation in C.
    The former implementation is available with a
    configure option `--disable-fastthread'.

* webrick

  * New method: WEBrick::Cookie.parse_set_cookies()

=== Compatibility issues (excluding feature bug fixes)

* builtin classes

  * String#intern now raises SecurityError when $SAFE level is greater
    than zero.

* fileutils

  * A minor implementation change breaks Rake <=0.7.1.
    Updating Rake to 0.7.2 fixes the problem.

* digest

  * The constructor does no longer take an initial
    string to feed; digest() and hexdigest() now do,
    instead.  The following examples show how to
    migrate:

      # Before
      md = Digest::MD5.new("string")
      # After (works with any version)
      md = Digest::MD5.new.update("string")
        
      # Before
      hd = Digest::MD5.new("string").hexdigest
      # After (works with any version)
      hd = Digest::MD5.hexdigest("string")
