[Xotcl] Announcement: XOTcl 1.6.0 available

[Gustaf Neumann]

Dear XOTcl Community,

XOTcl 1.6.0 is available. This release provides in short:
 - orthogonality improvements for introspection,
 - more introspection methods (one can now e.g. query, into which
   classes a mixin class is mixed into) and
 - performance improvements (some methods are significantly
   faster. e.g. by a factor of 1000 for larger systems).

In addition, the XOTcl source code follows now closer the Tcl
source code guidelines (e.g. variable naming), a few potential
crashes have been fixed.

See below for more details.
Best regards

-gustaf neumann

===============================================

Announcing XOTcl 1.6.0
*************************

We are pleased to announce the availability of XOTcl 1.6.0.

Major changes relative to 1.5.6 are:

   * Provide a uniform interface to the following info subcommands

        <class> info superclass ?-closure? ?pattern?
        <class> info subclass ?-closure? ?pattern?
        <class> info instances ?-closure? ?pattern?
        <class> info instmixin ?-closure? ?pattern?

     The new option "-closure" returns the transitive set of the
     relation (e.g. .. info subclass -closure) returns the subclasses
     and the subclasses of the subclasses. For "info instances
     -closure" the instances of the subclasses are returned as
     well. For more details, please see the language reference manual.
    
     In cases, where a pattern is specified, and the pattern contains
     meta-characters, a list of results is returned matching the
     pattern (like "string match"). When no matching value is found,
     an empty list is returned.

     In cases, where a pattern is specified, and the pattern contains
     no meta-characters, a single value is returned corresponding to
     the specified value. The pattern is used to lookup an object or
     class, such it is not necessary to provide fully qualified
     names).  if there is no match, empty is returned.  Previously,
     "info superclass" and "info subclass" returned a boolean value
     and performed always a transitive search. Returning "" is more
     consistent and more in line with Tcl.

     Note that "<class> info superclass -closure" is a replacement for
     "<class> info heritage", and "<class> info instances -closure"
     is a replacement for "<class> allinstances". The old commands
     will be marked as deprecated in the near future.

     Please note, that the behavior of the match pattern has
     changed and is therefor not completely compatible with
     prior versions.

   * New info subcommands:

        <class> info instmixinof ?-closure? ?pattern?
        <class> info mixinof ?pattern?

   These info subcommands are used to determine, into
   which classes a mixin class was mixed into.

   These inverse functions of mixin and instmixin are used as well
   internally. These functions help to speed certain operations
   (e.g. superclass, or registering a mixin class) up by a factor of
   1000 (!)  or more, when a large number of objects exist.

   This functionality was primarily implemented by Martin Matuska.
   Many thanks!

  * Made the behavior "pattern" in the following calls identical
    concerning wild cards and object lookups

        <object> mixin delete pattern
        <class> instmixin delete pattern
        <class> superclass delete pattern
        <object> info mixin ?pattern?

   * Fix to preserve var traces when copying objects
      (Many thanks to Florian Murr for reporting)

   * Fix problem in Tcl 8.5.* when setting variables
      from C (problem with Tcl_ObjSetVar2()?); many
      thanks to Florian Murr and Neophytos Demetriou
      for reporting)

   * Improved documentation

   * Extended regression tests


 For more details about the changes, please consult the ChangeLog and
 documentation.

MORE INFO
  General and more detailed information about XOTcl and its components
  can be found at http://www.xotcl.org