Changes introduced in version 3.8.6

Version 3.8.6 is mainly a bugfix release. New features:

• SP_atom documented as a data type.
• library(jasper) and Java foreign resources now support null object references. See Jasper Library Predicates.
• library(jasper) now works with JDK 1.3 (with some restrictions) and JDK 1.3.1 as well as JDK 1.2.2. See Supported Java Versions.
• On Linux, the path to the JDK libraries is now embedded (rpath) in the SICStus executable instead of in the Jasper foreign resource (libjasper.so). In most cases this should not be a user visible change. This was necessary due to differences between the Linux (glibc) and the Solaris dynamic loader.
• InstallSICStus should now understand TclPro directory structure when configuring Tcl/Tk.

Bug fixes:

• splfr code generation bug for [-term] and +boolean.
• spld --sicstus=<PATH> now works. You are unlikely to need it though.
• Better error reporting for incorrect type signatures to old style calls to library(jasper).
• Jasper: SPTerm.delete() sometimes did not enable reuse of the deleted term ref.
• On some versions of Windows (NT 4 but not on Windows 2000) Java would crash under the following circumstances. java.exe is the main application, Java tries to do use_module(library(jasper)), the short pathname of the SICStus Prolog\bin folder is on the PATH environment variable. As a work-around for the underlying Win32 LoadLibrary bug SICStus will now always use the long pathname when loading foreign resources.
• On Windows, you can sometimes get an floating point divide by zero exception when embeding SICStus into other applications. The symptom was a crash with something like "Exception: 0xc000008e (EXCEPTION_FLT_DIVIDE_BY_ZERO)". This also happened for some applications that use Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) with the SICStus Visual Basic module (vbsp.dll). A thorough discussion of this issue and a solution is available in library/vbsp/sp_fpwrap.h. This solution is now used by the SICStus Visual Basic module. We have had reports of this issue affecting FileMaker, Rational Rose and Visio.
• library(bdb) now complains if run with a different version of Berkeley DB than what was used for building it (BDB 2.7.7).
• Now uses malloc() for memory allocation when invoking SICStus from Java, also on Linux. The default memory allocation method (using sbrk/brk) is not thread safe on any platform.
• Avoid spurious error message after C-c a.
• Loading .po files and saved states: work around GCC bug affecting endianness conversion.
• Standard term comparison on stream position terms didn't work after seek/4.
• dif/2 and friends: memory management bug.
• format/[2,3]: avoid spurious time-out exceptions.
• freeze(V,V) behavior bug.
• number_chars/2, number_codes/2: bug affecting empty lists.
• library(bdb) now verifies that BDB version 2.7.7 is used.
• library(clpfd): missing distribution files; buggy action handling of user-defined global constraints; wrong answers in disjoint1/[1,2], disjoint2/[1,2], serialized/[2,3], and cumulative/[4,5]; integer overflow checks; error detection in FD set operations; complexity of fd_closure/2 and fd_copy_term/3; entailment action in element/3.
• library(clpq,clpr): bug affecting bb_inf/3 and strict inequalities.
• library(jasper) now enforces the use of malloc for memory management, also on Linux.
• sockets:socket_buffering/4: bug handling 3rd arg.
• library(tcltk): some demos depended on current working directory.
• library(xref): handling of catch/3.