[DotGNU]Portable.NET 0.2.2 released

[Rhys Weatherley]

Portable.NET 0.2.2 and pnetlib 0.0.6 have been released:

Web Page: http://www.southern-storm.com.au/portable_net.html
Download: http://www.southern-storm.com.au/download/pnet-0.2.2.tar.gz
Library:  http://www.southern-storm.com.au/download/pnetlib-0.0.6.tar.gz

The major changes in this release are to the runtime engine and
the linker.  The engine now understands most of the IL instruction
set.  The main omissions are exceptions, interfaces, delegates,
and tail calls.

The engine can now run "Hello World" slightly better than the
last release.  Because virtual methods now work, it can use the
stream classes in "System.IO" to do the heavy lifting on "stdout".
To run "Hello World", cd to the "samples" directory and execute
the following:

 ../engine/ilrun hello.exe

The linker is also new to this release.  Other changes are detailed
in the appended NEWS entries.

Note: the C# compiler still cannot compile "pnetlib", so you will
need to use Microsoft's compiler for the time being if you wish to
assist with implementing the C# library.  Hopefully this state of
affairs will change in the next 2-3 months.

Cheers,

Rhys.

Portable.NET 0.2.2 (3 November 2001)

* Synthetic class structures for array types.
* Implement constructors for single-dimensional arrays.
* Add a mini-disassembler for CVM, to assist with debugging.
* Add "internalcall" methods for "System.Math", "System.Single",
  "System.Double", "System.Type", "System.RuntimeType", "System.String,
  "System.Threading.Monitor", and miscellaneous "Platform" classes.
* Fixes to the assembler's lexer and member resolution code.
* Handle "object" and "string" correctly in the assembler.
* Numeric values for Unicode characters.
* Improve the speed of "internalcall" method lookup.
* Unicode-based lookup routines for classes.
* Properly handle '<see langword="x">' in "csdoc".
* Implement the CVM instructions related to objects, comparisons,
  arrays, object construction, virtual methods,
* Implement and document the linker.

pnetlib 0.0.6 (3 November 2001)

* Remove "System.Radix", which is no longer ECMA-compliant.
* Re-implement "Math" and "Random".
* Round out the "System" namespace.  Most ECMA classes are present,
  even if only in stub form.
* Implement a number of reflection-related classes.
* Change some "internalcall" methods to C# in "System.String".
* Remove a temporary hack in "System.Console" that caused it to
  bypass the stream subsystem.  Virtual methods work in "pnet" now,
  so we can use streams.