= NEWS-1.8.6

This document is a list of user visible feature changes made between
releases except for 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 since the 1.8.5 release

=== New platforms/build tools support

* IA64 HP-UX

* Visual C++ 8 SP1

* autoconf 2.6x

=== Global constants

* RUBY_PATCHLEVEL

  New constant since 1.8.5-p1.

=== Library updates (outstanding ones only)

* 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.

* date

  * Updated based on date2 4.0.3.

* digest

  * New internal APIs for C and Ruby.

  * Support for autoloading.

      require 'digest'

      # autoloads digest/md5
      md = Digest::MD5.digest("string")

  * 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

* nkf

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

* thread

  * Replaced with much faster mutex implementation in C.  The former
    implementation, which is slow but considered to be stable, is
    available with a configure option `--disable-fastthread'.

* tk

  * 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.

* 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.

* date

  * Time#to_date and Time#to_datetime are added as private methods.
    They cause name conflict error in ActiveSupport 1.4.1 and prior,
    which comes with Rails 1.2.2 and prior.  Updating ActiveSupport
    and/or Rails to the latest versions fixes the problem.

* digest

  * The constructor does no longer take an initial string to feed.
    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")

  * Digest::Base#==

    * self == string

      Automatic detection between binary digest values and hexadecimal
      digest values has been dropped.  It is always assumed that a
      hexadecimal digest value is given for comparison.

    * self == md

      Digest objects are compared by the resulting digest values, not
      by the exact vector states.

* fileutils

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

* 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.