JamVM 1.5.4 released on 1st January 2010
========================================

A summary of changes since 1.5.3:

- GC changes:

  - Mark phase rewritten to use an explicit fixed-size mark stack,
    with a moving heap scan pointer.  The previous recursive marking
    could lead to stack overflow when marking complex, deeply-linked
    structures.  If the explicit mark stack overflows, a slower,
    fallback mechanism is used of scanning the heap.  The new mark
    phase is upto 50% faster than the old recursive marking.

  - bug fix for unallocated blocks within the heap of >= 1 GB.

- JNI changes:

  - Updated to JNI version 1.6.  This adds the function
    GetObjectRefType().

  - Fully implemented JNI weak global references (NewWeakGlobalRef
    and DeleteWeakGloablRef).  Note, these are different to Java
    Soft/Weak/Phantom References which have been supported since
    JamVM 1.4.0.

  - verbose:jni now shows details of the opening of native libraries.
    If a library fails to open a diagnostic message is shown (if
    available).  This is intended to help debug common library
    problems.

  - bug fix for ToReflected[Method|Field] and GetSuperClass.  A
    local reference must be created for the return value.

- Platform changes:

  - Interpreter inlining (aka code-copying JIT) now enabled by
    default on ARM systems.  Testing on Cortex-A8 indicates
    82% speed improvement on integer benchmarks, and 55% on
    floating-point.

  - If cross-compiling, and interpreter inlining is enabled, runtime
    relocation checks will be enabled (relocation information is
    normally generated at compile time; as this can't be done
    when cross-compiling it must be done at runtime, but it
    increases the size of the executable by ~30%).

  - Initial port to Sparc/FreeBSD.  My thanks to Per Ola Ingvarsson
    for architecture dependent definitions.  Interpreter inlining
    (aka code-copying JIT) is currently not supported due to missing
    code for flushing the instruction/data caches, and branch
    generation. It also requires libffi, which is enabled by default.

  - Changes to x86 and x86_64 across all platforms to zero/sign
    extend return values from native methods whose size is less
    than an int (i.e. boolean, byte, char and short).  This is
    necessary due to changes in code produced by gcc >= 4.3.

  - Rare race-condition in thin-locking code on x86 and x86_64
    architectures, leading to deadlock.  On modern x86 CPUs, an
    extra memory barrier is required.  Seen intermittently while
    running a thread intensive benchmark using at least 4 cores.

  - Extensive changes to support 64-bit Big Endian systems.  These
    were previously supported, but support was completely broken
    with the introduction of the new object layout in JamVM 1.5.2.

- Miscellaneous fixes:

  - Interpreter inlining bug fix: reference to memory after it
    had been freed

  - java.lang.reflect.VMField getAnnotation() implemented.  This
    has been missing since the reflection rework in JamVM 1.5.2.

  - ThreadMXBean: fixes for getThreadInfoForId (VMThreadMXBeanImpl).
    
    - Did not correctly report lock or lock owner, when the thread was
      blocked on an object which was thin-locked by another thread

    - It was using a constructor which has since been removed

  - Fixes for NULL handling in findClassFromSignature() and
    utf8CharLen()

  - Fixed memory leak in bytecode rewriting.  Due to missing
    parantheses, old bytecode stream was not being freed (for
    example, this leaks 47K when running "Hello, World")

  - Bug-fix for theoretical race-condition in thread deletion when
    notifying joining threads after thread ID has been reused.


JamVM 1.5.3 released on 14th April 2009
=======================================

JamVM 1.5.3 is primarily a bug-fix release.  It fixes issues seen
while running Eclipse 3.4.2 and JRuby 1.2.0RC2, and adds some minor
features.  A summary of the changes:

- Zip/Jar support in the boot classloader has been rewritten to
  no longer require the Zip/Jar files to be mmap-ed read/write.
  This increases shareability between multiple VM instances, and
  improves memory-usage on embedded systems.

- JNI invocation API:
  - set thread-self to NULL when thread detaches (if the thread tries
    to re-attach, it appears to still be attached)

  - init args_count in dummy stack frame (fix problem if the thread
    detaches and then re-attaches)
 
- Do not create a library unloader for libraries loaded by the bootstrap
  loader if they have an JNI_OnUnload method (the bootstrap loader is
  never unloaded, and so they will never be called).  Fixes a SEGV with
  JRuby.

- Fix to annotation handling.  When the annotation value is an array,
  the native annotation parser constructs an Object array.  However,
  the method return value is the specific type.  This leads to an
  AnnotationTypeMismatchException.  The fix coerces the Object
  array to the correct type.

- Simple implementation of java.lang.management.VMManagementFactory
  (returns no memory pool, memory manager or GC names).  Sufficient
  to run JRuby.

- Implemented package support in the bootstrap class loader.  Package
  information is obtained from the manifest file if it exists.  However,
  GNU Classpath's glibj.zip's manifest has no package information.
  The class library is therefore recognised by the presence of
  java/lang/Object.class, and appropriate package information is
  constructed.

- Fix broken implementation of VMClass.getSimpleName() (use the
  implementation from gcj)

- Default Java stack size increased to 256K from 64K

- Fix to bootstrap loader getResources() when the bootclasspath
  entry is relative (prepend the current working directory)

- Fix minor memory leak in bootstrap loader getResources()

- Add --enable-tls option to configure, enabling thread-local-storage
  (__thread) to be disabled


JamVM 1.5.2 released on 1st February 2009
=========================================

A summary of changes since 1.5.1:

- Interpreter inlining changes

  - Basic-blocks are now inlined across block boundaries removing
    the need for dispatching between blocks in the case of
    fall-through control flow

  - Control-flow within inlined sequences now patched with real jumps,
    removing the need for computed jumps

  - Control flow between non-shared sequences now patched, replacing
    dispatch with real jumps

  - Simple basic-block profiling is now implemented.  This considerably
    reduces the size of the code-cache, without reducing performance

- Reworked Object layout

  - Previously, on 64-bit machines the object layout was wasteful, with
    padding on fields less than 64-bits (to preserve 64-bit alignment).
    The new object layout on average reduces heap usage by approx
    10 - 15%

  - On 32-bit machines, 64-bit fields are now 64-bit aligned (without
    introducing extra padding if possible)

- Various alignment fixes

  - 64-bit alignment of operand stack
  - 64-bit alignment of static variable data

- Reflection support

  - Reworking required for new object layout

  - Reworked to use VMConstructor, VMMethod, etc.

  - Reworked to improve field access and method invocation performance
    (this offsets the extra costs of the VM interface, and improves
    performance over 1.5.1).

  - Access permission checks take precedence over other errors

  - Class/method signatures : do not convert slash to dots

- JNI fixes/improvements

  - Class references returned by JNI now use local references

  - Throw InstantiationException not InstantiationError when allocating
    objects and the class is an interface or abstract

  - Reworked JNI global references

    - Fix memory leak when expanding list

    - Improve performance (optimise case where references are
      created/deleted in a stack-like manner)

- OpenSolaris/Solaris/x86 port

- GC fixes

  - Fix race-condition in registering references with the GC

  - Separate "Async GC" thread is now disabled by default.  It didn't
    improve performance, and could increase power-consumption on
    embedded systems

- Exception handling

  - Fix method-skipping when filling in stack trace (methods could
    be incorrectly excluded from the trace when a class subclassed
    Throwable)

  - Uncaught exceptions in the "main" thread will now use the thread's
    uncaughtExceptionHandler

- Various compatibility command line options recognised (and
  ignored).  These include -XX:PermSize and XX:MaxPermSize
  required to build OpenJDK.

- sun.misc.Unsafe

  - Object methods (compareAndSwapObject, etc.) fixed on 64-bit
    machines

  - Implemented support for thread park and unpark (removing previous
    highly inefficient "empty" implementation)

- Use thread-local storage (__thread), if available, instead of
  pthread keys

- Various minor race-conditions seen while running Dacapo benchmarks

- Strict-aliasing fixes when compiled with GCC 4.3, interpreter
  stack-caching is enabled, and interpreter inlining is on

- A large amount of code-tidying throughout the VM

- Minimum heap size increased to 16MB

- Various compiler warnings.


JamVM 1.5.1 released on 10th March 2008
=======================================

A summary of changes since 1.5.0:

- Implemented a new internal VM symbol framework.  This ensures that
  all class, method, field names, etc. are unique thus removing the
  need to use strcmp for comparison.

- Implemented a new internal VM exception mechanism for frequent
  exceptions thrown within the VM.

- Hand-coded support for AMD64 ABI.  Previously AMD64 required libffi
  but this is not individually packaged on some Linux distributions.
  On a random set of signatures the hand-coded assembler is 4.6 times
  faster (and jBYTEmark FP Index is 30% faster).

- Ported to Darwin/ARM (i.e. the iPhone).  Built using unofficial
  toolchain and tested on jailbroken iPhone (1.1.3 firmware)

- Class initialisation/first active use fixes
  
  - initialise if first active use is object allocation via reflection
    (newInstance)

  - initialise if first active use is object allocation via JNI
    (AllocObject/NewObject)

  - The wait in step 2 of the initialisation sequence must be
    non-interruptible (not specified in the JVM or Java spec).

  - If allocation of the ExceptionInInitializerError fails,
    OutOfMemoryError should be thrown not the original exception

  - Don't resolve if initialiser throws ExceptionInInitializerError
    (subsequent resolution will not see the class is erroneous)

- JNI_OnLoad fixes

  - initialise JNI local refs before calling

  - if JNI_FindClass is called from JNI_OnLoad, ensure correct class
    loader context is used.

- JNI_OnUnload fixes

  - initialise JNI local refs before calling

  - If a library defines JNI_OnUnload, and the class loader which
    loaded it is GCed JNI_OnUnload is called and the library is
    unloaded.  Previously this was done within the GC.  If OnUnload
    allocated objects it could corrupt the heap.  Dummy unloader
    objects are now created, and JNI_OnUnload is called from the
    finalize method by the finalizer thread.

- Fix variable argument passing of floats When calling Java methods from
  native code

- Rework VM initialisation/start-up sequence

- Fix for JNI_ThrowNew and exceptions loaded by non-bootstrap classloader

- Fix for JNI_GetMethodID and object/class initialiser methods
  (do not search class hierarchy)

- During resolution throw IllegalAccessError and not IllegalAccessException

- handle loadClass returning null without throwing exception

- Fix for running Jar files where the main class is package-protected

- Interpeter inlining changes

  - Do not inline class initialisers (<clinit>).  No performance
    improvement as they are only ran once.  Reduces memory usage 

  - Fix for class unloading when inlining disabled (-Xnoinlining)

- Bump java.specification.version to 1.5

- Improve error messages if VM aborts during initialisation

- During configure, do not disable zip/jar file support if zlib library
  or header can't be found (now aborts).  Users never saw the warning
  and they ended up with a build which "didn't work".

- Various compiler warnings.


JamVM 1.5.0 released on 28th October 2007
=========================================

A summary of changes since 1.4.5:

- Substantially modified the interpreter to implement inline-threading
  (also known as super-instructions or code-copying).  This copies
  code sequences together to produce native code that executes without
  the normal interpreter dispatch overhead (similar to a simple JIT).

  - Supported on i386, AMD64, PowerPC and ARM, with or without stack-
    caching.  It is enabled by default on i386, AMD64 and PowerPC.

  - Performance improvement upto 300% on Pentium 4 (NetBurst), and upto
    200% on Athlon 64.  Less on Core 2 Duo (upto 70% faster as it has
    indirect branch prediction), and PowerPC which was already very
    optimised (upto 30% faster).

  - Tested on gcc 3.4 (i386, AMD64, PowerPC), 4.0 (i386), 4.1
    (i386, AMD64, PowerPC, ARM), 4.2 (i386, AMD64)

  - Several new command line options to control inlining:

      -Xreplication : determines whether duplicate code sequences
       are replicated or shared.  Can be set to 'none' (no replication),
       'always' (all sequences are copies) or a threshold value (e.g.
       10, when sharing of a sequence reaches the threshold the sequence
       is replicated).

      -Xcodemem : the maximum amount of memory for super-instructions.
       Once the maximum is reached no new super-instructions are generated
       but existing super-instructions are reused (class unloading will
       also free unused sequences).  Can be set to a value or 'unlimited'.
       This option can be used to limit code memory on systems with little
       RAM (i.e. embedded).

      -Xshowreloc : debugging option, which shows which opcodes were
       determined to be relocatable, and for opcodes which aren't why
       they aren't relocatable.  When using stack-caching there are
       three versions of each opcode (for 3 stack-cache levels).

      -Xnoinlining : turns off inlining (equivalent to setting codemem
       to zero).

  - Opcode relocatability is determined by default at build time, but
    this doesn't work when cross-compiling (so inlining is disabled).
    Relocatability can be determined at runtime using configure option
    --enable-runtime-reloc-checks, but this increases executable size
    by approx 30%.

- Command line options -version and -showversion now shows build
  information.  This includes the execution engine (e.g. inline-
  threaded interpreter with stack-caching), the gcc version which
  was used to compile JamVM (useful for debugging) and the "built in"
  boot library path and classpath.

- Ported to ARM systems using EABI.  This is a full port, with hand-
  coded assembler to handle the construction of a call-frame for calling
  JNI native methods.

- Refactored GC to remove all possible calls which may deadlock
  with threads suspended in "unsafe" operations.  This includes
  use of malloc/realloc/free and pthreads operations.

- In allocClass() check if gcMalloc() returns NULL (i.e. OOM).

- Copy Sun's behaviour when dealing with an empty property key or no
  equals after key.

- Add java.util.concurrent.atomic.AtomicLong.VMSupportsCS8.

- In method and field access checks, put back in access check for
  class (removed previously because it caused regressions, since
  fixed in Classpath).

- Enable suspend on thread creation (parent thread created thread with
  suspension disabled).  Effects threads which immediately call a long
  running native method.

- Fixed race condition in thread creation and compaction (start function
  obtains class reference when it is not suspendable, if compaction
  occurs, the reference may be threaded, or moved).

- Fix potential deadlock in threadInterrupt under Linuxthreads.

- Protect lock operation in resetPeakThreadsCount().

- In createJavaThread(), re-enable suspension if pthread_create fails.

- Fix race-condition in thread deletion.

- Fix bug in hash table "scavenge".  This could lead to entries not being
  freed, and exhaustion of Monitors on embedded systems.

- Removed use of malloc/free in thread dump.  Removes potential deadlock
  with threads suspended in malloc/realloc/free.

- Added symbolic link from lib/rt.jar to Classpath's glibj.zip (fixes
  programs such as ecj which locates rt.jar via java.home).

- Bumped Java compatible version to 1.5.0 as Classpath is now the generics
  branch (since Classpath 0.95).


JamVM 1.4.5 released on 4th February 2007
=========================================

A summary of changes since 1.4.4:

- Support for Java 1.5 Annotations.  This includes the following
  methods for reflection access to Annotations:

    - VMClass.getDeclaredAnnotations
    - java.lang.reflect.Field.getDeclaredAnnotations
    - java.lang.reflect.Constructor
        - getAnnotation, getDeclaredAnnotations, getParameterAnnotations
    - java.lang.reflect.Method
        - getDefaultValue, getAnnotation, getDeclaredAnnotations,
          getParameterAnnotations

- Class sun.misc.Unsafe implemented, providing VM support for
  JSR-166 (Concurrency Utilities).

- Ported to the mipsel architecture.  This is a full port, with hand-
  coded assembler to handle the construction of a call-frame for calling
  JNI native methods.  This supports the O32 ABI (for other ABIs libffi
  can be used).

- Bug fix in registering references external to the heap with the GC.
  The table should be locked for references registered after VM
  initialisation.

- Bug fix when expanding the heap and the free-list is empty.

- Fixed race-condition when rewriting OPC_NEW in the indirect-threaded
  interpreter (by default the direct-threaded interpreter is used).

- Bug fix in the GC compaction phase.  The class-loader references
  within the loaded DLL hashtable must be updated when the class-loader
  is moved during compaction.  This is a regression introduced in
  JamVM 1.4.3 (DLL unloading), seen while running Eclipse.

- Bug fix in JNI_GetStringUTFLength.  The reported length should not
  include space for a NULL terminator.

- Various compile fixes for uClibc.  Support for the JNI invocation
  API requires glibc features not implemented in uClibc.

- Command line option -fullversion implemented.


JamVM 1.4.4 released on 2nd November 2006
=========================================

A summary of changes since 1.4.3:

- Full JNI Invocation API implemented, enabling JamVM to be linked into
  another program.

    - JNI_CreateJavaVM, DestroyJavaVM, AttachCurrentThread,
    - AttachCurrentThreadAsDaemon, DetachCurrentThread
    - JNI_GetDefaultJavaVMInitArgs

- JamVM is now also built as a shared library (lib/libjvm.so).
    - The executable (bin/jamvm) is statically linked with this library
      instead of being a wrapper.  This is because the shared library
      runs slower than static linking on some architectures.  As JamVM
      is small this is not a problem.

- Improved class-loader and shared library support

    - When a class-loader (and all its classes) is unloaded all shared
      libraries loaded by the class-loader are unloaded and JNI_OnUnload
      called (if defined)

    - A shared library can no longer be opened by two class-loaders
      at once

    - A class can only resolve native methods defined in shared libraries
      opened by its defining class-loader

- Major re-working of thread/locking code to support additional Java 1.5
  functionality

    - Thread.getState() implemented
        - correct thread states and their transistions (e.g. BLOCKING,
          WAITING, TIMED_WAITING, etc.)

    - native support for the ThreadMXBean thread system management API
        - thread creation statistics (count of live, started and
          peak threads)

        - Information about a thread (ThreadInfo)
            - execution information (thread state, stack backtrace to
              a particular depth, object upon which the thread is blocked
              or waiting to be notified)

            - synchronization statistics (counts of the times the thread
              has been blocked or waited for notification)

    - Thread.interrupt() re-implemented fixing several bugs
        - if a thread was waiting on a monitor, previous implementation
          required the monitor lock to be obtained.  If a 3rd thread
          was holding this, the  interrupt could not occur to avoid
          deadlock.  New thread-code does not require lock to be obtained.

        - in rare circumstances another thread waiting on the monitor
          could be notified (when there was pending notifications,
          and then an interrupt, and subsequent threads waiting on the
          monitor).

        - a thread waiting on a thin-lock (waiting for inflation)
          could erroneously report an InterruptedException

- GC bug fix for class-unloading when only using the compactor
  (-Xcompactalways).  The compactor in some circumstances could move
  objects ontop of the object holding the native class-loader VM data
  before it was freed leading to a SEGV.

- Bug fix for abstract methods which fell through previous
  AbstractMethodError checks (using a stub method) 
    - AbstractMethodError now also gives the method name

- Bug fix to not allow abstract classes to be instantiated

- Bug fix for NULL in identityHashCode (a regression in JamVM 1.4.3)

- Bug fix for NULL in JNI method GetStringUTFLength|Chars

- Bug fix for $ in native method names

- FirstNonNullClassLoader implemented

- Access-checking bug fix.  In reflection method/field access, also
  check class access in addition to method/field.

- Ensure created threads have a native stack size of at least 2MB.  This
  fixes SEGVs due to stack overflow seen on OpenBSD/Darwin
  (default 512KB).

- Property sun.boot.class.path is now also defined in addition to
  java.boot.classpath.  Certain applications look for the Sun property
  (e.g. Dacapo bloat benchmark).

- Extra bootclasspath command line options
    - bootclasspath/v overrides the default VM classes path
    - bootclasspath/c overrides the default GNU Classpath classes path

- java.endorsed.dirs support added
    - directories are scanned and any jar/zip files are added to the
      boot classpath.

- Improved thread dump (produced via ctrl-\).  Now shows thread state.

- JamVM by default now installs in its own directory (/usr/local/jamvm)


JamVM 1.4.3 released on 21st May 2006
=====================================

A summary of changes since 1.4.2:

- Heap compaction implemented.  Previously on some programs the object
  allocation pattern could lead to a highly fragmented heap (lots of
  small holes).  This caused early heap expansion, and in some cases
  an OutOfMemory exception (a result of repeated heap expansion until
  heap fully expanded).

  JamVM now includes a mark/compact collector in addition to the
  mark/sweep GC.  This is normally ran after forced finalisation, and
  before heap expansion.  It removes fragmentation by sliding the objects
  to the bottom of the heap, closing the holes.

  Two new command line options can be used to control compaction :

    -Xnocompact : don't do compaction and just use the mark/sweep
                  collector.  This is equivalent to JamVM 1.4.2 behaviour.

    -Xcompactalways : do compaction on every garbage-collection.   In
                      some cases this may lead to less collections, but
                      the compactor is slower than the sweeper.

- The interned String table is now garbage-collected (JamVM uses its
  own interned String hashtable).

- Additional Java 1.5 support
    - New methods within VMClass implemented
        - isMemberClass, isLocalClass, isAnonymousClass,
          getEnclosingClass, getEnclosingMethod,
          getEnclosingConstructor, getClassSignature.

    - Generic signature support in reflection classes (Constructor, Method
      Field).
        - getTypeParameters, getSignature, getGenericExceptionTypes,
          getGenericParameterTypes, toGenericString, getGenericType,
          getGenericReturnType

    - Uncaught exceptions will now use the thread's uncaughtExceptionHandler
      (if available).

- Fix for Non-ASCII characters in class name parameter
    - affected methods Class.ForName, ClassLoader.defineClass

- Use getcwd() instead of PWD enviroment variable for user.dir
  property.  This fixes problems seen on some applications.

- Fix in VMClass.defineClass on 64-bit machines (protection domain
  parameter assumed to be 4 bytes).

- Minor interpreter optimisation in direct-mode with handler
  prefetch (reload of handler address in aload_0/getfield pair).

- Command line options -version and -showversion now prints a "Java
  compatible" version number.  This is to work with shell scripts which
  parse the output to get the Java version.

- Set the java.home property to the JAVA_HOME environment variable if set.

- Ported to Mac OS X on Intel.

- Runtime.availableProcessors implemented (Linux, Mac OS X and BSD
  systems).

- Updated to be compatible with Classpath 0.91.
    - Merged in changes to GNU Classpath's VM reference classes and
      JamVM's classes.

- Various compiler warnings.


JamVM 1.4.2 released on 22nd January 2006
=========================================

A summary of changes since 1.4.1:

- JamVM now supports class garbage-collection and unloading.  It is
  implemented according to the clarifications to the JLS.  This states
  that a class may be unloaded if and only if its class loader is
  unreachable.  As the loader is reachable while any classes defined
  by it are reachable, the class loader and all its classes will be
  collected together.

- Bug-fix for field name/type lookup and obfuscated code.  Previously
  a minor optimisation halted the search if a name was found with the
  wrong type (as a class cannot have two fields with the same name).
  However, this breaks obfuscated code which renames variables.  With 
  field resolution the optimisation is redundant, as fields are only
  looked up once.

- Added stub for VMClassLoader.defineClassWithTransformers.  This is
  a change in the VM interface in the generics branch of Classpath
  0.20.

- Various build changes :
    - fix errors/warnings on Open/Free BSD.  Part of this is a move
      to using config.h.

    - find Java compiler via path (try ecj, then jikes, gcj, javac).

- Fixed a minor garbage-collector bug.  Scan phase could SEGV if a GC
  occurred when a reference class was partially created.


JamVM 1.4.1 released on 28th November 2005
==========================================

A summary of changes since 1.4.0:

- As part of the GC optimisations in 1.4.0 some redundant checks were
  removed.  One of these was hiding a garbage-collector bug.  Classes
  that have not been linked should not be scanned, as their static
  fields have not been initialised.  The bug only manifested itself
  in certain applications, as the window between loading and linking
  is normally small.  Found with Tomcat, but also seen with Ant.
  
- Fix for an array overrun in VMAccessController.getStack (native
  method) on 64-bit machines.

- Support for FreeBSD.

- Support for OpenBSD (added in 1.3.3 but not previously mentioned).

- A couple of Mauve fixes relating to changing daemon status on threads
  that have died.


JamVM 1.4.0 released on 20th November 2005
==========================================

A summary of changes since 1.3.3:

- Support for Soft/Weak/Phantom References
    - As specified in the specification, Weak and Phantom References are
      cleared as soon as they become weakly or phantom reachable.  It is
      left up to the VM when Soft References (which are softly reachable)
      are cleared; only they must be cleared before throwing OutOfMemoryError.
      JamVM clears them as a last resort, when the heap is fully expanded,
      and insufficient memory can be reclaimed.

    - To support Soft/Weak/Phantom references a Reference Handler thread
      is now created on VM start-up.  This is additional to the Finaliser
      thread.

- Garbage Collector optimisations
    - Re-implementation of object reference scanning via reference offset
      lists.  Previously, references were scanned by finding references
      by following the class hierarchy.

    - As part of this the object layout has changed.

- Added Java language-level access checks (e.g. access to private/protected
  and package-private methods and fields).  This includes access via
  reflection.

- Fix for inheritance of inaccessible methods.

- Linux PowerPC build fix (this was quickly fixed in CVS).

- FFI fix.  The size of ffi-type-uint on 64-bit platforms has changed between
  libffi 2.00-beta and later versions.  This only affected AMD64, as this
  is the only platform that uses libffi.

- Fix for initiating loaders and array classes.

- Mauve tests.  Many extra VM-level Mauve tests now pass (35+).  These
  are mostly concerned with testing boundary-conditions in class-loading,
  Class.forName() and Thread.sleep().  Extra tests pass due to the
  implementation of Soft/Weak/PhantomReferences and access checks.

- Classpath-0.19 merge.
    - Merged in changes to GNU Classpath's VM reference classes and
      JamVM's classes.

- Support for kfreebsd and Linux-powerpc64.

- Many other code tidy-ups.


JamVM 1.3.3 released on 12th September 2005
===========================================

A summary of changes since 1.3.2:

- JamVM is now 64-bit "clean".

- As part of the changes above, JamVM has been ported to:

    - AMD64 under Linux:
        - JamVM should also work on Pentium 4 with EM64T technology.

    - PowerPC64 under Mac OS X:
        - to build a 64-bit executable CFLAGS must include the flag -arch
          ppc64.  If no option is given a 32-bit executable is built by
          default.

    - JamVM should also work on PowerPC64 under Linux, if the --enable-ffi
      flag is given to configure, but I have been unable to test.

- LibFFI is now supported.  Upto now, all ports required the native
  calling convention to be written "by hand" for each new architecture/
  platform.  Generic calling-convention code is now supported via libffi.
  Currently this is only used for AMD64/Linux, but can be enabled for
  all platforms using --enable-ffi.  The "hand-written" routines should
  be faster, and are used by default, but this will make porting to new
  architectures/platforms easier.

- Bug-fix enabling heaps larger than 2Gb to be specified on 32-bit
  architectures.  On 64-bit machines, heap sizes > 4Gb are now
  supported.

- Bug-fix for JNI return values smaller than 4 bytes (e.g.  byte, short,
  etc.) on big-endian machines.

- Under Mac OS X multiple DLL extensions will now be tried.  Classpath
  libraries end in .dylib, but native JNI libraries end in .jnilib.
  Both are now supported.

- Backwards compatibility workarounds for Classpath-0.17 removed.  JamVM
  will now only work with Classpath-0.18 and CVS (as of 12th September).


JamVM 1.3.2 released on 29th July 2005
======================================

JamVM 1.3.2 is a minor feature/bug-fix release.  A summary of changes since
1.3.1:

- Updated to be compatible with Classpath-0.17 and Classpath from
  CVS (as of 28th July).

- Shutdown hooks are now ran on VM termination, either normally, or via user
  interruption (i.e ctrl-C).

- Revised GC allocation failure policy
    - Using a simple heuristic the GC attempts to maintain at least 25% heap
      free.  If it fails the heap is expanded, regardless of whether the
      allocation request could be satisfied.  This reduces frequent garbage
      collection cycles when GC returns only a limited amount of memory.

- Revised Object finalization
    - during GC a thread could deadlock waiting for finalization.  This
      occurred when a finalizer (running in the finalizer thread) attempted
      to grab a lock the thread is holding.

    - a minor bug fix where finalized objects waiting for the finalizer to 
      be ran could keep alive other finalized objects (if it had the only
      reference to it).

    - a minor bug fix where objects waiting for finalization could be lost
      (i.e. finalize() method not called).  This only happened when >1000
      objects were outstanding.

    - VMRuntime.runFinalization() implemented.  This enables a thread to force
      finalization.

- In certain circumstances a class loader would be unmarked during GC,
  enabling it to be collected.  This resulted in a SEGV.

- JNI FindClass now uses the current class loader, not the first non-null on
  the stack.

- VMClass.getModifiers() now handles inner class attributes.

- Fix to enable build directory to be different to source directory (this was
  broken in 1.3.0).


JamVM 1.3.1 released on 12th June 2005
======================================

A summary of changes since 1.3.0:

- Re-worked thread suspension enable/disable code
    - implemented a fast enable/disable suspend mechanism for critical code
      sections, which is now used in hash table access and heap allocation :
        - much faster object allocation
        - much faster primitive array allocation
        - faster string interning

    - removed some minor potential (as yet unseen) race conditions

- Integrated all outstanding patches
    - generics branch patch, implementing VMClass.isEnum(), isAnnotation()
       and isSynthetic()

    - Boot library path patch (support for system property
      gnu.classpath.boot.library.path)

- Enabled different min/max heap values for each architecture
    - ARM values are back to the defaults for JamVM 1.2.5.  Default max heap
      of 128Mb is too large for typical embedded ARM systems.

- Fixed the new compiler warnings from gcc-4.0 (under Mac OS X) related
  to char/signed char usage.

- Fixed compiler error on gcc-4.0 under Mac OS X 10.4 (duplicate definitions
  of wait).

- Fixed rare, potential dead-lock in direct.c when preparing methods

- Fixed a bug in VMClassLoader.defineClass(), where offset or length is wrong.

- Fixed bug in DCONST_1 on mixed-endian ARM architectures (this bug was
  fixed in JamVM 1.2.2 but it crept back in, due to the new interpreter
   in JamVM 1.2.5).

- Improved thread dump (produced via SIGQUIT, or ctrl-\).

- Several other minor bug-fixes, and code tidy-ups.


JamVM 1.3.0 released on 31st March 2005
=======================================

A summary of changes since 1.2.5:

- Ported to Mac OS X/Darwin.  JamVM has been built and tested on Mac OS X
  10.3 (Panther), where it works "out-of-the-box".  It should also work
  on 10.2 (Jaguar) but you will need to install Fink (for dlopen
  compatibility).  Note only G3 and G4 machines have been tested.

    - As part of this, the source layout/build has been changed to more
      easily support different os/shared architectures

- The os.arch property now reports the machine architecture as follows:
    - arm  : ARM architecture (e.g. it previously reported armv5tel)
    - i386 : IA32 (i586, i686, etc.)
    - ppc  : PowerPC

- The ldc bytecode now handles "constant class" as specified in JSR 202
  (and introduced in Java 1.5)

- Command line options have been changed to be compatible with Sun Java.
  This particularly affects bootclasspath, which must now be given using
  the new syntax.  Two new options are implemented :
    - verbose:jni
    - showversion

- Default heap sizes have been increased (again) to better reflect desktop
  application heap usage :
    - minimum heap is now 2Mb
    - maximum heap is now 128Mb

- A race condition in class-loading has been fixed.  This fixes a SEGV
  with the latest postgreSQL JDBC driver.  It also fixes a SEGV when
  starting Eclipse on a P4 with hyper-threading enabled

- A race condition on VM initialisation has been fixed (helper threads
  starting when a GC cycle has already started in the main thread).


JamVM 1.2.5 released on 1st March 2005
======================================

- Substantially modified the interpreter to implement direct-dispatching.
  This considerably speeds-up dispatch, improving performance by 60% to
  100% across all platforms.  However, the rewritten method code takes
  up on average 4 times the memory.  Direct-dispatching is enabled
  by default on all platforms.

    - The direct-dispatched interpreter also supports stack-caching.
      This is enabled by default on PowerPC and ARM.

    - A further optimisation is prefetching.  This is enabled by
      default only on PowerPC.

    - In all 7 interpreter variants are possible, controlled by the
      configure options --enable-int-threading, --enable-int-direct,
      --enable-int-caching and --enable-int-prefetch.  For example,
      
      ./configure --disable-int-direct

      will revert to the indirect-dispatched interpreter as in JamVM
      1.2.4.

- Backwards compatibility with Classpath 0.13 removed (for example,
  VMSecurityManager).

- Fixed a SEGV that occurs when an abstract class does not implement
  all methods specified in the interfaces it implements, also implements
  a finalize method which is inherited by a concrete class.  When the
  VM creates the dummy "miranda" methods, the finalizer method pointer
  is left pointing to rubbish.  This occurs with the latest postgreSQL
  JDBC driver.


JamVM 1.2.4 released on 23rd January 2005
=========================================

A summary of changes since 1.2.3:

- Updated to be compatible with Classpath-0.13 and Classpath from
  CVS (as of 22nd January).

- JNI enhancements introduced in JNI 1.4 implemented (NOT using
  minimal implementation of simply returning NULL)

- Fix for setting locale when LANG is invalid (i.e. not locale-gen'ed)

- Fix for void method invocation using JNI (perform virtual method
  lookup).  This only affected methods with void return type.

- Fix for JNIEnv.  JNIEnv pointer is now constant across calls from
  the same thread.

- Implemented new VMStackWalker class, with optimised native methods.
  This class is needed for the CVS version of Classpath.

- Default system properties can now be overridden via the command
  line (using -D)

- BOOTCLASSPATH environment variable can now be used to specify
  the classpath used by the bootstrap class loader.  This overrides
  the default path.  BOOTCLASSPATH has lower priority than the command
  line and is ignored if -bootclasspath, -bootclasspath/a or
  -bootclasspath/p is used.

- NoClassDefFoundErrors thrown by the VM are now chained, and
  show the exception that caused the error.


JamVM 1.2.3 released on 23rd December 2004
==========================================

- Fix the mistake in JamVM 1.2.2 that broke Swing/AWT :)

- Sets the locale specified in the environment and defines
  System properties user.language and user.region appropriately

- PowerPC platforms : bug fix for JNI methods with very large
  numbers of arguments (e.g. 14 integer/reference arguments).

- Consistency checks for zip/jar files loaded by bootstrap class
  loader.  A bad zip shouldn't crash the VM.

- Endian check for platforms without endian.h (e.g. cygwin)

- JamVM's VM classes are now installed and loaded from a zip file
  (unless zip support is disabled in the bootstrap loader).  This
  stops old classes being left around from a previous version.


JamVM 1.2.2 released on 14th December 2004
==========================================

This release is primarily intended to align JamVM with recent changes
made to GNU Classpath's VM interface.  As of now, JamVM 1.2.2 again
works with Classpath from CVS, and Classpath-0.12.  A couple of
minor bug-fixes have also been made.

- Native methods for new VM integration class VMSystemProperties
  implemented, and changes to VMRuntime.

- Bug fix for DCONST_1 on ARM machines using mixed-endian doubles
  (bug was introduced in new interpreter).

- Added check for VFP soft-floating point on ARM (in addition to FPA).

- Bug fix for arraycopy and boolean arrays.

- Bug fix for JNI function GetStringUTFLength.


JamVM 1.2.1 released on 2nd December 2004
=========================================

- Standalone jar files can now be executed via the -jar command line option

- Updated to use Classpath-0.12 
	- Merged changes to reference VMClassLoader, reflect/Method
	- Now uses Classpath's system class loader
	- VMAccessController implemented

- 5-10% interpreter speed improvement

- Improved ARM platform support
	- Big Endian systems
	- Soft floating point

- SMP memory barriers on Intel and PowerPC

- Fix for certain Unicode chars in JNI method names

- Intel FP bug fix (Debian bug no. 260410).  Use double (64-bit) rather
  than extended (80-bit) precision

- Memory leak when two threads compete to load a class (rare race
  condition)

- Handle SIGPIPE, stopping the VM aborting.


JamVM 1.2.0 released on 9th September 2004
==========================================

- Substantially rewritten the interpreter to use "stack-caching".  This is
  an optimisation to eliminate most of the intermediate loads and stores to
  the operand stack.  On desktop PowerPC (e.g. PPC750fx, MPC7447 with large,
  on-chip L2 cache at full processor speed) it achieves a speed increase of
  between 15 and 30%.  On ARM (XScale PXA250) it achieves a speed-up of 
  50%.  Unfortunately, due to the addressing modes of the IA32 (Pentium, etc.)
  and the code produced by gcc, it is actually slower than the old interpreter!
  Because of this, stack-caching is disabled by default on IA32.

- Zip/Jar support is implemented in the bootstrap class loader.  This means
  glibj.zip no longer needs to be unzipped.  This includes resources.

- Fix for edge-conditions in floating-point to integer conversion (floating-
  point value greater than int/long range).

- Fix for very large array allocation, where the required memory overflows a
  32 bit int (fixes the SEGV with Mauve).

- Several other minor bug-fixes (e.g. ExceptionCheck was missed out of the JNI
  i/f table).


JamVM 1.1.4 released on 21st May 2004
=====================================

- JNI enhancements introduced in Java 1.2 implemented.

- Updated to use GNU Classpath 0.09.

- Pre-compiled VM classes will now be rebuilt automatically if Java sources
  change.  Fix to enable build directory to be different to source directory.

- Deprecated compiler warnings in gcc >= 3.3.3 fixed (use of cast expressions
  as lvalues).  JamVM now also builds with gcc 3.5.0.

- Minor bug-fixes and speed optimisations.

- Eclipse now starts up.


JamVM 1.1.3 released on 12th April 2004
=======================================

JamVM 1.1.3 is primarily another bug-fix release.  New functionality will
be included in JamVM 1.1.4.

- Resolution fixes to make JamVM 100% compatible with code produced
  by javac in JDK >= 1.4 and Jikes 1.19.

- New command line options -bootclasspath/a and -bootclasspath/p to prepend
  or append entries to the default bootstrap class loader.

- Default initial heap size increased to 1Mb from 256K.  "Hello World" will
  work with a heap of 75K, but this better reflects desktop application heap
  usage.  In an embedded environment -ms can be used to specify a smaller
  initial heap (e.g. -ms256k).

- Bug fix for private method invocation via JNI and reflection.

- Several other minor bug-fixes.


JamVM 1.1.2 released on 29th March 2004
=======================================

JamVM 1.1.2 is primarily a bug-fix release.  No new major functionality is
included, but many, many bugs have been fixed.  If JamVM didn't work for you
before, give this release a go!  Off the top of my head and in no
particular order:

 - Arraycopy and instanceof fixed for arrays involving different dimensions
   and Object element type

 - Array/inner class/primitive class access flags correctly set (important
   for serialization)

 - Reflection API : method invoke on interface methods now works

 - JNI : method invoke on interface methods now works

 - getResource/getResources implemented for bootstrap class loader

 - ClassLoader.findLoadedClass now handles classes initiated by a
   class loader

 - The thread contextClassLoader is now set

 - The protection domain is now set for a class

 - Many other minor bugs 

JamVM now uses VMRuntime and will now only work with Classpath 0.08.


JamVM 1.1.1 released on 25th January 2004
=========================================

- Now supports classes compiled for target >= 1.2.  In the past, javac inserted
  synthetic methods for interface methods not implemented by abstract classes.
  These are not produced if javac is used with -target 1.2, which is now the
  default with JDK 1.4.  JamVM now inserts these methods if they are not
  supplied by the compiler.
  
- Class loader changes.  JamVM now records initiating loaders so user-defined
  class loaders should be referred to less.

- Updated to use classpath 0.07.

- Java 2 style application class loader/bootstrap class loader split
	 - new command line options -bootclasspath and -classpath (or -cp)
	 - Jar and Zip archives can now be specified in the classpath.

- bug fixes (integration of Classpath 0.06 in JamVM 1.1.0 broke instanceOf)

- Re-worked stack overflow handling.  Previously, the first thread overflow
  would be trapped, but further overflows would not.  A thread may now catch
  StackOverflowException and repeatedly overflow.


JamVM 1.1.0 released on 17th November 2003
==========================================

There's been quite a few changes, including performance improvements and
more of the specification is now implemented (should be everything now but
Runtime.exec), as well as the usual bug-fixes.

- Interface method tables are now implemented.  This means an interface method
  invocation should now be almost as fast as a normal virtual method.

- The full Reflection API is implemented (Constructor, Field, Method, etc.)
  with primitive widening and wrapping and inner class support.

- Updated to use Classpath-0.06 rather than 0.04 (note JamVM won't work with
  0.04 anymore).

- Ported to the ARM architecture.

- Re-worked exception printing - now supports 1.4 style StackTraceElements.

- Interpreter optimisations (more "fast" bytecodes).

- Command line system properties can now be specified (-Dname=value).


JamVM 1.0.0 released on 12th March 2003
=======================================

- INITIAL RELEASE
