MetaCard 2.4.3 alpha 1 release

[Scott Raney]

The first public alpha test of MetaCard 2.4.3 is now available in the
directory ftp://ftp.metacard.com/MetaCard/2.4.3/

The major feature implemented in this release is that the Carbon
engine for OS X is now a Mach-O format executable, which enabled it to
use many of the features from the UNIX engines:
  1) The shell() function can be used to run subprocesses.
  2) "write <d> to stdout" and "read from stdin until eof" are now
     supported, making it possible to use this engine to develop CGIs
     with Apache or other UNIX-based HTTP servers.
  3) Signals can now be used (the "kill" command, and the "signal" message).
  4) The full UNIX file system can now be accessed.  The downside of
     this is that paths *must* now be in UNIX form and not the old
     MacOS form.
  5) Unix time and date functions are now used for greater accuracy
     and efficiency.

To use the new Carbon engine, open up the package (control-click on it
and then choose "show package contents" from the menu), and copy your
mchome.mc stack into the MacOS folder.  Then double-click on the
executable, or run the app from a terminal window.  You cannot
currently start the app up from Finder directly by clicking on the
package.  We have not fully explored the ramifications of this new
executable format in terms of packaging, etc., but then, that's what
alpha tests are for ;-)

The primary improvements to the other platforms are in the area of
reliability and performance, particularly related to image
decompression, field manipulation, and socket operations.

Another cross-platform change is in how datagram sockets work.  In
previous releases it was not possible to read and write to the same
datagram socket.  Now, you can do a single "read from socket <s> with
message <m>" on the client datagram socket after opening it and all
packets that arrive on that socket will send message <m>.  On the
datagram server side, when a new packet arrives, a new socket that has
the client address will be opened.  You can then write to this socket
to send a message back to the client, or immediately close it if only
new incoming packets are needed.

********************************************************
Scott Raney  raney at metacard.com  http://www.metacard.com
MetaCard: You know, there's an easier way to do that...