4 This is GLib version @GLIB_VERSION@. GLib is the low-level core
5 library that forms the basis for projects such as GTK+ and GNOME. It
6 provides data structure handling for C, portability wrappers, and
7 interfaces for such runtime functionality as an event loop, threads,
8 dynamic loading, and an object system.
10 The official ftp site is:
11 ftp://ftp.gtk.org/pub/gtk
13 The official web site is:
16 Information about mailing lists can be found at
17 http://www.gtk.org/mailinglists.html
19 To subscribe: mail -s subscribe gtk-list-request@gnome.org < /dev/null
20 (Send mail to gtk-list-request@gnome.org with the subject "subscribe")
25 See the file 'INSTALL'
27 Notes about GLib 2.6.0
28 ======================
30 * GLib 2.6 introduces the concept of 'GLib filename encoding', which is the
31 on-disk encoding on Unix, but UTF-8 on Windows. All GLib functions
32 returning or accepting pathnames have been changed to expect
33 filenames in this encoding, and the common POSIX functions dealing
34 with pathnames have been wrapped. These wrappers are declared in the
35 header <glib/gstdio.h> which must be included explicitly, it is not
36 included through <glib.h>.
38 On current (NT-based) Windows versions, where the on-disk file names
39 are Unicode, these wrappers use the wide-character API in the C
40 library. Thus applications can handle file names containing any
41 Unicode characters through GLib's own API and its POSIX wrappers,
42 not just file names restricted to characters in the system codepage.
44 To keep binary compatibility with applications compiled against
45 older versions of GLib, the Windows DLL still provides entry points
46 with the old semantics using the old names, and applications
47 compiled against GLib 2.6 will actually use new names for the
48 functions. This is transparent to the programmer.
50 When compiling against GLib 2.6, applications intended to be
51 portable to Windows must take the UTF-8 file name encoding into
52 consideration, and use the gstdio wrappers to access files whose
53 names have been constructed from strings returned from GLib.
55 * Likewise, g_get_user_name() and g_get_real_name() have been changed to return
56 UTF-8 on Windows, while keeping the old semantics for applications compiled
57 against older versions of GLib.
59 * The GLib uses an '_' prefix to indicate private symbols that
60 must not be used by applications. On some platforms, symbols beginning
61 with prefixes such as _g will be exported from the library, on others not.
62 In no case can applications use these private symbols. In addition to that,
63 GLib+ 2.6 makes several symbols private which were not in any installed
64 header files and were never intended to be exported.
66 * GLib uses a technique involving macros for reducing the amount of PLT
67 redirections which has the side effect that the names of internally used
68 GLib functions are prefixed with IA__. The g_return_if_fail() macros
69 strip this prefix away, but it will show up e.g. in a debugger.
71 * On Windows, GLib no longer opens a console window when printing
72 warning messages if stdout or stderr are invalid, as they are in
73 "Windows subsystem" (GUI) applications. Simply redirect stdout or
74 stderr if you need to see them.
76 * The child watch functionality tends to reveal a bug in many
77 thread implementations (in particular the older LinuxThreads implementation
78 on Linux) where it's not possible to call waitpid() for a child
79 created in a different thread. For this reason, for maximum portability,
80 you should structure your code to fork all child processes that you want
81 to wait for from the main thread.
83 * A problem was recently discovered with g_signal_connect_object();
84 it doesn't actually disconnect the signal handler once the object being
85 connected to dies, just disables it. See the API docs for the function
86 for further details and the correct workaround that will continue to
87 work with future versions of GLib.
92 Bugs should be reported to the GNOME bug tracking system.
93 (http://bugzilla.gnome.org, product glib.) You will need
94 to create an account for yourself.
96 In the bug report please include:
98 * Information about your system. For instance:
100 - What operating system and version
101 - For Linux, what version of the C library
103 And anything else you think is relevant.
105 * How to reproduce the bug.
107 If you can reproduce it with the testgtk program that is built
108 in the gtk/ subdirectory, that will be most convenient. Otherwise,
109 please include a short test program that exhibits the behavior.
110 As a last resort, you can also provide a pointer to a larger piece
111 of software that can be downloaded.
113 * If the bug was a crash, the exact text that was printed out
114 when the crash occured.
116 * Further information such as stack traces may be useful, but
122 Patches should also be submitted to bugzilla.gnome.org. If the
123 patch fixes an existing bug, add the patch as an attachment
126 Otherwise, enter a new bug report that describes the patch,
127 and attach the patch to that bug report.
129 Bug reports containing patches should include the PATCH keyword
130 in their keyword fields. If the patch adds to or changes the GLib
131 programming interface, the API keyword should also be included.
133 Patches should be in unified diff form. (The -u option to GNU