[tao-announce] ACE 6.5.4 and TAO 2.5.4 available for download

[Johnny Willemsen]

Hi all,

Once again, thanks to the efforts of many developers, testers, and
users, we are pleased to announce the micro release
of ACE 6.5.4 and TAO 2.5.4 which is available from the usual
download location at:

http://download.dre.vanderbilt.edu/

under the heading "Latest Micro Release".

Or from the github release page at:

https://github.com/DOCGroup/ACE_TAO/releases/tag/ACE%2BTAO-6_5_4

The doxygen documentation for this release is also available.  In
addition to the packages combined of sources and generate makefiles,
this release provides source-only packages for developers who use MPC to
generate their own makefiles.

We encourage you to download the new release, use it with your
applications, and let us know if you encounter any problems. Please use the:

$ACE_ROOT/PROBLEM-REPORT-FORM
$MPC_ROOT/PROBLEM-REPORT-FORM
$TAO_ROOT/PROBLEM-REPORT-FORM

so that we have the proper version/platform/compiler/options you're
using to report problems. We also request that you take a look at:

$TAO_ROOT/docs/releasenotes/

for the status of various ongoing projects at the DOC group of
Vanderbilt to move ACE and TAO forward.  Overviews of our recent
progress and upcoming plans are available at:

$ACE_ROOT/NEWS
$TAO_ROOT/NEWS

The overall success rates for the test results gathered from all our
daily builds is 98% for the ACE tests and 98% for the TAO tests.

Please see:

http://www.dre.vanderbilt.edu/scoreboard/

for a summary of these tests.  As always, we appreciate your help in
resolving any remaining problems. Please see:

ACE_wrappers/docs/ACE-bug-process.html

for an overview of our bug fixing policies.  Moreover, please see:

http://www.dre.vanderbilt.edu/support.html

for information commercial support services available from various
companies.

The following is a list of key changes since the last major release.
Please refer to the corresponding ChangeLog files, NEWS files, or
Bugzilla entries for more details on the problem and the nature of fixes
applied.

==============
Changes to ACE
==============

. Fix ACE_Vector::end(), which now correctly
  represents the end of the elements of the vector
  instead of the end of the base array.

==============
Changes to TAO
==============

. Enhanced the ImR to better handle a huge number
  of servers which use the ImR heavily and each of
  them does a frequent shutdown/start cycle

. The TAO_IDL frontend library now parses all IDL4
  annotation-related syntax: using and defining annotations.
  Use the tao_idl command-line options --idl-version and
  --unknown-annotations to control annotation parsing.
  Documentation on this feature is located in
  TAO/TAO_IDL/docs/annotations.md.

. TAO_IDL now will return an error status code when
  passing an invalid command line argument.
  Backends will have to support this behavior
  explicitly, see TAO/TAO_IDL/include/idl_defines.h
  for details.
  TAO_IDL also accepts new options such as -h,
  --help, --version, and --syntax-only, the latter
  of which won't generate any files, just check
  syntax of the IDL file(s).
  See tao_idl -h for details.

. When using IDL_Files in MPC, generated files will
  now be placed in the current directory by default,
  instead of the directory of the IDL file.
  Use
    idlflags += -o <IDL_FILE_DIR>
    gendir = <IDL_FILE_DIR>
  to output generated files to where the IDL file
  is.