ACPICA version 20080926 released

[Moore, Robert]

26 September 2008. Summary of changes for version 20080926:

This release is available at www.acpica.org/downloads.

1) ACPI CA Core Subsystem:

Designed and implemented a mechanism to validate predefined ACPI methods and objects. This code validates the predefined ACPI objects (objects whose names start with underscore) that appear in the namespace, at the time they are evaluated. The argument count and the type of the returned object are validated against the ACPI specification. The purpose of this validation is to detect problems with the BIOS-implemented predefined ACPI objects before the results are returned to the ACPI-related drivers. Future enhancements may include actual repair of incorrect return objects where possible. Two new files are nspredef.c and acpredef.h.

Fixed a fault in the AML parser if a memory allocation fails during the Op completion routine AcpiPsCompleteThisOp. Lin Ming. ACPICA BZ 492.

Fixed an issue with implicit return compatibility. This change improves the implicit return mechanism to be more compatible with the MS interpreter. Lin Ming, ACPICA BZ 349.

Implemented support for zero-length buffer-to-string conversions. Allow zero length strings during interpreter buffer-to-string conversions. For example, during the ToDecimalString and ToHexString operators, as well as implicit conversions. Fiodor Suietov, ACPICA BZ 585.

Fixed two possible memory leaks in the error exit paths of AcpiUtUpdateObjectReference and AcpiUtWalkPackageTree. These functions are similar in that they use a stack of state objects in order to eliminate recursion. The stack must be fully unwound and deallocated if an error occurs. Lin Ming. ACPICA BZ 383.

Removed the unused ACPI_BITREG_WAKE_ENABLE definition and entry in the global ACPI register table. This bit does not exist and is unused. Lin Ming, Bob Moore ACPICA BZ 442.

Removed the obsolete version number in module headers. Removed the "$Revision" number that appeared in each module header. This version number was useful under SourceSafe and CVS, but has no meaning under git. It is not only incorrect, it could also be misleading.

Example Code and Data Size: These are the sizes for the OS-independent acpica.lib produced by the Microsoft Visual C++ 6.0 32-bit compiler. The debug version of the code includes the debug output trace mechanism and has a much larger code and data size.

  Previous Release:
    Non-Debug Version:  79.7K Code, 16.4K Data,  96.1K Total
    Debug Version:     153.7K Code, 48.2K Data, 201.9K Total
  Current Release:
    Non-Debug Version:  81.2K Code, 17.0K Data,  98.2K Total
    Debug Version:     155.8K Code, 49.1K Data, 204.9K Total