ACPICA version 20091013 released

[Moore, Robert]

13 October 2009. Summary of changes for version 20091013:

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

1) ACPI CA Core Subsystem:

Fixed a problem where an Operation Region _REG method could be executed more than once. If a custom address space handler is installed by the host before the "initialize operation regions" phase of the ACPICA initialization, any _REG methods for that address space could be executed twice. This change fixes the problem. ACPICA BZ 427. Lin Ming.

Fixed a possible memory leak for the Scope() ASL operator. When the exact invocation of "Scope(\)" is executed (change scope to root), one internal operand object was leaked. Lin Ming.

Implemented a run-time repair for the _MAT predefined method. If the _MAT return value is defined as a Field object in the AML, and the field
size is less than or equal to the default width of an integer (32 or 64),_MAT can incorrectly return an Integer instead of a Buffer. ACPICA now automatically repairs this problem. ACPICA BZ 810.

Implemented a run-time repair for the _BIF and _BIX predefined methods. The "OEM Information" field is often incorrectly returned as an Integer with value zero if the field is not supported by the platform. This is due to an ambiguity in the ACPI specification. The field should always be a string. ACPICA now automatically repairs this problem by returning a NULL string within the returned Package. ACPICA BZ 807.

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:  85.6K Code, 18.0K Data, 103.6K Total
    Debug Version:     161.7K Code, 50.9K Data, 212.6K Total
  Current Release:
    Non-Debug Version:  85.8K Code, 18.0K Data, 103.8K Total
    Debug Version:     161.8K Code, 50.6K Data, 212.4K Total

2) iASL Compiler/Disassembler and Tools:

Disassembler: Fixed a problem where references to external symbols that contained one or more parent-prefixes (carats) were not handled correctly, possibly causing a fault. ACPICA BZ 806. Lin Ming.

Disassembler: Restructured the code so that all functions that handle external symbols are in a single module. One new file is added, common/dmextern.c.

AML Debugger: Added a max count argument for the Batch command (which executes multiple predefined methods within the namespace.)

iASL: Updated the compiler documentation (User Reference.) Available at http://www.acpica.org/documentation/. ACPICA BZ 750.

AcpiXtract: Updated for Lint and other formatting changes. Close all open files.