News - 2023/01/14 - FLL 0.6.3 Release
Author: Kevin Day
Description: News post on 2023/01/14.
Keywords: Kevin Day, Kevux, FLL, Featureless, Linux, Library, Distribution, Open-Source, News, 2023

# 2023 / 01 / 14 - FLL 0.6.3 Release

The Featureless Linux Library stable version `0.6.3` is released.

This release contains breaking changes in the Featureless Make program to address functionality that is missing but should, if not must, be available. This primarily adds documentation and fixes a small number of bugs found.

Adds the following stand alone programs:

- `fss_status_code`
- `status_code`

There are now man pages for all of the programs. These are manually crafted.

The Featureless Make program has two new features that are important enough to break the `featureless` concept as an exception to the rule.

The Featureless Make program must be able to install settings files and documentation files. The documentation directory now exists. This is similar to the documents directory but is entirely focused on documentation that is installed onto the system. The documents directory might be synonymous with the standard share directory and the documentation directory might be synonymous with the share/man or share/docs directories.

The FLL install scripts are also updated to handle the installation of the settings and documentation files.

The Feeatureless Make program now supports the ability to specify a named section on the command line to be able to reasonably act as an alternative to GNU Make. It is now possible to create an `install` section. The user could then run `fake install` in a similar manner to how `make install` works. The core reserved words are never run in this way. These core reserved words are `build`, `clean`, `make`, and `skeleton`.

The following are changes since the 0.6.2 stable release.

Security Fixes:

- Control: Check if 'main' is NULL.
- Controller: Check if 'main' is NULL.

Features:

- FLL: Add support for installing documentation to the install.sh script.
- Featureless Make: Support passing a fakefile Section name to the main program.
- Featureless Make: Add missing documentation handling functionality to Featureless Make.

Bug Fixes:

- FLL: Several problems with the wrapping define macros, unused private functions, non-existent functions, and fix dependency.
- FLL: The f_int_128_t is using incorrect size.
- FLL: Fix wrapping define macros for several functions across different projects.
- FLL: The type macros in type.h are missing 'f_' or have spurious '_type' in the name.
- FLL: Incorrect define macros for private functions in f_file.
- FLL: Incorrect macro definition _di_pthread_support_ vs _di_thread_support_.
- FLL: The f_signal unit tests after significant change.
- FLL: The signal is not properly closing.
- Featureless Make: Not defaulting to top-level fakefile when data/build/ does not exist.
- FSS Status Code: Incorrectly string length causes inability to match string in fss_status_code.
- UTF8: The mode clang is missing from the UTF8 stand alone build settings.

Refactors:

- None.

Updates:

- FLL: The disable header files.
- FLL: Use more proper copyright communication.
- FLL: Restructure settings now the `install.sh` is installing them.
- FLL: Improve logic and design of `install.sh` script.
- FLL: Add explicit note about copyrights belonging to Kevin Day and the year 2023.
- FLL: De-couple the build settings data file from the `install.sh` script.
- FLL: Be more thorough in the `f_file` unit test.
- FLL: Code documentation is missing the function `fl_conversion_dynamic_partial_to_unsigned_detect()`.
- FLL: Fix license in documentation.
- FLL: Clarify wording in specifications.
- FSS Status Code: Add stand alone `fss_status_code` build.
- FSS Status Code: Add man page documentation for `fss_status_code`.
- FSS Status Code: should have a fakefile.
- IKI Read: Add man page documentation for `iki_read`.
- IKI Read: Improve IKI Read help documentation.
- IKI Write: Add man page documentation for `iki_write`.
- IKI Write: Improve IKI Write help documentation.
- Status Code: Add stand alone status_code build.
- Status Code: Add man page documentation for status_code.
- UTF8: Add man pages for `utf8` program.
- Multiple Programs: The stand alone programs configuration.
- Multiple Programs: Documentation and build settings, adding remaining man pages for programs.
- Multiple Programs: Minor fixes regarding structure and output relating to help.
- Multiple Programs: Add more detailed documentation to `fss_status_code` and `status_code`.

Check out the project on the FLL release page.

The project is built like a tool chest. Individuals who are unfamiliar with the project should have an easier time trying out the pre-packaged monolithic sources. These programs, by default, are designed to build against a library built using the monolithic source tree.

The stand alone sources for the several programs can be found pre-packaged at Sourceforge.

Kevin Day