TinyMUX 2.3:  CHANGES
Last Update:  December 2005

Major changes that may affect performance and require softcode tweaks:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 -- Dbconvert is now depreciated in favor of the same features in a
    stand-alone mode of netmux.  On Unix, there is a symbolic link for
    dbconvert to netmux.  But, on both Win32 and Unix, all the features
    of stand-alone mode are accessible via new command line options as
    follows:

        netmux -d<basename> -i<infile> -o<outfile> [-l|-u|-k]


Feature Additions:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 -- Quotas are checked/repaired during @dbck.
 -- Added support -p option, netmux.pid, and you can run more than one
    MUX server per Unix account without modifying the Startmux script.
    This feature first appeared in TinyMUSH 3.0.
 -- Limit the number of oustanding slave processes at any one time to
    20.  Introduced by Brazil.  Jointly refined with Alierak.
 -- Expand @list alloc report to 14 digits for total allocations column.
 -- Added @descformat.  Patch provided by Sean Hunter.
 -- Added SHA1() to calculate SHA-1 cryptographically secure hashes.
 -- Existing encrypt passwords are converted to SHA-1 format.
 -- The WHO/SESSION/DOING report manages the width and format of
    'On For' column with more care.  A range of years can be represented
    with a resolution of minutes at most, however, with limited
    available width resolution is gracefully sacrified.
 -- The lag_maximum configuration option now accepts fractional seconds.
 -- Jake added support for variable exits.
 -- Support for larger CHashpage sizes (based on value of LBUF_SIZE).
 -- Added ENTRANCES().
 -- Added GRABALL().
 -- Added -e command-line option which can be used to redirect the log
    back to the standard error stream (i.e., stderr) or to specify a
    basename to locate the logfiles in a directory other than the game
    sub-directory.
 -- Allow WHO report to be affected by @moniker.
 -- dist2d() and dist3d() changed to use floating-point instead of integer
    math.
 -- Turned 'all' message spec back on.  '@mail/clear all' works again.
    This option (which is described in the help files) was commented out
    in TinyMUX 1.6p0 or earlier.  I'm not sure why it was commented out,
    but I've turned support for it back on.  Unlike the other options,
    this one will now require that you spell the entire word out.
 -- Players with the hidden power can now hide on channels as well.
 -- Added cf_dbref() and changed the way configuration files are parsed
    to support 'master_room #2' and '@admin master_room=#2'.  Previously,
    'master_room 2' and '@admin master_room=2' was required.  The latter
    continue to be supported.
 -- Improved messages when home or dropto is changed.
 -- inc, dec, shl, shr, sort(,n), band, bnand, bor are all extended to
    64-bit integers.
 -- Added /noeval switch to page.
 -- Added support to page for quoting names.  Add double quotes around
    any player name that contains spaces to avoid the space in their
    name from acting as a delimiter.
 -- Updated PCRE to version 4.3.
 -- Added support for MEMORY_BASED to the ./Backup script.


Bug Fixes:
~~~~~~~~~
 -- Alierak fix for buffer overflow exploit in slave process.
 -- Alierak fix for logic bug in logging.
 -- Alierak fixes build breakage on Darwin due to inconsistent use of
    size_t.
 -- Fix SIGSEGV in SCRAMBLE().
 -- Alierak fixes strcat() given that its assumptions about TinyExec are
    no longer true.
 -- Alierak fix for home(bad_obj) logic.
 -- Alierak fixes off-by-one error in wrap().
 -- Only allow printable characters in identd.  The slave process on
    Unix does this.  The threaded implementation for Win32 didn't.
 -- Alierak reported that SCRAMBLE still scrambles characters off the
    end of the buffer.  He provided a patch that fixed that while not
    giving a flat distribution.  This final check-in fixed both issues.
 -- Bug fix in mux_memicmp().  mux_memicmp("June ", "june", 4) != 0
    when it should.  Brazil's bug.  mux_memicmp() was added to fix a
    build problem on QNX, so the bug would have been introduce at the
    same time.  It effectively turned off the auto-magic date parsing
    built into convtime(), so if that hasn't been working for you,
    this is the reason why.
 -- Alierak fixes crash case with obscure god-only lock case.
 -- Alierak fixes uninitialized use of second subexpression in attr
    and eval lock cases.
 -- Alierak fixes several stepping past unparse buffer terminator cases. 
 -- Alierak perks up boolexp generally.
 -- cf_bool() and config() briefly didn't handle bool type correctly.
 -- Players creating themselves from the welcome screen could cause
    NOSPOOF-related messages to show a random executor to other players
    on the Public channel.
 -- Player names weren't validated properly. Instead of mux_PlayerNameSet[],
    the code was using mux_ObjectNameSet[].
 -- Fixed the bCanRead/read_remote_desc bugs.
 -- Rename and turn character-typing tables into macros.
 -- Fixed SIGSEGV bugs related to characters with the high-order bit
    set.  Introduced, found, and fixed by Brazil.
 -- Same as above in translate_string() reported by Sean Hunter.  Fixed
    by Brazil.
 -- Fixed test_time_t() for 64-bit platforms. Reported by Alierak.  
    Fixed with Alierak.  Daylight Savings Time information would have
    been missing on at least some and possibly all 64-bit platforms.
 -- Fixed @flag so that it functions.  Reported by Marlek.  Brazil's bug.
    Fixed by Brazil.
 -- Fixed flag_name documentation.
 -- Fixed SIGSEGV bug in UpdateOffsetTable(). This function maintains
    a table of DST/zone differences and the interval of time over which
    the DST/zone difference is valid. There are typically two intervals
    per calendar year (DST in force and not).  The table can whole 50 
    entries (or 25 years worth).  

    If the table was full, and the Least-Recently-Used (LRU) entry is 
    the last entry in the table, and we are adding an entry beyond the 
    interval covered by the last entry, then a SIGSEGV can occur.  
    Reported by Anomaly/nails.  Brazil's bug.  Fixed by Brazil.
 
    A broader case of this one was originally reported by Lucifer 
    against MUX 2.1 and fixed 2001-OCT-16.  The fix wasn't sufficient.
 -- Bug #557, #558, #559, and #560 were all buffers smaller than the
    largest possible result.  All reported by Morgan 2000-OCT-15.  Fixed
    (finally) by Brazil.  Bugs from MUX 1.6.
 -- Initialize idle time for the sake of SITEMON-related WHO reports.
    Zenty's bug.
 -- Protect d->player access with DS_CONNECTED test to avoid depending
    on the existance of #0. Flags on #0 were controlling the behavior
    of logged-out connections. Now, you can load an empty flatfile,
    create a player (which will be dbref #0), and proceed from there.
    This isn't recommended, but the server doesn't crash if you try it.
    Bug from MUX 1.6.
 -- Kill the slave process on @shutdown.  Reported by nails.  Fixed by
    Brazil.  Brazil's bug.  Introduced in MUX 2.0 when the Win32 and
    Unix sources were merged. The required block of code was accidently
    left out. 
 -- Don't treat a killed slave process as the completion of a dump
    process.  Implementation worked out jointly with Alierak.
 -- Clean up zombie slave processe on @restart.
 -- set() function free the wrong buffer.  Introduced by Jake in
    MUX 2.3.0.5.  Reported by A_Character.  Fixed by Brazil.
 -- grep() and grepi() weren't preparing properly for accented
    characters.  Brazil's bug.
 -- Execute @hook code in the context of the hook_obj instead of as the
    player.  Jake's bug.
 -- Configuration script bug that affected MacOS build.  Reported by
    Alierak.
 -- Fixed ANSI color leak for case near the size of an LBUF.  Reported
    by Alierak.
 -- PushPointers tag was wrong.  Reported by Alierak.
 -- Memory leak in objeval().  Reported by Alierak.
 -- Guest system would clear contents of starting_room if a guest it
    created was later re-named.  Zenty's bug.  Fixed by Brazil.
 -- Documented '~' letter for NOACCENTS.
 -- Prevent rooms and exits from using the 'home' command.  Patch by
    Alierak.
 -- cache_names=no configuration would SIGSEGV.  Introduced and fixed by
    Brazil.
 -- encrypt() and decrypt() couldn't handle accented characters.
    Reported by Alierak.  Introduced and fixed by Brazil.
 -- While exits are checked and canonicalized at creation time, it was
    possible to re-@name an exit to a broader range of names.  Patch
    from Alierak.
 -- Document that y-umlaut is not supported.
 -- Fix help topic for conn() and idle().  Reported by Talim.
 -- Use waitpid() everywhere instead of wait() or wait3().
 -- Freshen getpagesize() for QNX.
 -- Previous work on slave left zombie slave processes.
 -- Some SIGCHLD signals from the dumping process were not getting
    through.
 -- Fix @unlock with respect to attribute locks.  Attributes could be
    locked, but not @unlocked (except by #1).  Introduced by Jake.
    Reported by Sean Hunter.  Fixed by Brazil.
 -- MakeCanonicalMailAlias() could return a result which was not
    null-terminated.  Reported by Ita'istar@Tandoria. Introduced and fixed
    by Brazil.  Related to the @malias command.
 -- MUX previously wouldn't handle convtime(Sat Apr 26 22:32:24 2003 utc)
    properly because the first-level date parser accepted it as a local
    date (ignoring anything that occured after the year field).  The
    first-level date parser is now more restrictive, and the
    second-level date parser handles it properly.  Reported by Talim.
 -- Fix v(), get(), u(), and probably other functions related to
    attributes on parents.  Broken by Brazil in 2.3.0.11.
 -- Fix to new PCRE code to avoid error in gcc 2.95.
 -- Support obj(name(<dbref>)) where name(<dbref>) contains ANSI color.
    Reported by Bellemore.
 -- @addcommand wasn't initializing @hook command information properly.
    On non-debug builds, this would tend to leave the command in a
    @hook/ignore state.  Therefore, even though the @addcommand was
    successful, a user would still receive a 'Huh?' message.
 -- Specific to the Win32 build with the Intel Compiler,
    'mul(288,power(10,9))' --> '287:00000000' instead of '288000000000'.
    It transformed a floating-point division in mux_dtoa() into a
    floating-point multiplication (tangentially, using MMX instructions
    as well).  The -Qprec_div option prevents this optimization and fixes
    the behavior.  As insurance, some additional code also will fix the
    the problem.
 -- @hook/igswitch didn't work when the built-in command normally
    doesn't take switches.
 -- Fix problem with comsys aliases potentially hiding the 'home' command
    and exit names.  Fix by Jake.
 -- Documented lag_maximum configuration option.
 -- ALIAS attribute wasn't available to other players.
 -- RIGHT() had problems with ANSI.
 -- Fixed cor(), cand(), corbool(), and candbool().  Fix by Sean Hunter.
 -- GCC 3.2 with high-optimizations couldn't compare properly with
    -DBL_MAX.  Reported on Shangrila.
 -- WRAP() thoroughly updated by Jake.
 -- @descformat updated to evaluate the description.  Fix by Sean Hunter.
 -- Workaround a bug in Microsoft Visual C/C++ compiler (Version 12.0 which
    is part of Visual Studio 6.0.  This bug affects PCRE.
 -- Added cache_pages and cache_tick_period configuration options to better
    support very large games.
 -- Fix minor bug in wrap().  Introduced and fixed by Jake.
 -- Fix @aahear denial-of-service exploit by preventing @aahear actions
    from nesting beyond 3 levels.  Demonstrated on Shangrila.  Fixed by
    Brazil.
 -- Fixed '@wait obj/attr=...' form of semaphores.  It would work
    exactly once if 'attr' wasn't previously defined in the game.
    Caused by and fixed by Brazil.  Reported by Ian.
 -- regmatch() wasn't handling the full range of return codes from PCRE
    properly.  PCRE contributed by Raevnos.  Fixed by Brazil.
 -- Fix hang in @dbck when orphaned objects lose both their home and
    their current location.  This crashing bug was probably introduced
    inadvertantly by Jake when he changed the defintion of a good object.
    Fixed by Brazil.
 -- Give detailed message at the welcome screen about why a password
    doesn't meet with the requirements of the safer_password
    configuration option.
 -- Fixed obscure buffer overflow in wRAP().
 -- Fixed buffer overflow in @list functions.
 -- Fixed permission issue with visual attributes on objects which are
    not nearby.
 -- Fixed @mail/bcc behavior so that bcc'ed recipients are hidden from
    non-bcc'ed recipients.
 -- Removed '%' as a valid attribute name character.
 -- Fixed MEMORY_BASED build.
 -- Allow @dolist to accept the /notify and /delimit flags together.
 -- Fixed udefault() argument evaluation.
 -- Fixes the way accents are encoded and parsed in mail.db and
    flatfiles.  This is an important fix.  Backups of your database are
    not affected, however, without this fix, your server will probably
    not parse your backups correctly if they contain accent characters.
 -- Added missing #undef HAVE_FCNTL_H to autoconf.h.in for Solaris build.
 -- Re-implementation of udefault() functions failed to properly parse
    <attr> as if it were <me/attr>.
 -- Fixed bug in MIX() where '&mixit me=(%0|%1);think mix(mixit,0 1,1)'
    gives '(0|1)' instead of '(0|1) (1|)'.  It wasn't determining the
    length of the first list correctly.
 -- Protect the server against @maliases with more than 100 members when
    the mail.db comes from a previous versions of MUX.
 -- Guest creation did not properly strip attributions from previous
    connections.
 -- With a particularly nasty ANSI @moniker, the WHO must trim the
    visual width of the colorful name down.  This point needed to be
    increased a little.
 -- @dbck started fixing quotas in MUX 2.3, but this is too expensive
    to do routinely.
 -- Move initialization of time code further up so that the logging
    code creates the right timestamp.
 -- Locks failed to evaluate properly after a dbref within the lock was
    @destroy.
 -- Fix unlikely but reproducible case of hanging @dump/@backup.
 -- Fixed the automatic adding of guests to the Public channel.
 -- Fixed SIGSEGV in AFTER() with accent characters in the pattern.
 -- Fixed uninitialized variable problem with an empty ladd().  It
    returned the result of the last operation.
 -- Fix crashing bug in @clist/full with a heavily ANSI-ied owner name.
 -- VDIM() referenced uninitialized memory.  Borrowed the correct
    implementaiton from WORDS() since the two are nearly identical.
    Found and fixed by Alierak.
 -- Fixed @dump/flat coruption bug. When the main process and the
    forked, @dumping process are both actively querying the text value
    database, the sequence of lseek/read and lseek/write options
    intermix.  Since the file position state is shared between the
    child and parent process, it was possible for one process to read
    or write the wrote CHash page.  Instead of using lseek/read and
    lseek/write, MUX now either uses pread() and pwrite() or does not
    fork a child to performs the @dump/flat.
 -- Fix an off-by-one command quota bug.  After 100 times of trying
    to queue too many commands, players are left unable to queue even a
    single command without auto-@halting themselves.
 -- Fix minor helpfile typoes, ommissions, and clarificiations.
 -- Fix build errors with GCC 4.0+ that have cropped up in the last 3
    months.


Performance Enhancements:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 -- Jake sorted the mudconf structures first by type and then by name.
 -- Raevnos updated PCRE.  The updated version does not require
    Raevnos' fix (implemented with C++ exceptions). With this release,
    MUX 2.3 no longer depends on C++ exceptions.


Cosmetic Changes:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 -- Alierak fix for typos in NOTES.
 -- Spell 'separate' correctly in the help files and the source code.
 -- Improved grammer of the emit the sender sees from the page command.
 -- Help files freshened.


Miscellaneous:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 -- Switched all internal use of BOOL type to bool type.
 -- Documented flag attributes.
 -- Updated CONVERSION.
 -- Remove vestigial code related to old-style variable function
    arguments and autoconf.h.in clean up in general.
 -- Added ATTACK notes.
 -- Documented pass_locks @power.
 -- ./configure built with autoconf 2.59