Free Pascal 2.2.0 contains a lot of bug-fixes and new features. The work on

Free Pascal 2.2.0 started halfway during the year 2005. A lot has been improved

since then.

Please also see http://wiki.freepascal.org/User_Changes_2.2.0 for a list

of changes which may affect the behaviour of previously working code, and

how to cope with these changes.

Platforms:

* New platform: Win64. FPC is the first open source compiler for 64-bit

Windows operating systems.

* New processor architecture: 64-bit PowerPC

* Mac OS X on Intel (i386) is now supported

* New platform: Windows CE (Windows Mobile)

* GO32V2 DOS platform got a long needed update

Compiler:

* Internal linker for win32, win64 and wince, resulting in smaller

executables, less memory used during compilation, and faster compile

times for programs using large frameworks like for example the Lazarus

Component Library.

* Resourcestrings can now be smartlinked, resulting in smaller executables

* pointer[low..high] syntax to pass C-style pointer arrays to procedures

* Wide strings are COM/OLE compatible on Windows

* Added several speed optimisations, for example:

* Compiler can omit stack frames (x86 and ARM)

* Compiler can store records in registers

* Compiler can initialise local variables, function results, and “out”

parameters with several values (command line parameters -gt till -gtttt)

to help find uses of uninitialised variables

* Compiler can now properly deal with paths > 255 characters in all cases

* Lot of small bugs and compatibility fixes

* Exception handling can be used without SysUtils unit

* Lot of small bug and compatibility fixes

* The obsolete sqlitedataset, interbase, fpodbc, ddg, mysqldb3 and mysqldb4

* Lot of small bugs and compatibility fixes

Packages:

* Apple universal interfaces updated to r204 of the common FPC/GPC/MW

* Lot of small bugs and compatibility fixes

Free Vision:

For a detailed list of reported bugs that are fixed in this release see the

bugtracker report at http://www.freepascal.org/mantis/changelog_page.php