Version 20130927

27 September 2013. Summary of changes for version 20130927:

This release is available at https://acpica.org/downloads

1) ACPICA kernel-resident subsystem:

Fixed a problem with store operations to reference objects. This change fixes a problem where a Store operation to an ArgX object that contained a reference to a field object did not complete the automatic dereference and then write to the actual field object. Instead, the object type of the field object was inadvertently changed to match the type of the source operand. The new behavior will actually write to the field object (buffer field or field unit), thus matching the correct ACPI-defined behavior.

Implemented support to allow the host to redefine individual OSL prototypes. This change enables the host to redefine OSL prototypes found in the acpiosxf.h file. This allows the host to implement OSL interfaces with a macro or inlined function. Further, it allows the host to add any additional required modifiers such as __iomem, __init, __exit, etc., as necessary on a per-interface basis. Enables maximum flexibility for the OSL interfaces. Lv Zheng.

Hardcoded the access width for the FADT-defined reset register. The ACPI specification requires the reset register width to be 8 bits. ACPICA now hardcodes the width to 8 and ignores the FADT width value. This provides compatibility with other ACPI implementations that have allowed BIOS code with bad register width values to go unnoticed. Matthew Garett, Bob Moore, Lv Zheng.

Changed the position/use of the ACPI_PRINTF_LIKE macro. This macro is used in the OSL header (acpiosxf). The change modifies the position of this macro in each instance where it is used (AcpiDebugPrint, etc.) to avoid build issues if the OSL defines the implementation of the interface to be an inline stub function. Lv Zheng.

Deployed a new macro ACPI_EXPORT_SYMBOL_INIT for the main ACPICA initialization interfaces. This change adds a new macro for the main init and terminate external interfaces in order to support hosts that require additional or different processing for these functions. Changed from ACPI_EXPORT_SYMBOL to ACPI_EXPORT_SYMBOL_INIT for these functions. Lv Zheng, Bob Moore.

Cleaned up the memory allocation macros for configurability. In the common case, the ACPI_ALLOCATE and related macros now resolve directly to their respective AcpiOs* OSL interfaces. Two options:
1) The ACPI_ALLOCATE_ZEROED macro uses a simple local implementation by default, unless overridden by the USE_NATIVE_ALLOCATE_ZEROED define.
2) For AcpiExec (and for debugging), the macros can optionally be resolved to the local ACPICA interfaces that track each allocation (local tracking is used to immediately detect memory leaks).
Lv Zheng.

Simplified the configuration for ACPI_REDUCED_HARDWARE. Allows the kernel to predefine this macro to either TRUE or FALSE during the system build.

Replaced __FUNCTION_ with __func__ in the gcc-specific header.

Example Code and Data Size: These are the sizes for the OS-independent acpica.lib produced by the Microsoft Visual C++ 9.0 32-bit compiler. The debug version of the code includes the debug output trace mechanism and has a much larger code and data size.

Current Release:
Non-Debug Version: 95.8K Code, 27.0K Data, 122.8K Total
Debug Version: 185.2K Code, 77.2K Data, 262.4K Total
Previous Release:
Non-Debug Version: 96.7K Code, 27.1K Data, 123.9K Total
Debug Version: 184.4K Code, 76.8K Data, 261.2K Total

2) iASL Compiler/Disassembler and Tools:

iASL: Implemented wildcard support for the -e option. This simplifies use when there are many SSDTs that must be included to resolve external method declarations. ACPICA BZ 1041. Example:
iasl -e ssdt*.dat -d dsdt.dat

AcpiExec: Add history/line-editing for Unix/Linux systems. This change adds a portable module that implements full history and limited line editing for Unix and Linux systems. It does not use readline() due to portability issues. Instead it uses the POSIX termio interface to put the terminal in raw input mode so that the various special keys can be trapped (such as up/down-arrow for history support and left/right-arrow for line editing). Uses the existing debugger history mechanism. ACPICA BZ 1036.

AcpiXtract: Add support to handle (ignore) "empty" lines containing only one or more spaces. This provides compatible with early or different versions of the AcpiDump utility. ACPICA BZ 1044.

AcpiDump: Do not ignore tables that contain only an ACPI table header. Apparently, some BIOSs create SSDTs that contain an ACPI table header but no other data. This change adds support to dump these tables. Any tables shorter than the length of an ACPI table header remain in error (an error message is emitted). Reported by Yi Li.

Debugger: Echo actual command along with the "unknown command" message.