Version 20190329

29 March 2019. Summary of changes for version 20190329:

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

1) ACPICA kernel-resident subsystem:

Namespace support: Remove the address nodes from global list after method termination. The global address list contains pointers to namespace nodes that represent Operation Regions. This change properly removes Operation Region namespace nodes that are declared dynamically during method execution.

Linux: Use a different debug default than ACPICA. There was a divergence between Linux and the ACPICA codebases. In order to resolve this divergence, Linux now declares its own debug default in aclinux.h

Renamed some internal macros to improve code understanding and maintenance. The macros below all operate on single 4-character ACPI NameSegs, not generic strings (old -> new):
ACPI_NAME_SIZE -> ACPI_NAMESEG_SIZE
ACPI_COMPARE_NAME -> ACPI_COMPARE_NAMESEG
ACPI_MOVE_NAME -> ACPI_COPY_NAMESEG

Fix for missing comma in array declaration for the AcpiGbl_GenericNotify table.

Test suite: Update makefiles, add PCC operation region support

2) iASL Compiler/Disassembler and Tools:

iASL: Implemented additional illegal forward reference detection. Now detect and emit an error upon detection of a forward reference from a Field to an Operation Region. This will fail at runtime if allowed to pass the compiler.

AcpiExec: Add an address list check for dynamic Operation Regions. This feature performs a sanity test for each node the global address list. This is done in order to ensure that all dynamic operation regions are properly removed from the global address list and no dangling pointers are left behind.

Disassembler: Improved generation of resource pathnames. This change improves the code that generates resource descriptor and resource tag pathnames. The original code used a bunch of str* C library functions that caused warnings on some compilers.

iASL: Removed some uses of strncpy and replaced with memmove. The strncpy function can overwrite buffers if the calling code is not very careful. In the case of generating a module/table header, use of memmove is a better implementation.

3) Status of new features that have not been completed at this time:

iASL: Implementing an enhanced multiple file compilation into a single namespace feature (Status): This feature will be released soon, and allows multiple ASL files to be compiled into the same single namespace. By doing so, any unresolved external declarations as well as duplicate named object declarations can be detected during compilation (rather than later during runtime). The following commands are examples that utilize this feature:
iasl dsdt.asl ssdt.asl
iasl dsdt.asl ssdt1.asl ssdt2.asl
iasl dsdt.asl ssdt*.asl

ASL tutorial status: Feedback is being gathered internally and the current plan is to publish this tutorial on the ACPICA website after a final review by a tech writer.