This release brings support for servlets including multipart file uploads, an operating system independent make facility "minmake" with XML based make rules, binary term streams to work with files for user data in compact binary form, a bug fix for a rare error condition with term vectors, and improved compilation.

Notes:

1. MINERVA 2.3 can execute binary code generated with MINERVA 2.2.
   *.mbc MINERVA binary code of release 2.3 is not compatible to releases of MINERVA 2.2 or older.
2. *.min MINERVA source programs are upward compatible from MINERVA 2.2. Please recompile to benefit from better compilation and improved compile time error detection.
3. Please update your *.msp and *.mca MINERVA Startup Property and Compressed Archives if you are using custom files that access MINERVA libraries.
4. This version executes on Java 1.1 and on Java 1.2. (Caution: Netscape 4.0.4 and earlier do not suffice.)
   Using MINERVA as Servlets requires Java 1.2 .
   Using minmake requires Java 1.2 or jview.

New Functionality:

1. MINERVA servlets

   MINERVA servlets allow to use server side MINERVA to produce dynamically generated Web pages. It interfaces to a servlet web server like Tomcat/Jakarta.

   Utility programs gives convenient access to the input data sent as MIME multipart data from client browsers.

   Related class files and *.mpk files are in the directory servlet

   See ExamplePrograms/MinervaFeatures/Servlet for details

2. minmake

   Minmake is a Java/XML based platform-independent make tool. The purpose of minmake is the same as e.g. UNIX make or Windows nmake. Its task is defined in the "make.xml" file stored in the directory where you run minmake.

   details

3. binary term streams Binary term streams are used to write/read to/from binary files to hold MINERVA user data for compact storage and fast input/output.

   Binary term streams are opened with open/4 with the option type(term). After writing to a binary term streams it MUST be closed with an explicit call of close/1.

   There are 2 predicates to write and read terms in binary form:

   • write_binary_term(+TermStream, +Term)
     writes a term to a TermStream
   • read_binary_term(+TermStream, -Term) reads a term from a TermStream
     at end of file, returns end_of_file
   Example:

   	open('mydata.data',write,TermStream,[type(term)]),
   	write_binary_term(TermStream, Term1),
   		:
   	write_binary_term(TermStream, TermN),
   	close(TermStream),
   

   details

4. improved compilation Better indexing schemes result for some programs in substantially faster compilation and/or faster runtimes.
   The compiler now also detects undefined predicates called in built-in meta predicates like call, findall.

With this release of MINERVA we discontinue support for previous releases. Please also re-read the Release Notes of previous versions of MINERVA. You have feedback on this release or requests for the next? Please let us know!

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