$Id: RELEASE,v 1.27 2001/05/25 16:49:54 knight Exp $

Cons 2.3.0
**********

Important visible changes include:

- Configurable support for signatures based on file contents has
  been added via a SourceSignature() method and a SIGNATURE
  construction variable.  IMPORTANT:  This changes the format
  of .consign files.  Existing .consign files from prior versions
  of Cons (e.g., in a Repository) will not interoperate with this
  version.

- Multiple single-character command-line flags can now be concatenated.

- Multiple -q options can be used to make the build quieter.

- The calling semantics of the semi-internal _Objects method have
  been changed to take a set of path names, not file references,
  and return the looked-up file references.  This will affect
  any user-defined methods that call the _Objects method.

- A -S option has been used to allow a signature package to be
  specified.  -S md5::debug enables debug messages for Cons
  MD5 dependency calculations.

- A new AfterBuild method can be used to execute Perl code after a
  target has been evaluated.

- The sig::md5::srcsig() method has had its calling sequence changed.
  A $self argument was added to make the method object-oriented,
  allowing for better subclassing of the sig::md5 package.

- A new RuleSet() method fetches a standard set of construction
  variables for a Microsoft Visual C environment or a traditional UNIX
  environment.

- A new DefaultRules() method sets the default construction variables
  returned by the cons::new() method.

- Added experimental support for building targets using Perl code
  references.

See the CHANGES file for details and a complete list.

General
*******

Thanks to Marconi Communications (formerly FORE Systems) management for
having transferred the copyright to the Free Software Foundation and for
previously having released `cons' under the GNU General Public License
(GPL) so that everyone can benefit from it.

Thanks to the Free Software Foundation for the infrastructure support for
cons.

And thanks to the members of the Cons community for the bug reports,
patches, discussion, and continued interest.

Steven Knight - Development Release Co-ordinator
Rajesh Vaidheeswarran - Maintainer
