Download Free Pascal 1.9.6 (2.0 RC1)

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Free Pascal is the delphi-compatible, open-source pascal compiler. It is a cross-platform compiler for Linux, BSD, Windows, MacOS X, Netware and OS/2, among others, and is suitable for both i386 and PowerPC processors. This release includes support for x86_64/amd64 (Linux). In combination with the Lazarus IDE, Free Pascal is the open-source Delphi variant.

Free Pascal 1.9.6 was released a few days ago and can also be considered the first release candidate for version 2.0. The changelog for this release looks like this:

Compiler:

• x86_64/amd64 (Linux) compiler
• Sparc (Linux) compiler
• PowerPC MorphOS support
• MacOS (classic) compiler (for MPW)
• Netware Libc support (-Tnetwlibc)
• Register variable support (-Or) for all targets
• MacPas compiler mode (-Mmacpas)
• Better inlining support
• For loop variable assignment is not allowed anymore
• $fpctarget expands to – (except for 8.3 limited targets), old $target removed
• Implicit loading of Variants unit
• Lots of bug fixes

RTL:

• x86_64/amd64 Linux support
• Sparc Linux support
• PowerPC MorphOS support
• MacOS (classic) support (except Sysutils and its dependants)
• Netware Libc support
• New heap manager that releases memory back to the OS
• TThread.Synchronize support
• utf8bidi unit
• GetHeapStatus added
• GetProcessID added
• SysUtils.GetEnvironmentVariableCount and SysUtils.GetEnvironmentString added
• gpm unit does not need libgpm anymore
• Further additions for improved Delphi compatibility
• System.GetProcessID and System.GetThreadID added
• Dos.GetMsCount added
• Support for changing console resolution in Video for Win32
• Support for using high memory (> 512 MB) under OS/2 (where available)
• Removed MaxAvail, MemAvail, HeapSize due to their unreliability (bogus/misleading return values) in multitasking environment with swapping

FCL:

• RTTIUtils unit added
• fpcunit test framework added
• Lots of dbf and other db fixes

PV:

• Updated to fvision implementation, first official release

IDE:

• Lots of improvements and stability fixes
• Support latest gdb 6.2.x and 6.3.x releases

Docs:

• lots of updates
• Easier to navigate html documentation
• fpDoc is used to generate all unit documentation

Misc:

• Makefiles create units in a separate directory units/cpu-os/
• More cross compilation improvements