Hello,

first, FPC core wants to wish a happy 2012!

To start the new year with a bang, a new major release
of Free Pascal, version 2.6.0, was uploaded to our FTP servers.

Changes that may break backwards compatibility are documented at:
http://wiki.freepascal.org/User_Changes_2.6.0

For Downloads, please use the FTP server at

ftp://freepascal.stack.nl/pub/fpc/dist/2.6.0/

and sourceforge

https://sourceforge.net/projects/freepascal/files/

as much possible.

Enjoy!

The Free Pascal Compiler Team


Free Pascal Compiler

Version 2.6.0

************************************************** ****************************
What's New in 2.6.0
************************************************** ****************************

Free Pascal 2.6.0 is a new major version of the Free Pascal compiler.

Please also see http://wiki.freepascal.org/User_Changes_2.6.0 for a list
of changes that may affect the behaviour of previously working code, and
how to cope with these changes.

Some highlights are:

Platforms:
* iPhoneSimulator target

Compiler:
* Many new language features:
* Objective-Pascal dialect, supported on all Mac OS X and iOS targets
* constref parameter modifier for "const by reference"
* Pascal boolean types with multiple sizes (boolean16/32/64)
* ISO 7185 language mode (except for I/O). Features amongst others:
* nested procedure variables
* non-local goto's
* Mac Pascal mode improvements
* nested procedure variables
* univ modifier
* Intrinsics
* sar (shift arithmetic right)
* bsf/bsr (bitscan forward/reverse)
* Delphi compatibility mode improvements
* Nested types, class variables and class local constants
* Advanced records syntax (no constructors yet)
* (for..in) Enumerators in records
* Class and record helpers
* Generic records, arrays and procedural types
* Delphi-compatibility of generics improved
* Scoped enumerations
* Custom messages for "deprecated" directive
* Ability to use "&" for escaping keywords
* New ARM code generator features
* ARM VFPv2 and VFPv3 floating point unit support
* Thumb-2 support

Packages:
* Many improvements to the rtl
* Many improvements to the database units (fcl-db)
* Objective-Pascal interfaces to Foundation, AppKit, CoreData and WebCore
* OpenGL headers updated to OpenGL 4.0

Details about these new features can be found at
http://wiki.freepascal.org/FPC_New_Features_2.6.0

See http://bugs.freepascal.org/changelog_page.php for the list of reported
bugs that have been fixed in this release.