Hello,

we have placed a new major release of the Free Pascal Compiler, version 2.4.2 on our ftp-servers.

Changes that may break backwards compatibility are documented at: http://wiki.freepascal.org/User_Changes_2.4.2

Downloads are available at:

the main FTP server at

ftp://ftp.freepascal.org/pub/fpc/dist/2.4.2/

and mirrors like

ftp://freepascal.stack.nl/pub/fpc/dist/2.4.2/
ftp://ftp.hu.freepascal.org/pub/fpc/dist/2.4.2/

and sourceforge.

Enjoy!

The Free Pascal Compiler Team

Free Pascal Compiler

Version 2.4.2

****************************************************************************** What's New in 2.4.2
******************************************************************************

Free Pascal 2.4.2 contains many fixes and a few new features. Most bugfixes in the RTL and packages before june 2010 have been merged.

Please also see http://wiki.freepascal.org/User_Changes_2.4.2 for a list of changes which may affect the behaviour of previously working code, and how to cope with these changes.

Some highlights are:

Compiler:
* Support D2006+ FOR..IN, with some FPC specific enhancements. Refer to http://wiki.freepascal.org/for-in_loop for more information
* Support for sealed and abstract classes.

Packages:
* Many improvements to the XML units
* Many improvements to the database units
* Many improvemnets to the chm units

Platforms:
* Long term bug in OS/2 implementation of unit Video finally fixed which among others allows inclusion of the text-mode IDE (without debugger) for this platform as part of the distribution again.

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