NEWS

NEWS
====

 * The current stable version 2 of the p4est code is maintained in branches
   v2.2--v2.5.  It will be backwards compatible as much as possible.
   The code will remain usable and bugfixed for the forseeable future.
   The branches master (official) and develop (fairly stable) live here.
 * We have introduced a new development branch leading up to v3.0.
   The v3 API will be optional to use: the v2.2 API is still included.
   v2.8+ however, we may slightly break backwards compatibility.
   The initial version is v2.8.  The branch is called prev3-develop.
 * We begin introducing #define for backwards compatibility queries.
   These defines are placed in src/p4est_base.h.
   Please see the paragraph COMPATIBLIITY below for a list.
   We are doing the same in libsc; please see the NEWS file there.
   If your code does not compile after updating p4est, please modify it.
   The defines are reliable for the master branch, and usually for develop.
   Topic branches are not required to conform.
 * Our official tarballs are linked from http://www.p4est.org/.
   The archives generated by github will not work; see the README file.

COMPATIBILITY
=============

Compatibility #define variables in p4est_base.h:

 * P4EST_COMM_TRANSFER_NULL
   indicates that we do no longer access unneeded buffers in p4est_transfer_.
   This means that it is from now on allowed to pass NULL pointers when it is
   certain that we will not dereference them.  The conditions for this are
   defined in the doxygen comments in p4est_communication.h.
 * P4EST_CONN_DISK_PERIODIC
   indicaties that p4est_connectivity_new_disk now takes two int arguments.
   They act as bool variables to switch periodicity on across x, y boundaries.
   The call of p4est_wrap_new_disk has changed as well to two more arguments.
 * P4EST_SEARCH_LOCAL
   indicates that we have added search functions for the partition,
   more precisely p4est_search_local, search_partition, and search_all.
   Please see p4est_search.h for documentation and details.
   The p4est_search function written earlier remains.