********************************
                    ***       DEC C Upgrade      ***
                    *** Changes and Enhancements ***
                    ********************************
 
On Tuesday, June 27, MCIS will be upgrading from DEC C V1.3 to DEC C V4.0
on the MIAVX1 system.  Although the version numbers appear to be several
releases apart, V4.0 is the next release after V1.3.  The jump in version
numbers is to synchronize the Alpha and VAX version numbers.
 
Below are summarized the significant changes and enhancements to the user
interface provided by this upgrade.  A more complete list of changes can
be found in the file: SYS$HELP:ALPHA_CC040.RELEASE_NOTES.
 
Changes:
o Bug Fixes
o Long doubles are now treated as 128-bit floating point numbers.  Users
  can revert back to the 64-bit long doubles by compiling with the
  qualifier: /L_DOUBLE_SIZE=64
 
Enhancements:
o Better IEEE exception and rounding handling
o Compiler now finds more "bad" programming constructs
o C++ style comments - all text following a // on a line is considered a
  comment and is ignored by the compiler.
o Weak reference support - the compiler no longer produces linkage errors
  when linking a program with an unreferenced declared object.  For
  example, a variable declared as extern will not produce a linkage warning
  if no variable of the same name exists in another program module.
o Better optimization - adding the /OPTIMIZE=LEVEL=5 qualifier will cause
  the compiler to perform software pipelining.
 
--
                                     Kent Covert, Software Coordinator
                                     Miami Computing and Information Services
                                     Miami University, Oxford, OH
                                     [log in to unmask]  (internet)
                                     kacovert@miavx1                 (bitnet)