[GAP Forum] The IO package

[Max Neunhoeffer]

Dear GAP-Forum!

I am pleased to announce the release of version 2.0 of the IO package.
The package is still under development but it is now in a usable state
and I am pretty confident that the programming- and user-interface will 
no longer change very much.

The package provides:
  - access to low-level input/output functionality in the C-library
    from the GAP language
  - an implementation of buffered I/O in GAP allowing blocking and
    non-blocking I/O to files, pipes, FIFOs, and sockets
  - I/O multiplexing on many I/O channels
  - control of child processes with the standard fork/exec method with
    convenience functions to create pipelines of processes
  - an extendable framework for object serialisation handling arbitrary 
    self-referential objects built from lists and records
  - an implementation of the client side of the HTTP protocol in GAP
    that allows for example the retrieval of web pages from within GAP
  - on Linux access to unpredictable random numbers for cryptographic
    purposes

The package runs under Linux/UNIX and M$-Windows. However, it contains
a C-part and thus needs a C-compiler installed. The availability of
some features is platform-dependent.

IO can be downloaded from the GAP web page under

  http://www.gap-system.org/Packages/io.html
  
I would like to hear about any problems with the package or its 
documentation, as well as about successful usage.

December 2006,
  Max Neunhoeffer

-- 
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