Released April 29, 1999


**New packages**
   * [dde] 1.0 (''Windows'')
   * [msgcat] 1.0
   * [opt] 0.4

**New Tcl commands**
   * [encoding]

**New Tcl subcommands**
   * [package present]
   * [string totitle]

**Expanded syntax/new options**

[fconfigure] ''channel'' ?... -encoding ...?

**New Tcl global variables**
   * tcl_platform(user)


**Changed behavior**

Characters are now conceptually [Unicode] characters, not 8-bit characters in whatever the local machine encoding happens to be.

    :   `'''\'''ooo`, `'''\x'''hh`, and `'''\u'''hhhh` escapes indicate Unicode character values.

    :   [['''[format] %c''']] converts to Unicode; no longer limited to 8 bits.

The Windows registry key/value which holds the root installation directory 
for Tcl/Tk changed (again!).  
To retrieve that directory from the Windows registry, use the Tcl command
======
 registry get HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\\SOFTWARE\\Scriptics\\Tcl\\[info tclversion] Root
======
Advanced regular expressions.  See regexp(n).  
The changes result in incompatibilities at the C API as well as 
potential incompatibilities in regular expressions.

Expanded ''[scan]'' functionality, including XPG3.  See scan(n).


'''New C-API's'''

''Tcl_SaveResult'',
''Tcl_RestoreResult'',
''Tcl_DiscardResult''.

Use these if you have to use the interpreter result for communication with a Tcl script 
(f.e. called from the C-level), but don't want to trash the current result 
as your caller might rely on it.

'''AK'''

----
[Donald Porter]

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