Since simply fixing the bug would silently break backwards-compatibility for affected schemas, we instead throw an exception to alert developers.

See Issue #344 for more details.

Example:

    const data :Data = embed "some-file.dat";

Files are looked up the same way an import would be.

You can use embed when Data or Text is expected. You can also use it when a struct type is expected -- the file will be interpreted as a message using standard binary serialization.

Unfortunately, the layout algorithm had a bug which caused incorrect layout when declaring a union whose lowest-ordinal field was of type Void and nested in an inner union. That is:

    union {
      a :union {
        b @0 :Void
        ...
      }
      ...
    }

In this case, all the fields in the struct after the Void field -- including both unions' discriminants -- would end up misplaced. Although they did not end up overlapping (and therefore the incorrect layout "worked"), the result broke schema evolution rules around "retroactive unionization".

Unfortunately, we must break compatibility with any protocol that happened to contain the above pattern. Luckily, it's a fairly obscure case. Unluckily, Cap'n Proto's own schema format contains such a pattern. Luckily, the use of this pattern was introduced in v0.6.x and therefore has not been in any release build so far.

Add asBytes() and asChars() methods to array classes to reinterpret-cast to bytes / chars, since this happens all the time and is otherwise a huge pain.

Use the new methods in a bunch of places.

Extended discussion:
https://groups.google.com/d/msg/capnproto/lRlWBOglQv4/8-Qo96AcZQIJ

See changes to test.capnp for example.

Currently only supported through generated code, not in the dynamic API. Not exactly sure how to expose this in the dynamic API...

Note that embedded schema structures in generated code are still incorrect.

More refactoring is needed, but this at least makes "using" aliases work correctly with generics.

For portions currently copyright by Kenton (most of it), transfer copyright to Sandstorm Development Group, Inc. (Kenton's company).

The license change is practically meaningless, as MIT and BSD 2-clause are legally equivalent. However, the BSD 2-clause license is sometimes confused for its ugly siblings, BSD 3-clause and BSD 4-clause. The MIT license is more immediately recognizeable for what it is.

Rémy Blank and Jason Choy (the two non-trivial contributors) are on record as approving this change:

https://groups.google.com/d/msg/capnproto/xXDd2HUOCcc/gbe_COIuXKYJ

Define new KJ constants for min/max integer values and inf/nan, then remove all use of numeric_limits.

Interface code generation.  Also update method grammar to allow multiple returns, and allow specifying request/response structs instead of parameter lists.

Extend interface grammar to support inheritance, and update compiler to properly compile interfaces.

Revamp generated interface to Object fields.  Now there is an ObjectPointer::{Reader,Builder}.  This will simplify the dynamic API (next change) and also makes it easier to delegate decisions about the object type to a function that doesn't know about the context where the object lives (i.e. by passing an ObjectPointer::Builder).

Delete default construcrtor on builders, so that people don't incorrectly try to just declare a Builder on the stack and then start setting its fields.  Instead, a Builder can be explicitly assigned to nullptr, which makes it clearer that it isn't safe to use.

Rename non-group again, now to 'slot', which is much nicer.  Also introduce fixed lists as a third kind of field (but not implemented yet).