ioncube-encoders/v6.5.13/RELEASE-NOTES.txt

	     ionCube PHP Encoder 6.5 Release Notes
	     -------------------------------------

*** Please see below for changes relating to the latest 6.5 revision.

Version 6.5 of the ionCube PHP Encoder introduces powerful new security
and usability features. Please note that due to these changes Loaders with
version 3.1 or greater are required.

* Encryption of arbitrary files

The Encoder now has the ability to encrypt any file. This feature may be used,
for example, to encrypt configuration XML files, or HTML templates for use by
Smarty. To specify files to be encrypted the option --encrypt is used in the 
same way as --encode is used for encoding PHP files.

To read encrypted files the Loader API has been extended with the function

	mixed ioncube_read_file(string path 
			[,bool &was_encrypted [,string passphrase] ] ] )

This function can read both encrypted and unencrypted files, the second 
argument being used to return whether the file was encrypted or not. 
Encrypted files can only be read by PHP files encoded with the same Encoder 
installation. In other words encrypted files are protected from viewing by
other ionCube PHP Encoder customers.

Encrypted files can also be written by the Loader by using the function

	long ioncube_write_file(string path, string content 
			[,bool encrypt [,string passphrase] ] )


* New obfuscation feature

Compiled PHP bytecode contains certain information such as function names 
which are used by PHP's execution engine. To prevent these strings from 
appearing in encoded files version 6.5 has a new obfuscation layer. The 
new option --obfuscate can take arguments 'functions', 'locals', 'linenos' to
obfuscate the names of functions, local variables, and line numbers
respectively in the compiled bytecode. Options '--obfuscate all' and 
'--obfuscate none' can also be used.

While it is desirable to obfuscate an application, it is sometimes necessary
to prevent certain function names from being obfuscated. For example functions 
external to the application called by the application should not be
obfuscated. 

Similarly application functions called by external scripts should not be 
obfuscated. To specify these exceptions a text file should be created with 
the name of each function occurring one per line, and the option 
'--obfuscation-exclusion-file' should be used to pass the name of the file to 
the Encoder. It is not necessary to add the names of built-in PHP functions 
to this file.


* Post-encoding step (Windows GUI)

It is now possible to execute a command after the Encoder has finished encoding
a project. This option supports environment variable subtitutions, so 
the following command will open the target folder after encoding is complete:

	C:\WINDOWS\explorer "{TARGET_DIR}"


* Updated Loaders

In order to execute files created with the new Encoder it is necessary to 
install the latest version of the ionCube PHP Loader (at least version 3.1.5).
The latest version of the Loader is always available from:
	
		http://www.ioncube.com/loaders.php


* Upgrade Notes (Linux/FreeBSD)

The following notes apply to those users upgrading an Encoder installation
from a previous version.

After unpacking the archive it may be necessary to generate a new license 
request. After the request has been processed new license data can be 
downloaded from your account area. 

It may be necessary for the user of the Encoder to have write permissions to
the directory containing the Encoder the first time the Encoder is run. 
The Encoder will then generate a lock file in that directory. After the first 
run of the Encoder the permissions on the folder can be restored to their 
previous state.


		
		ionCube PHP Encoder/Loader Changes
		----------------------------------

Version 6.5.13 - 1 August 2007
------------------------------

* Enhancement to avoid a spurious notice message that could be emitted when
  running code on PHP 5.2.1+ of the following form:
    foreach ($o->prop as $v) { }
  where the value of prop is obtained dynamically via __get(). 
  
* Change so that the instanceof operator will evaluate to false for an
  undefined class at runtime and not report the class as undefined.

* \r\n sequences in custom preambles are now converted to \n by the Unix
  Encoders and not just the Windows Encoder. 

* The newline at the end of ASCII encoded files is no longer present. 
  This keeps a particular forum plugin manager happy that incorrectly
  considered a newline at the end of encoded files to be a problem.

* GUI: Double clicking file related messages in the event log tree now opens
  the associated file.

* GUI: New option to show Encoder command line.

* GUI (Special Edition): Fix to include any empty folders when creating
  tar.gz archives.

* GUI: Change to support URL in the About dialog.

* GUI: Blank lines in custom header comments are now preserved.

* GUI: Minor cosmetic changes.

* License generator: Fix for #d appearing if creating license files on 
  FreeBSD and exposing the license expiry date.

* License generator: Minor fixes and changes.


Version 6.5.12 - 20 February 2007
---------------------------------

* Enhancement to allow classes derived from builtin classes (e.g. Exception)
  to be declared after their own subclasses.

* New command line option added for declaring custom autoglobals; e.g.

    --register-autoglobal _MYAUTO

  will process use of $_MYAUTO inside a function as if it were a global.

* GUI: Custom autoglobals feature added to the Miscellaneous project settings
  tab.

* Displaying license properties with make_license (--decode-license) or
  via the Encoder GUI now displays string properties delimited by quotes and
  correctly displays integer properties.

* GUI: Toolbar button added to display license file creation settings and 
  minor cosmetic changes.


Version 6.5.11 - 3 January 2007
-------------------------------

This release has numerous changes, that include the purely cosmetic, a few
bug fixes, and both some minor and major functional enhancements for usability.

These include:

* GUI: Decoding of server data files via drag/drop now supports recognising
  and processing of gzip compressed files.

* GUI: Source files page and project tree enhanced. Convenience buttons added
  for changing file/directory rules in addition to the existing right click
  popup menu.
  Additional visual cues to indicate project file and directory states. 
  Popup menu options enhanced.

* GUI: Double clicking or selecting "Open" on an item in the source files
  tree now displays the usual Windows "Open with" dialog if no program
  association is known.

* GUI: "Open with..." dialog added to project tree popup menu.

* GUI: The expand / collapse state of the source files tree in the Project
  Settings is now maintained between closing and reopening the Settings
  dialog.
  
* GUI: The Project Wizard has been updated.

* GUI: Double clicking on errors in the popup errors window now opens the
  associated source file or displays an "Open with..." dialog.

* GUI: Improvements and corrections to the Windows GUI documentation.

* GUI: Improve handling when bundling Loaders and merging to an existing
  target.

* GUI: The default encoding extensions on new projects are now .php, .php4,
  .php5 and .inc

* GUI: The default ignore pattern of .* is removed for new projects.

* GUI: Although dot files were processed correctly in previous versions, they
  may not always have shown in the source files tree. This anomoly is
  corrected.

* PHP 5 Encoder: Support is now added for a couple of PHP 5.1+ specific
  features that were not available in the PHP 5.0 language specification.
  In keeping with our commitment to support PHP 5.0 and not just 5.1+,
  encoded files using 5.1+ specific features can also run on a PHP 5.0 system.
 
* PHP 5 Encoder: Support added for $this[] when used by ArrayObject instances.
 
* PHP 4 & 5 Encoder: Non-PHP source files that are already encrypted are now
  copied instead of being encrypted again.

* PHP 4 & 5 Encoder: Enhancements to handle cases where the encoding target
  exists and is not removed prior to encoding (e.g. if --merge is used), and
  where some existing target files or directories are read only.

* PHP 4 & 5 Encoder: Discrepancies between how parse errors are reported with
  the PHP 4 and PHP 5 Encoder are fixed.
  
* PHP 4 & 5 Encoder: Syntax checking now skips files that were ignored with
  --ignore.

* PHP 4 & 5 Encoder: Source files explicitly specified on the command line
  will now be ignored if they match a --ignore pattern, and not only if the
  source item was a directory.



Version 6.5.10 - 15 November 2006
---------------------------------

* Support for creating wildcard server name restrictions (Pro and Cerberus) 
  with the Encoder and make_license program. 
  NOTE: This requires Loader 3.1.23 or above to process the wildcards.

* Enhancements to --help handling on Unix.

* Fix to problem that might cause non-PHP based shell scripts to be encoded.

* Shell scripts already encoded are now copied and not re-encoded.

* Fix for static initialisers with embedded NULL character.

* Other fixes, enhancements and refinements to product and documentation.


Version 6.5.9 - 26 May 2006
---------------------------

* Fix for PHP 5 compiler when a class or function was declared inside a 
  case statement.

Version 6.5.8 - 29 March 2006
-----------------------------

* Updated Loaders bundled with Windows download - improved memory usage.

Version 6.5.7 - 15 March 2006
-----------------------------

* GUI occasionally reported certain Encoder project files as corrupt.
* Fixed Windows Encoder issue when the source folder was just a drive 
  letter (e.g. 'C:\').
* Fixed issue with GUI related to pattern matching excluded/copied files 
  in the top level of the source folder.
* Fixed issue with GUI which occured occasionally when files were added 
  into a directory which contained files marked to be ignored.

Version 6.5.6 - 20 February 2006
--------------------------------

* Fix to bundled Loaders.

Version 6.5.5 - 16 February 2006
--------------------------------

* Fix to make_license program if * is passed as argument to the 
  --select-adapters option.

Version 6.5.4 - 9 February 2006
-------------------------------

* Release with latest Loaders
* Fix to packaging of PHP 5.1 Loader


Version 6.5.3 - 31 January 2006
-------------------------------

* GUI: minor internal change.

Version 6.5.2 - 24 January 2006
-------------------------------

* make_license program: MAC addresses can now be specified in the format 
  {AA:BB:CC:DD:EE:FF} or {AA-BB-CC-DD-EE-FF}.
* Windows: commandline Encoder gave an error if it was invoked with 
  a commandline not terminating in '.exe'.
* GUI: if location of project target folder does not exist it will be 
  created if confirmed by the user.
* GUI: source tree files can now have their state reset by using the 
  context menu.
* GUI: fix related to Include/Exclude in source tree.
* GUI: fixed resize issue with application dialogs.


Version 6.5.1 - 20 January 2006
-------------------------------

* If a file set to be encoded has already been encoded the Encoder will now
  copy the file to the target and display a warning.
* GUI: Added Open to project tree context menu for root folder, files, 
  multiple selections.
* GUI: New context menu items for project tree folders: 'Set contents to
  be encoded', and 'Set contents to be encrypted' (overrule file extension
  patterns).
* GUI: Fixed bug where some files were set to be encoded when they did not
  match any pattern.
* GUI: Changed 'Apply default patterns' to 'Reset Encoder actions'. When 
  applied, any files not matching a pattern are now set to be copied.
* GUI: Optimised the settings dialog for 1024x768 resolution displays.

Version 6.5.0 - 16 January 2006
-------------------------------

* File encryption added. Any file can be encrypted by the Encoder and then
  read with the Loader API.
* Obfuscation of function names, local variables, and line numbers 
  in bytecode stream.
* Increased internal security of encoded files and Loader.
* Increased security of licenses generated with the make_license program.
* GUI: Added 8 built-in environment variables TARGET_DIR, SOURCE_DIR, ...
* GUI: Post-encoding step with environment variables substitution 
  (e.g. C:\WINDOWS\explorer {TARGET_DIR})
* GUI: Double-clicking on a file in the source tree opens file with Explorer.
* GUI: Context menu option added to open a file's source directory in Explorer.
* MAC addresses can now be specified in the format {AA:BB:CC:DD:EE:FF} 
  or {AA-BB-CC-DD-EE-FF}.
* Loader API: ioncube_loader_iversion() added to retrieve Loader version and
  revision as an integer.
* Loader API: ioncube_read_file() added to read an encrypted or unencryupted
  file.
* Loader API: ioncube_write_file() added to write an encrypted or unencryupted
  file.
* Support for <% %> ASP tags has been deprecated and removed from the 
  Encoder GUI and documentation. It is still recognised by the Encoder
  command line for back compatibility.
* BUG FIX: Shell scripts with whitespace between #! and the PHP executable
  path were not handled correctly.
* BUG FIX: Fixed issue with custom prompts (Special Edition GUI).

Version 6.0.18 - 8 December 2005
-------------------------------

* Fixed Encoder license problem when multiple instances of Encoder
  were run simultaneously.

Version 6.0.17 - 8 December 2005
-------------------------------

* Fixed issue with licensing of Encoder.

Version 6.0.16 - 27 November 2005
--------------------------------

* Fixed issue with exceptions (PHP 5 Encoder).

Version 6.0.15 - 22 November 2005
--------------------------------

* Try/catch support bug fixed (PHP 5 Encoder).

Version 6.0.14 - 27 October 2005
--------------------------------

* Improved handling of PHP language errors when encoding files.

Version 6.0.13 - 29 September 2005
----------------------------------

* Fix when recognising that a file is a shellscript PHP file.

Version 6.0.12 - 7 September 2005
---------------------------------

* Special Edition GUI: blank line now maintained at end of Server Restrictions Grid
  on dynamic fields tab.


Version 6.0.11 - 5 September 2005
---------------------------------

* Fixed bug related to Expire On field on Windows GUI License Settings dialog
* Fixed bug with Windows GUI License Properties - it is no longer necessary to press 
  return after entering a property value before clicking Generate License.

Version 6.0.10 - 1 September 2005
---------------------------------

* Minor bugfix with revoke file naming.

Version 6.0.9 - 30 August 2005
------------------------------

* Display error if an encoded file is specified as the source when
  encoding.
* Windows GUI: warning dialog if automatic Loader license validation is 
  disabled.

Version 6.0 - Version 6.0.8 - 23 August 2005
--------------------------------------------

* Added feature to decode generated licenses.
* Installing IPF evaluation is now optional.
* Resolved time-related problem related to licensing the Encoder on Windows.
* Fixed problem with make_license when --select-server-adapter was used but 
  the server interface was the loopback.
* Fixed problem with the 'strict language usage' flag on Windows.
* No longer allow an empty license passphrase in the GUI.
* Include 4.4 Loader with Encoder installation.
* Fix when the Linux Encoder was invoked using the PATH environment variable.

Version 6.0 - August 2005
-------------------------

* License files: new 'make_license' program, option for encoded files 
  to require a license (Pro, Cerberus, bundled with PHP 5 Encoder)
* Error callback file: specify a file and function that gets triggered 
  if the Loader reports an error.
* --update-target: only process files which have modified time after
  the modified time of the target.
* Support for encoding PHP shell scripts.
* Encoder licenses can now be revoked with --revoke-license,
  allowing an Encoder installation to be moved to a new machine
* If the Loader causes the script to exit, the exit code is the sum of
  200 plus the ID of the Loader Event (see User Guide)
* Bugfix: transparency of icons in Windows icon extension.
* Windows GUI: Icon extension can recognise PHP shell scripts and 
  encoded files with no preamble.
* --include-if: extended to prevent encoded files from including 
  non-encoded files. Now exposed in Windows GUI.
* --disable-auto-prepend-apppend: prevent execution if the php.ini
  settings auto_prepend_file or auto_append_file are used.
* Updated dynamic fields interface, added license dynamic fields
  (Special Edition Windows GUI only).
* Constants defined in the Loader for Loader Events.
* Loader API enhanced.
* When encoding a single file, the Encoder exits with code 7 
  if an error occurs instead of 0.
* Bugfix: PHP 5 Encoder bug when overriding properties 
  in derived classes.
* Bugfix: bug related to --allow-encoding-into-source on Windows.
* Detect whether target file is the same as the source file on Windows.
* Bugfix: Removing .php, .php4, .php3 default patterns from extensions list 
  with Windows Encoder GUI now works as expected.
* Improved 'parse error' messages with Windows Encoder GUI when used with
  the PHP 5 Encoder.
* Files starting with '.' (for example .htaccess) now appear in the GUI source tree

Version 5.0.2 - May 2005
------------------------

* Bugfix: Exceptions were not handled correctly by the PHP 5 Encoder.
* Bugfix: PHP 4 Encoder crashed if 'parent::myclass' was used 
  when myclass had no parent class.