WHATSNEW.md

What's New

This file summarizes OMNeT++ changes in each release. For changes related to simulation model compatibility, see doc/API-Changes. For more detailed info about all changes, see include/ChangeLog, src/*/ChangeLog, and ide/ChangeLog.

OMNeT++ 6.0.2 (October 2023)

This is a maintenance release with dozens of bug fixes.

Configure and setenv:

• configure now mandates having setenv sourced before it runs.
• setenv now sets OMNETPP_IMAGE_PATH, in order to prevent model frameworks from accidentally making OMNeT++ bundled icons unaccessible from Qtenv by simply appending to OMNETPP_IMAGE_PATH.
• configure now creates configure.user from configure.user.dist if it does not already exist.

Simulation kernel:

• Improved overflow checking in SimTime operator=() methods
• Better commenting of cGate::connectTo() and disconnect(), and some other methods
• Fix in ConstantFilter to return the constant value from getInitialDoubleValue()
• Fix for missing initialization of some result filters
• Fix in cDatarateChannel to clear finished transmissions from txList
• Fix for the issue where intuniform() had a broken bounds check
• Disallowing changes to arrival time and scheduling priority in cEvent when scheduled
• Fix for startup error complaining about arg count of hypot()
• Addition of cEventHeap::checkHeap() for potential FES debugging
• Introduction of a panic() function and ASSERT_DTOR() for throwing from destructors
• Fix for warnings in the code

IDE:

• IDE update to Tycho 2.7.5, Eclipse 4.29, CDT 11.3, and removal of ansiconsole plugin
• Error message display improvement in Simulation Model Installer
• Checking for dangling project references in IDE
• Workaround for "Unhandled event loop" exceptions in Inifile Editor
• Fix for "String index out of range: 0" in Inifile Editor
• Detection of duplicate submodule names in NED
• Compatibility with Matplotlib 3.8 in Analysis Tool
• Improved error/warning message display in Analysis Tool
• Adjustments to zoom and legend behavior in native plots in Analysis Tool
• Preselection of all temp charts in "Save On Close" dialog in Analysis Tool
• Support for key events in Matplotlib for x/y navigation modes in Analysis Tool
• Fix leaking cursor resources in Analysis Tool
• Workaround for display glitch in Analysis Tool's "Choose table columns" dialog
• Periodic reload of user's chart templates in Analysis Tool
• Improved zoom behavior in native plots in Analysis Tool
• Trimming from left instead of right for right-aligned table columns in Analysis Tool
• Parameter type display improvement in Analysis Tool
• Support for displaying vectors with bool data type in Analysis Tool
• Workaround for crash in SWT table and tree widgets in Analysis Tool
• Ensure reading all NED files in NED Documentation Generator
• Resolution of unresolved module interface in NED Documentation Generator
• Fix for unreadable text in dark theme in generated NED source listing
• Tooltip content improvements for submodules in generated NED documentation
• Default navigation target changes for submodule types in generated NED documentation
• Fix for bug #939 in Sequence Chart

Qtenv:

• Error handling improvement in the Object Inspector
• Focus adjustment in the Run Selection dialog
• Purge message animations when their messages are rotated out of the LogBuffer
• Fix simulations stopping spontaneously when running in FAST mode
• Message animations made more tolerant of degeneration connections
• Clamp non-zero computed animation speed to at least 1e-9
• Proper rendering of degenerate connections
• Fix for missing logs with disabled event/initialization banners
• Fix for non-working parameter replacements in channel display strings
• Fix assertion failure on stopping eventlog recording
• Fix for includes in osg.msg
• Refactoring for code clarity, warning elimination

Python (omnetpp.scave.* packages):

• Use of pandas.concat instead of deprecated DataFrame.append
• Fix to hide legend in Matplotlib plots if it was empty
• Fixed division by zero warnings in timeavg filter
• Fix to prevent turning scalars of value 0 into NaNs
• Added missing docstring in analysis.py of omnetpp/scave
• Fixed a subtle bug related to mutable objects as default values
• Look for projects by real name instead of directory name
• Improved treatment of workspace_dir and error handling in get_project_location()
• Fixed error if a renamed project is not directly under the Eclipse workspace directory
• Improved error message for project not found errors
• Reload mpl and plt before exporting an image for reproducibility in opp_charttool
• Added "python" folder of referenced projects to python path in opp_charttool

Other:

• Fix wrong bounding box for Graphviz-generated images in the manual
• Fix stray LaTeX comments showing up in the HTML version of the manual
• Allow running tests in other than "debug" mode
• Fix for bug #1055 during Windows builds

Bugs fixed: https://github.com/omnetpp/omnetpp/issues?q=is%3Aissue+is%3Aclosed+milestone%3A6.0.2

OMNeT++ 6.0.1 (September 2022)

This is a maintenance release containing several bugfixes.

Simulation kernel:

• Fix: Proper namespace resolution for C++ types in @signal declarations.
• Added cProperty::getValueOriginFile(), getValueOriginType().
• Fix: Build errors on newer versions of clang.
• Fix #933: eventlog recording intervals were ignored.
• Fix: Check for context component in all built-in NED functions that need it and throw an exception if there is none, instead of just crashing.

IDE:

• CDT component upgraded to 10.6.2
• Fix #938: Filtering the eventlog in the sequence chart makes it empty.
• Fix #896: NED visual editor cannot show warning symbol.
• Fix #634: NED files in search results now open properly in NED editor.
• Fix #932: Exception when the filter button was clicked on the Sequence Chart window.
• Fix #936: Illegible text on build output console in dark mode.

Analysis Tool:

• Various fixes in the Python analysis package.
• Added the python/ folders of referenced project(s) to Python path of chart scripts.
• On Windows, the bundled Python was upgraded to 3.10, fixing several issues in NumPy and Matplotlib.

NED Documentation Generator:

• Refined support for msg types with namespace.
• Added support for "@debug links" page directive.
• Made namespaces appear in the navigation tree.

Qtenv:

• Fix: Non-working parameter replacements in channel display strings.
• Fix: Missing logs with disabled event/initialization banners.
• Fix #934: Eliminate assertion failure on stopping eventlog recording from Qtenv.
• Fix: Clamp nonzero computed animation speed to at least 1e-9. (Very low animation speed could result in simulation time not progressing at all, due to finite precision in the computations.)
• Various other minor bug fixes.

Documentation:

• Minor corrections in the Installation Guide.
• Updated documentation for the omnetpp.scave Python classes.
• Document fingerprint ingredients added in 6.0.

See ChangeLogs in individual folders for details.

Bugs fixed: https://github.com/omnetpp/omnetpp/issues?q=is%3Aissue+is%3Aclosed+milestone%3A6.0.1

OMNeT++ 6.0 (April 2022)

OMNeT++ 6.0 is the result of more than three years of work, and includes many essential new features that we would already have a hard time without. The present changelog summarizes all changes made during the 15+ pre-releases.

We briefly summarize the changes below in each part of OMNeT++ before going into the details.

The most prominent new feature is the new Python-based Analysis Tool in the IDE. The use of Python under the hood allows for arbitrarily complex computations to be performed on the data, visualizing the result in the most appropriate form chosen from a multitude of plot types, and producing publication quality output, all while using an intuitive user interface that makes straightforward tasks easy and convenient. Custom computations and custom plots are also easily accessible. The tool is able to handle large quantities of data. The Python APIs are also available outside the IDE (e.g. for standalone scripts), and a command-line tool for viewing and exporting charts created in the IDE also exists (opp_charttool).

The NED language now supports parameters that carry C++ objects as values (type object), which can be used to parameterize modules with structured data (e.g. nontrivial configuration), packet prototypes, function objects, etc. Structured data may come from NED functions like readCSV() or readJSON() which parse data files, or may be specified directly in NED or ini files using JSON syntax. The syntax of ini files has even been adjusted to make it more convenient to write multi-line JSON values in it. Further new functionality includes the string match operator =~, the "spaceship" operator <=>, and support for Universal Function Call Syntax (UFCS). Incompatible changes include the change in the interpretation of parameter names that are not qualified with the this or parent keywords, and the necessity to mark module parameters with @mutable that are allowed to be set at runtime. Embedding NED files into simulation binaries for easier dissemination has also become possible.

Message descriptions (msg files) have undergone even bigger changes. An import system has been added to make the content of a msg file available in others. The generated code and class descriptors can now be widely customized via properties. Targeted C++ blocks have been introduced for injecting C++ code into various places in the generated source files. Altogether, these (and further, smaller) features facilitate writing significantly cleaner msg files, especially in large projects like INET.

The format of ini files have been made more flexible: the Config word in section headers is now optional, and long lines can be broken up to multiple lines without using trailing backslashes (just indent the continuation lines).

In the simulation kernel, the most important change is the introduction of the Transmission Updates API, which allows in-progress packet (frame) transmissions to be modified, i.e. aborted, shortened, or extended. This API is necessary for implementing L2 features like frame preemption or on-the-fly frame aggregation. Other changes include the addition of utility APIs like scheduleAfter(), rescheduleAt() and rescheduleAfter(), refinements around module deletion and the introduction of the preDelete() virtual member function, refinements in the signals and listeners APIs, improved expression evaluation support, and the addition of string-handling utility functions, just to name a few.

Regarding statistics recording, perhaps the most significant addition is the demux filter, which allows splitting a single stream (of emitted values) to multiple streams. The filter makes it possible to record statistics subdivided by some criteria, e.g. to record statistics per TCP connection, per remote IP address, per traffic class, etc., in INET. Further improvements include the addition of the warmup filter and the autoWarmupFilter statistic attribute that allow computed statistics to be calculated correctly also in the presence of a nonzero warm-up period. Result files now hold more metadata: parameter values and configuration entries are now also (optionally) recorded. This change, together with other, smaller adjustments, cause new result files not be understood by previous versions of OMNeT++.

A significant amount of work has been put into improving the looks and functionality of Qtenv: material-style icons, HIDPI support, dark theme support, and countless small features that improve usability, especially around the Object Inspector and the Log View. For example, it is now possible to set the Messages view of the Log to display all timestamps as a delta to a user-specified reference timestamp; or, the Object Inspector now allows selecting a different display mode for a tree node. One important change is that method call animations are now disabled by default.

The Sequence Chart tool in the IDE has been significantly improved, both visually and functionally, with the goal of allowing the user to configure the chart in a way that facilitates understanding of the sequence of events in the simulation. The tools provided for that purpose are the possibility to hide unnecessary elements (unrelated arrows, events, etc), support for user-defined coloring, interactively collapsible compound module axes, horizontally expanded events so that the arrows of nested method calls do not overlap, and more. The eventlog file format has also changed in a non-backward-compatible way, due to the addition of extra elements that allow the Sequence Chart tool to be faster and more scalable.

Generating documentation from NED and MSG files has been made possible from the command line as well, using the new opp_neddoc tool. Functionality has been extended with the possibility of incorporating external information into the generated pages.

The C++ debugging experience has been made more pleasant in several ways. For example, the "Debug on Error" and "Debug Next Event" functionality in Qtenv may now invoke the integrated debugger of the Simulation IDE, which is especially useful when the simulation was launched from the IDE. The User Guide also contains a hint on how to configure simulations to invoke VS Code as debugger.

Due to improvements in the toolchain and the build process, Windows users may see the linking time of large models like INET Framework to drop dramatically (1-2 orders magnitude, e.g. from several minutes to several seconds). On macOS, Apple Silicon, is currently supported with x86-64 emulation.

Now, the details:

NED:

• Semantics change: Within a submodule's or connection's curly brace block, the interpretation of parameter, gate, and submodule references that don't use an explicit parent or this qualifier has changed. They no longer refer to the enclosing compound module's item, but to the item of (or within) the local submodule or channel object. The interpretation of item references outside subcomponent blocks has remained unchanged. An example:

  network Network {
    parameters:
        int foo;
    submodules:
      node1: { ... }
      node2: Node {
        foo = foo; // ERROR: self-reference! Change to 'foo=parent.foo'.
        bar = this.foo;  // OK
        baz = node1.foo;  // ERROR: refers to yet-uncreated submodule node2.node1!
        bax = parent.node1.foo;  // OK
      }
  }
  

  The set of forms accepted by exists() and sizeof() has been expanded. Notably, exists() can now be used to check the existence of an item in a submodule vector (as submodule vectors may now contain holes, due to @omittedTypename). Also, the index() syntax has been removed, index is only accepted without parens.

  Note that referencing a submodule's submodule from NED (i.e. the a.b or this.a.b syntax within a submodule block) is generally wrong, because the network is built top-down, and submodules are only created after parameters have already been set up. (An exception is using it in the values of volatile parameters, because they are evaluated later.)

  Error messages have been revised and expanded to be more helpful and facilitate porting NED code from 5.x.

  To write NED which is compatible with both OMNeT++ version 5.x and 6.0, qualify all references within subcomponent blocks with explicit parent or this, and require OMNeT++ 5.7 which is the first and only 5.x version that understands the parent keyword.

• NED grammar: Added object as parameter type. Parameters of this type may hold objects subclassed from cOwnedObject that they can take ownership of.

• NED parameters of type object may have a @class() property, with the syntax @class(classname) or @class(classname?). The property specifies that the parameter should only accept objects of the given type and its subclasses. The referenced class must be registered via Register_Class() or Register_Abstract_Class(). Parameters declared without the question mark in @class() don't accept nullptr as value, while the ones with question mark do.

• The NED expression syntax has been extended to accept JSON-style constructs, i.e. arrays and dictionaries (termed "object" in JSON), and the nullptr keyword. The array syntax is a list of values enclosed in square brackets, for example [1, 2, 3], and the array is accessible as a cValueArray object in C++. The dictionary syntax uses curly braces: {"foo" : 1, "bar" : 2 }, and dictionaries are presented as cValueMap objects. If a dictionary is prefixed by a name, then the name is interpreted as a class name, and values are interpreted as fields of the object: cMessage { name: "hello", kind: 1}.

• Object parameters allow simple values (int, double, bool, string) as well. C++-wise, they are stored in the parameter in cValueHolder-wrapped cValue objects.

• New NED functions have been introduced: get() (return an element of an array or dictionary), size() (returns the size of an array or dictionary), eval() (evaluates a NED expression given as string), dup() (clones an object). dup() simply calls an object's C++ dup() method; it is useful because module parameters of type object only accept objects they fully own, which can be worked around using dup(). An example:

  object a = [1,2,3]; object b = dup(a); // without dup() it is an error: value is owned by parameter 'a'

  As dup() invoked on containers only duplicates the objects owned by the container, you may need extra dup() call when referring to objects owned by other parameters. Example:

  object a = {};
  object b = dup([a,a]);  // ERROR (a's inside the array are not cloned)
  object c = [dup(a), dup(a)]  // OK
  

• NED grammar: Made operator precedence more similar to C/C++. Relational operators (==, !=, <, <=, >, >=) used to be on the same precedence level; now == and != have lower precedence than the rest.

• NED grammar: Added the =~ (match) and <=> (comparison, a.k.a. "spaceship") operators, the undefined keyword, and bool() as conversion function.

• String constants are now accepted with apostrophes too. This makes it possible to write quotation marks in strings without the need to escape them.

• For quantities (numbers with measurement units), the rules have changed slightly. When specifying quantities with multiple terms, a minus sign is only accepted at the front, to reduce the chance of confusion in arithmetic expressions. I.e. -5s100ms is valid as a quantity string (and means -5.1s), but 5s-100ms is no longer.

  Also, the plain 0 constant is no longer accepted at places where a quantity with a measurement unit is expected. Reason: it was confusing when the expected unit was dB or dBm. E.g. in omnetpp.ini, should **.power = 0 be interpreted as 0W or 0dBm?

• Added support for Universal Function Call Syntax (UFCS) to NED, which means that now any function call may also be written as if the function was a method of its first argument (provided it has one). That is, f(x,..) can now be also written in the alternative form x.f(...). This results in improved readability in certain cases, and allows chaining function calls.

• xmldoc() (and other file-reading functions) now interpret the file name as relative to the directory the expression comes from. When xmldoc() occurs in an included ini file, the file name is now interpreted as relative to the directory containing the included ini file (as opposed to being relative to the main ini file or the working directory.) If xmldoc() occurs in a NED file, the file name is relative to the directory where that NED file was loaded from.

• NED functions for reading (from file) and parsing (from string) of CSV, JSON and XML files: parseCSV(), readCSV(), parseExtendedCSV(), readExtendedCSV(), parseJSON(), readJSON(), parseExtendedJSON(), readExtendedJSON(), parseXML(), readXML(). The "extended" variants support expressions in the file, which will be evaluated during parsing. The XML functions are aliases to the existing xml()/xmldoc() functions. Bonus file-related functions: readFile(), workingDir(), baseDir(), resolveFile(), absFilePath().

• The body of a parametric submodule now allows assigning apparently nonexistent parameters. For example, in the example below, the sleepTime assignment does not cause an error if FooApp has a sleepTime parameter but IApp does not:

  app: <default("FooApp")> like IApp {
      parameters:
          address = parent.address;
          sleepTime = 1s;  // ignored if app has no 'sleepTime' parameter
  }
  

• Implemented @omittedTypename property. @omittedTypename allows one to specify a NED type to use when typename="" is specified for a parametric submodule or channel. @omittedTypename can be specified on a module interface or channel interface, or on a submodule or connection. It should contain a single (optional) value. The value names the type to use. If it is absent, the submodule or channel will not be created. (The connection will be created without a channel object.)

• The @mutable property was introduced for parameters. If the module (or channel) is prepared for a parameter to change its value at runtime (i.e. the new value takes effect), then it should be marked with @mutable. If @mutable is missing, then trying to change the parameter will now result in a runtime error ("Cannot change non-mutable parameter".)

  The motivation is that in a complex model framework, there is usually a large number of (module or channel) parameters, and so far it has not been obvious for users which parameters can be meaningfully changed at runtime. For example, if a simple module did not implement handleParameterChange() or the handleParameterChange() method did not handle a particular parameter, then the user could technically change that NED parameter at runtime, but the change did not take effect. This has often caused confusion.

  Parameters of ned.DelayChannel and ned.DatarateChannel are now marked @mutable.

  To allow running existing simulation models that have not yet been updated with @mutable annotations, we have added the parameter-mutability-check configuration option. Setting parameter-mutability-check=false will give back the old behavior (not raising an error).

• Added the expr() operator to NED, with the purpose of allowing models to accept formulas or expressions which it could use e.g. to determine the processing time of a packet based on packet length or other properties, decide whether a packet should be allowed to pass or should be filtered out based on its contents (filter condition), or to derive x and y coordinates of a mobile node in the function of time.

  The argument to expr() is a NED expression which will typically contain free variables, (like x and y in expr(x+y)). The expr() operator creates an object that encapsulates the expression, so it can be assigned to parameters of the type object. On the C++ side, the module implementation should query the parameter to get at the expression object (of type cOwnedDynamicExpression), and then it may bind the free variables and evaluate the expression as often as it wishes.

• In xml() and xmldoc() element selectors, $MODULE_INDEX, $PARENTMODULE_NAME and similar variables now evaluate to the empty string if they are not applicable, instead of raising an error that was often problematic.

• Improved error reporting during network building: when an error occurs during assigning a parameter from a NED file, the error message now includes the location of the assignment (file:line in NED file).

MSG:

• Made the hitherto experimental operation mode and feature set of the message compiler official. This feature set was originally added around OMNeT++ 5.3, and could be enabled by passing the --msg6 option to opp_msgtool. There was also a no-op --msg4 option that selected the old (OMNeT++ 4.x compatible) operation. Most of the OMNeT++ 6.0 pre-releases shipped with the new operation mode being the default (i.e. --msg6 became a no-op), with features continually being added and refined. Then, finally, the old code and the --msg4 option were removed altogether.

  The new operation mode represents a complete overhaul of the message compiler, with significant non-backward-compatible changes to the MSG language. These features were largely motivated by the needs of INET 4.

• The message compiler is now aware of the OMNeT++ library classes, as if they were imported by default. Declarations come from sim_std.msg.

• Added import support. A message file can now reference definitions in other message files using the import keyword. Type announcements are no longer needed (in fact, they are ignored with a warning), and there is now much less need for cplusplus blocks as well.

• Classes without an extends clause no longer have cObject as their default base class. If cObject should be the base class, extends cObject needs to be added explicitly.

• Field getters now return const reference. Separate get..ForUpdate() getters that return non-const are generated to cover uses cases when the contained value (typically an object) needs to be modified in-place.

• Added targeted cplusplus blocks, with the syntax of cplusplus(<target>) {{..}}. The target can be h (the generated header file -- the default), cc (the generated C++ file), <classname> (content is inserted into the declaration of the type, just before the closing curly bracket), or <classname>::<methodname> (content is inserted into the body of the specified method). For the last one, supported methods include the constructor, copy constructor (use Foo& as name), destructor, operator=, copy(), parsimPack(), parsimUnpack(), etc., and the per-field generated methods (setter, getter, etc.).

• Enum names can now be used as field type name, i.e. int foo @enum(Foo) can now be also written as Foo foo.

• Support for const fields (no setter generated/expected).

• Support for pointer and owned pointer fields. Owned pointers are denoted with the @owned field property. Non-owned pointers are simply stored and returned; owned pointers imply delete-in-destructor and clone-on-dup behavior. Owned pointer fields have a remover method generated for them (removeFoo() for a foo field, or removeFoo(index) if the foo field is an array). The remover method removes and returns the object in the field or array element, and replaces it with a nullptr. Additionally, if the object is a cOwnedObject, take() and drop() calls are also generated into the bodies of the appropriate methods. There is also an @allowReplace property that controls whether the setter method of an owned pointer field is allowed to delete the previously set object; the default is @allowReplace(false).

• More convenient dynamic arrays: inserter, appender and eraser methods are now generated into the class. For example insertFoo(index,value), appendFoo(value), and eraseFoo(index) are generated for a foo[] field.

• Support for pass-by-value for fields. Annotate the field with @byValue for that. @byValue and many other properties can also be specified on the class, and they are inherited by fields that instantiate that type.

• Additional C++ base classes may be specified with the @implements property.

• The @str property causes an str() method to be generated; the expression to be returned from the method should be given in the value of the property.

• The @clone property specifies code to duplicate (one array element of) the field value.

• The @beforeChange class property specifies the name of a method to be called from all generated methods that mutate the object, e.g. from setters. It allows implementing objects that become immutable ("frozen") after an initial setup phase.

• The @custom field property causes the field to only appear in descriptors, but no code is generated for it at all. One can inject the code that implements the field (data member, getter, setter, etc.) via targeted cplusplus blocks.

• The @customImpl field property, suppresses generating implementations for the field's accessor methods, allowing custom implementations to be supplied by the user.

• Added the @abstract field and class property. For a field, it is equivalent to the abstract keyword; for classes, it marks the whole class as abstract.

• Abstract fields no longer require the class to be marked with @customize.

• Message files now allow more than one namespace <namespace>; directive. The namespace; syntax should be used to return to the toplevel C++ namespace.

• The names of generated method can be overridden with the following field properties: @setter, @getter, @getterForUpdate, @sizeSetter, @sizeGetter, @inserter, @eraser, @appender, @remover, etc.

• Data types can be overridden with the following properties: @cppType, @datamemberType, @argType, @returnType, @sizeType.

• Changed C++ type for array sizes and indices, i.e. the default of @sizeType, from int to size_t.

• Added support for setting pointer members and array sizes via class descriptors. (cClassDescriptor had no facility for that.) This involves adding two methods to cClassDescriptor (setFieldArraySize() and setFieldStructValuePointer()), and support for the @resizable() and @replaceable field attributes that tell the message compiler to generate the respective code in the class.

• The @toString and @fromString properties specify a method name or code fragment to convert the field's value to/from string form in class descriptors (getFieldValueAsString() and setFieldValueFromString() methods of cClassDescriptor). In the absence of @toString, previous versions converted the value to string by writing it to a stream using operator<<; now the str() method of the object is used if it has one. If neither @toString nor str() exist, an empty string is returned.

• Likewise, the @toValue and @fromValue properties specify a method name or code fragment to convert the field's value to/from cValue form in class descriptors ((getFieldValue() and setFieldValue() methods of cClassDescriptor)).

• Better code for generated classes, e.g. inline field initializers, and use of the =delete syntax of C++11 in the generated code.

• Better code generated for descriptors, e.g. symbolic constants for field indices.

• The list of reserved words (words that cannot be used as identifiers in MSG files; it is the union of the words reserved by C++ and by the MSG language) has been updated.

• A complete list of supported properties (not all of them are explicitly listed above) can be found in an Appendix of the Simulation Manual.

Ini files:

• It is now possible to break long lines without using a trailing backslash. Continuation lines are marked as such by indenting them, i.e. an indented line is now interpreted as a continuation of the previous line. (It is not possible to break a line inside a string constant that way.) Breaking lines using a trailing backslash way still works (and it can also be used to break string constants, too). Indentation-based line continuation has the advantage over backslashes that it allows placing comments on intermediate lines (whereas with backslashes, the first # makes the rest of the lines also part of the comment).

• The Config prefix in section headers is now optional, that is, the heading [Config PureAloha] may now be also written as [PureAloha], with the two being equivalent.

Simulation kernel / Modules, channels, programming model:

• Added the scheduleAfter(), rescheduleAt(), rescheduleAfter() methods to cSimpleModule. They are mainly for convenience, but using rescheduleAt() instead of cancelEvent() + scheduleAt() will eventually allow for a more efficient implementation.

• Change in the parameter change notification mechanism: Calls to the handleParameterChange() method during initialization are no longer suppressed. Because now every change results in a notification, the umbrella handleParameter(nullptr) call at the end of the initialization is no longer needed and has been removed. The consequence is that handleParameterChange() methods need to be implemented more carefully, because they may be called at a time when the module may not have completed all initialization stages. Also, if an existing model relied on handleParameter(nullptr) being called, it needs to be updated.

• Improvements in the multi-stage initialization protocol with regard to dynamic module creation. Modules now keep track of the last init stage they completed (lastCompletedInitStage). During an init stage, initialization of modules is restarted if creation/deletion is detected during iteration; modules already initialized in the previous round are recognized and skipped with the help of lastCompletedInitStage.

• cModule now keeps track of submodule vectors as entities, and not just as a collection of submodules with vector indices, meaning that we can now distinguish between nonexistent and zero-size submodule vectors. Random access of vector elements has also became more efficient (constant-time operation). Several new methods have been added as part of this change: hasSubmoduleVector(), getSubmoduleVectorSize(), addSubmoduleVector(), deleteSubmoduleVector(), setSubmoduleVectorSize(), getSubmoduleVectorNames().

• As part of the above change, several cModule and cModuleType methods have been added or updated. A partial list:

  • In cModule, the hasSubmodule(), getSubmoduleNames(), hasGateVector(), hasGates() methods have been added for consistency between submodule and gate APIs.
  • The return type of the getGateNames() method has been changed from std::string<const char*> to std::vector<std::string>, for consistency with getSubmoduleNames().
  • cModule: added setIndex() and setNameAndIndex().
  • cModule, cGate: getIndex(), getVectorSize(), gateSize() and similar methods now throw exception for non-vector submodules/gates.
  • cModule: add separate addGateVector() method instead misusing addGate() for creating gate vectors, also for consistency with addSubmoduleVector().
  • In cModuleType::create(), the vectorSize parameter of create() has been removed.
  • In cModuleType::createScheduleInit(), an index argument was added to allow creating submodule vector elements.
  • cModule: added addSubmodule() method which flows more naturally than cModuleType::create().

• There have been changes in submodule and channel iterators. SubmoduleIterator has been rewritten due to the change in how submodule vectors are represented, which may affect the iteration order in some cases. Iterators now throw an exception if a change occurs in the list of submodules/channels during iteration. Their APIs have also changed a little: operator-- was removed, and init(m) was renamed to reset().

• Optimized cModule::ChannelIterator by letting cModule maintain a linked list of channels (cChannel), so that ChannelIterator doesn't have to search through the whole compound module to find them.

• Module name and full name (i.e. "name[index]") are now stringpooled, which reduces memory usage in exchange for a small build-time extra cost. In addition, string pools now use std::unordered_map instead of std::map, which results in improved performance.

• cComponent: added getNedTypeAndFullName() and getNedTypeAndFullPath(). They are especially useful in constructing error messages in NED functions.

Simulation kernel / Signals and notifications:

• intpar_t was renamed to intval_t, and uintval_t was added. Both are guaranteed to be at least 64 bits wide.

• Signal listeners changed to use intval_t and uintval_t instead of long and unsigned long. This change was necessary because long is only 32 bits wide on Windows. This affects methods of cListener and subclasses like cResultFilter and cResultRecorder.

• Emitting nullptr as a string (const char* overload of emit()) is disallowed. The reason is that nullptr cannot be represented in std::string, which causes problems e.g. in result filters and recorders.

• Added two new model change notifications: cPostModuleBuildNotification, cPostComponentInitializeNotification.

• Minor changes in some model change notification classes. In cPreModuleAddNotification, the vectorSize field was removed (as it was redundant), and in cPostModuleDeleteNotification, the interpretation of the index field has changed a little: if the deleted module was not part of a module vector, index is now set to -1 instead of 0.

Simulation kernel / Utilities:

• Two utility functions were added to cObject: getClassAndFullPath() and getClassAndFullName(). They are mostly useful in logging and error messages.

• cMatchExpression: The field =~ pattern syntax replaces field(pattern). Also removed the implicit OR syntax. The old syntaxes looked confusing, and made it difficult to tell apart the concise notation from expression-style notation.

• Added opp_component_ptr<T>. It implements a smart pointer that points to a cComponent (i.e. a module or channel), and automatically becomes nullptr when the referenced object is deleted. It is a non-owning ("weak") pointer, i.e. the pointer going out of scope has no effect on the referenced object. opp_component_ptr<T> can be useful in implementing modules that hold pointers to other modules and want to be prepared for those modules getting deleted. It can also be useful for simplifying safe destruction of compound modules containing such modules.

• New classes: opp_pooledstring, opp_staticpooledstring. They provide pool- backed string storage (reference-counted and non-reference-counted, respectively). In turn, the cStringPool class was removed; use either of the pooled string classes or or opp_staticpooledstring::get(const char *) instead.

• Several string functions have been made available for models. A representative partial list: opp_isempty(), opp_isblank(), opp_nulltoempty(), opp_trim(), opp_split(), opp_splitandtrim(), opp_join(), opp_stringendswith(), opp_substringbefore(), etc.

• The cStringTokenizer class has been rewritten. It now supports features like optional skipping of empty tokens, optional trimming of tokens, optional honoring of quotes, optional honoring of parens/braces/brackets (i.e. the input string is not broken into tokens in the middle of a parenthesized expression).

Simulation kernel / Visualization support:

• Added display name support to modules. Display name is a string that optionally appears in Qtenv next to (or instead of) the normal module name, in order to help the user distinguish between similarly-named submodules. For example, application-layer modules app[0], app[1], etc. in INET may be given descriptive names like "file transfer", "video", "voice", or "CBR", and have them displayed in Qtenv. Display names may be set using the display-name per-module configuration option, or programmatically by calling setDisplayName().

• Added the g=<group> (layout group) display string tag, which makes it possible to apply predefined arrangements like row, column, matrix or ring to a group of unrelated submodules. This layouting feature was previously only available for submodule vectors. When "g" tags are used, submodules in the same group are now regarded for layouting purposes as if they were part of the same submodule vector.

• Made it possible to specify display strings in the configuration. The value given in the display-string per-component configuration option is merged into the component's display string in the same way inheritance or submodule display strings work: it may add, overwrite or remove items from it.

• Added text alignment support to text and label figures: cFigure::Alignment enum, getAlignment()/setAlignment() in cAbstractTextFigure.

• Added the toAlpha() method and a constructor taking Color to cFigure::RGBA.

Simulation kernel / Transmission updates:

• The initial send() is interpreted as: "packet transmission begins now, packet content and duration are, as things are now, going to be this".

  Following that, an "update" (or any number of updates) can be sent. An update is a packet with the updated ("actual") content, and with a "remaining transmission duration" attached. Updates may only be sent while transmission is still ongoing.

  As an example, aborting a transmission is done by sending a packet with a truncated content and a remaining duration of zero.

  Transmission updates are paired with the original packet they modify using a transmissionId. The transmissionId is normally chosen to be the packet ID of the original transmission. Channels should understand updates and handle them accordingly.

  Receivers that receive the packet at the end of the reception, which is the default operating mode, will only receive the final update. The original packet and intermediate updates are absorbed by the simulation kernel.

  Receivers that receive the packet at the start of the reception (see cGate::setDeliverImmediately(), previously called setDeliverOnReceptionStart()) should be prepared to receive all of the original packet and the updates, and handle them appropriately. Tx updates can be recognized from cPacket::isUpdate() returning true. cPacket::getRemainingDuration() returns the remaining transmission duration, and cPacket::getDuration() the total transmission duration.

  As a safeguard against unprepared modules accidentally processing tx updates as normal full-blown packets, the module is only given tx updates if it explicitly declares that it is able to handle them properly. The latter is done by the module calling setTxUpdateSupport(true) before receiving packets, e.g. in initialize().

  Non-transmission channels treat tx updates in the same way as they treat any other messages and packets (they ignore the cPacket::isUpdate() flag).

  Details and related changes follow.

• send() and sendDirect() now accept a SendOptions struct where optional parameters such as delay can be passed in. sendDelayed() and other send()/sendDirect() variants now convert their extra args to a SendOptions, and delegate to the "standard" send()/sendDirect() versions. SendOptions was introduced as a means to handle combinatorial explosion of send() variants.

• For methods that participate in the send protocol (cGate::deliver(), cModule::arrived(), cChannel::processMessage()), SendOptions was added.

• cDatarateChannel now allows the sender to explicitly specify the packet duration in SendOptions, overriding the duration that the channel would compute from the packet length and the channel datarate.

• cDatarateChannel's datarate is now optional: set it to 0 or nan to leave it unspecified. This change was necessary to support transmitting frames with per-frame data rate selection. If the datarate is unspecified, the packet duration must be supplied in the send call, otherwise a runtime error will be raised.

• cDatarateChannel: non-packet messages now pass through without interfering with packets.

• cDatarateChannel: disabled channels now let transmission updates through, so that it is possible for the transmitter module to abort the ongoing packet transmission.

• Tx updates (without duration/remainingDuration) are allowed on paths without transmission channels.

• In cChannel::processMessage(), result_t was renamed cChannel::Result, and it is now a proper return value (not an output parameter).

• remainingDuration was added to cChannel::Result.

• cDatarateChannel now optionally allows multiple concurrent transmissions, with or without any bookkeeping and associated checks. This is useful for modeling a channel with multiple subchannels or carriers. The operating mode has to be selected programmatically, with the channel's setMode() method. Possible modes are SINGLE, MULTI and UNCHECKED.

• The forceTransmissionFinishTime() method of channels has been deprecated. It was always meant as a temporary device to allow implementing aborting frame transmissions, and now with the arrival of the new transmission update API there is no reason to use it any more. Simulations using it should be migrated to the new API.

• Renamed setDeliverOnReceptionStart() to setDeliverImmediately().

• Added cSimpleModule::supportsTxUpdates() flag.

• cPacket now carries a remainingDuration field.

• cPacket: eliminated FL_ISRECEPTIONSTART; isReceptionStart() now uses remainingDuration as input; added a similar isReceptionEnd() method.

• cPacket::str() overhaul to reflect new fields and uses.

• In the APIs, send delay and propagation delay, which were sort of combined into a single value, are now distinct values, handled separately.

Simulation kernel / Module deletion:

• Added the preDelete() method to cComponent. This is an initially empty virtual function that the user can override to add tasks to be done before the module (or channel) is deleted. When deleteModule() is called on a compound module, it first invokes preDelete() for each module in the submodule tree, and only starts deleting modules after that. preDelete() can help simplify network or module deletion in a complex simulation that involves model change listeners.

• cIListener's destructor now unsubscribes from all places it was subscribed to. This change was necessitated by the following deleteModule() change.

• deleteModule(): Module destruction sequence was changed so that when deleting a compound module, the compound module's local listeners are notified about the deletion of the submodules.

• deleteModule() internals refactored. The motivation was to avoid doing things like firing pre-model-change notifications from a halfway-deleted module. Now we do every potentially risky thing (such as deleting submodules and disconnecting gates) from doDeleteModule(), and only delete the module object when it is already barebones (no submodules, gates, listeners, etc). With this change, the deletion sequence is now pretty much the reverse of the setup sequence.

• Now it is allowed for modules to be deleted (including self-deletion) and created at will during initialization.

Simulation kernel / Expressions, object parameters, JSON values:

• Under the hood, all expression parsing and evaluation tasks now use the same new generic extensible expression evaluator framework. It is used for NED expressions, object matching, scenario constraint, statistics recording, result selection in the Simulation IDE and in opp_scavetool, in cDynamicExpression and cMatchExpression, etc. In the new framework, expression parsing and the translation of the AST to an evaluator tree are done in separate steps, which makes the library very versatile. Evaluators include support for shortcutting logical and conditional operators, constant folding, and an undefined value (anything involving undefined will evaluate to undefined).

• cNedValue was renamed to cValue (compatibility typedef added), as it is now a generic value container used throughout the simulation kernel (cPar, cExpression, cClassDescriptor, etc.), i.e. it is no longer specific to NED.

• cValue's doubleValue() and intValue() methods now throw an exception when called on a value that has a measurement unit, in order to reduce usage mistakes. If the value has a unit, call either doubleValueInUnit() / intValueInUnit(), or doubleValueRaw()/intValueRaw() plus getUnit().

• cValue changed to hold any_ptr (see later) instead of cObject*. This change involves several changes, e.g. type OBJECT renamed to POINTER, and pointerValue() added.

• cPar: Added support for object parameters. New type constant: OBJECT. New methods: setObjectValue(), objectValue(), operator=(cObject*), operator cObject*.

• cPar: Added cValue-based generic access: getValue(), setValue().

• Store origin (file:line) info in cPar parameters (more precisely, in cDynamicExpression), so we can report it on evaluation errors. Most visible change: cPar::parse() gained an extra FileLine argument. Also, cDynamicExpression now has get/setSourceLocation().

• Added cValueArray and cValueMap classes for representing JSON data in NED expressions. A third class is cValueHolder, a wrapper around cValue, which is only used when a non-object value (double, string, etc) is assigned to a NED parameter of the type object. All three classes subclass from cValueContainer. Note that behavior of the dup() methods of cValueArray and cValueMap is consistent with that of cArray and cQueue, i.e. only those objects that are owned by the cloned container are duplicated.

• NED functions that take or return values of type object are now allowed.

• NED functions can now be defined with the alternative signature:

  cValue f(cExpression::Context *context, cValue argv[], int argc)

  in addition to the existing signature

  cValue f(cComponent *contextComponent, cValue argv[], int argc)

  The cExpression::Context argument allows one to access the context component, and also the directory where the ini file entry or the NED file containing the expression occurred (the "base directory"). Define_NED_Function() accepts both signatures. The base directory is useful for functions like xmldoc() that want to access files relative to the location of the NED expression.

• cNedFunction now allows to search for NED functions by name AND accepted number of args.

• cDynamicExpression has been reimplemented using the new internal Expression class, and support for user-defined variables, members, methods, and functions was added. As a consequence, the public interface of the class has significantly changed as well.

• Added the cOwnedDynamicExpression class which holds the result of a NED expr() operator. cOwnedDynamicExpression is both cOwnedObject and cDynamicExpression (multiple inheritance). To make this possible, the cObject base class was removed from cExpression.

• cClassDescriptor: Use exception instead of returning false for indicating error. The return types of the following methods changed from bool to void: setFieldValueAsString(), setFieldArraySize(), setFieldStructValuePointer().

• cClassDescriptor: Added support for setting pointer members and array sizes via class descriptors. New methods: setFieldArraySize(), setFieldStructValuePointer().

• cClassDescriptor: Added getFieldValue()/setFieldValue() methods to allow accessing fields in a typed way, using cValue. Previously existing methods getFieldValueAsString()/setFieldValueAsString() only allowed string-based access. In MSG files, the @toValue() and @fromValue() properties can be used to provide code to convert objects or fields to cValue.

• cClassDescriptor: Methods changed to use any_ptr instead of void* for passing the object. (any_ptr is a smart pointer class that provides type safety for void* pointers.) Pointers need to be put into and extracted from any_ptr using the new toAnyPtr() / fromAnyPtr() functions. They have specialized versions for each type (via templates and overloading). For new types, the message compiler generates toAnyPtr()/fromAnyPtr() in the header file. For the simulation library classes, these methods come from sim_std_m.h (generated from sim_std.msg); sim_std_m.h is now part of <omnetpp.h>.

Simulation kernel / Fingerprints:

• Due a bugfix in cHasher::add(const char *), fingerprints that involve hashing strings changed their values.

• The implementation of cHasher::add(const std::string&) was changed to be consistent with the add(const char *) overload. This may cause fingerprint changes in models that use it.

• Changed the way fingerprints are computed from figures. Most importantly, fingerprints are now affected by all visual properties, not just geometry information. This change only affects fingerprints that contain the 'f' (=figures) ingredient.

• The introduction of the new expression evaluation framework also somewhat affects fingerprints. The fact that logical operators and inline-if are now shortcutting may change the fingerprint of some simulations, due to consuming fewer random numbers during expression evaluation.

Simulation kernel / Miscellaneous:

• The getModuleByPath() method was changed to never return nullptr, even if an empty string is given as path. Instead, it will throw an exception if the module was not found. This change makes this method consistent with other getter methods in the simulation library, and allows nullptr checks to be removed from model code that uses it. A new method, findModuleByPath() was added for cases when an optionally existing module needs to be found. These methods, initially defined on cModule, have been moved to cComponent so that they can be called on channels too.

• Signature change of the cVisitor::visit(cObject *obj) virtual method: it can now request end of iteration via returning false (hence, return type changed from void to bool) instead of throwing EndTraversalException. Existing cVisitor subclasses in model code will need to be adjusted.

• cPar: Implemented isMutable() and the mechanism behind the new @mutable property.

• cProperty: Added getNumKeys() method; updateWith() made public.

• cConfiguration: Removed getParameterKeyValuePairs(). Instead, getKeyValuePairs() made smarter with an extra flags parameter to be able to handle the various use cases.

• cMessage: Allowed isMessage() to be called from subclasses.

• cEnvir: New result recording related methods: recordComponentType(), recordParameter().

• cEnvir: Added getConnectionLine(), which returns the coordinates of a connection arrow. This is for certain custom animations.

• cEnvir: Added pausePoint(), an animation-related experimental API.

• Result filters: Two new methods in the cResultListener interface: emitInitialValue() and callEmitInitialValue().

• cResultFilter, cResultRecorder: Grouped init() args into a Context struct, The old init() methods have been preserved as deprecated (and invoked from the new init()) in case an existing filter/recorder overrides them. Note that potential external calls to the old init() method won't work any more (they will have no effect), and need to be changed to the new version.

• Added MergeFilter, a result filter that allows multiple inputs, and multiplexes them onto its singe output. It is available (as the merge() function) in the source= part of @statistic.

• Fixed histogram loading issue in the output scalar file (.sca). Bin edges that are very close could become equal in the file if insufficient printing precision was set, rendering the file unreadable. The issue is now handled both during result file writing (if such condition is detected, bin edges are written with full [16-digit] precision) and reading (zero-width bins are merged into adjacent nonzero-width bin).

Simulation kernel / Cleanup:

• Removed obsolete/deprecated classes and methods. A partial list: cVarHistogram, cLegacyHistogram, cLongHistogram, cDoubleHistogram, cWeightedStdDev, cDensityEstBase; detailedInfo() method; timeval_*() functions; cHistogram methods setRangeAuto(), setRangeAutoLower(), setRangeAutoUpper(), setNumCells(), setCellSize(); operator() of iterator classes in cArray/cModule/cQueue; cFigure/cCanvas deprecated methods addFigureAbove() and addFigureBelow(); many cAbstractHistogram (ex-cDensityEstBase) methods, etc. Instead of the removed timeval_*() methods, use opp_get_monotonic_clock_usecs() or opp_get_monotonic_clock_nsecs(), and perform the arithmetic in int64_t.

• Refactoring: Some classes, methods and variables related to ownership management were renamed: cDefaultOwner -> cSoftOwner; defaultOwner -> owningContext, etc.

• The setPerformFinalGC() method was removed. It was meant for internal use, and pretty much unused by model code.

• Removed the support for OMNeT++ 4.x fingerprints (USE_OMNETPP4x_FINGERPRINTS).

• WITH_OMNETPP4x_LISTENER_SUPPORT was removed.

• Source code modernization: use in-class member initializers wherever possible. The source code now requires a C++14 compiler.

• Internal classes, global variables, etc moved into the omnetpp::internal namespace.

Runtime:

• Accept expressions as value for (most) config options. For options that accept values both with and without quotes (types STRING, FILENAME, FILENAMES, PATH), a heuristic decides whether a string is to be taken literally or to be evaluated as an expression. Expressions may also use NED operators, module parameters and other NED expression features. For example, it is possible to use the module vector index in the value of the display-name option: **.app[0..3].display-name = "cbr-" + string(index)

• Allow parameter values to be specified on the command line. For example, --**.mss=512 is equivalent to inserting the **.mss=512 line near the top of the configuration in omnetpp.ini.

• Do not complain about missing omnetpp.ini if a --network command-line option is present.

• There were several improvements related to the NED path. The NEDPATH environment variable has been renamed to OMNETPP_NED_PATH, but the old one is still recognized for backward compatibility. Multiple -n options are now accepted. Also, the NEDPATH environment variable used to be ignored when a -n option was present, no longer so. Excluding packages from NED file loading has also been implemented. NED exclusions can be specified in multiple ways: the -x <packagelist> command-line option, the OMNETPP_NED_PACKAGE_EXCLUSIONS environment variable, and the ned-package-exclusions configuration option (they accept semicolon- separated lists).

• Change in NED loading: Now, if a package has files in several distinct source trees, only one of them may contain a package.ned file.

• There were also several improvements related the image path. The -i <imgpath> option command-line option has been added. It may occur multiple times. The image path is now defined jointly by the OMNETPP_IMAGE_PATH environment variable, -i command-line options, and the image-path configuration option. ./bitmaps was removed from default image path, as it was virtually unused. The default value ./images now comes from the default value of the image-path configuration option.

• Added support for embedding NED files into a binary (an executable or library). The cpp subcommand of opp_nedtool generates C++ code that contains the content of NED files as string constants, which can then be compiled into the simulation binary. When the simulation program is started, these embedded NED files will be loaded automatically, and the original NED files will no longer be needed for running simulations. Optional garbling, which prevents NED source code from being directly readable inside the compiled binaries, is also available. A makefrag file can be used to integrate the NED-to-C++ translation into the build process. To see an example makefrag file, view the makefrag help topic in opp_nedtool.

• Several global config options were changed to be per-run: scheduler-class, debug-on-errors, print-undisposed, fingerprintcalculator-class.

• Added the parsim-num-partitions config option, which makes it possible to explicitly declare the number of partitions to be used with parallel simulation. (Before, it was explicitly taken by OMNeT++ from MPI or the respective communication layer.)

• Added the config-recording configuration option, which controls the amount of configuration options to save into result files.

• Allow recording actual module/channel parameter values into the output scalar file, via the new param-recording per-object boolean configuration option. Note that parameters will be recorded as "parameter" result items, not as scalars. For volatile parameters, the expression itself will be recorded (e.g. exponential(0.5)), not any particular value drawn from it.

• Added support for result directory subdivision: the resultdir-subdivision boolean configuration option and the ${iterationvarsd} variable. The motivation is that the performance of various file managers (including Eclipse's Project Explorer) tends to degrade severely if there are more than a few thousand files in a single directory. In OMNeT++, this problem occurs when a parameter study produces a large number of result files. The common workaround is to "hash" the files into a subdirectory tree. (For example, git also uses this technique to store the contents of .git/objects dir).

  In OMNeT++, such feature can be turned on by setting resultdir-subdivision= true in the configuration. Since it is natural to use the iteration variables to define the directory hierarchy, directory subdivision makes use of the new ${iterationvarsd} configuration variable. This variable is similar to ${iterationvarsf} but it contains slashes instead of commas, which makes it suitable for creating a directory tree. Enabling directory subdivision will cause /${configname}/${iterationvarsd} to be appended to the name of the results directory (see result-dir config option), causing result files to be created in a subdirectory tree under the results directory.

  If you want to set up the directory hierarchy in a different way, you can do so by setting the result-dir config option and appending various variables to the value. E.g.: result-dir = "results/${repetition}"

• Added the ${datetimef} inifile variable, which contains the current timestamp in a form usable as part of a file name.

• Eventlog recording: Implemented snapshot and incremental index support to increase performance and scalability. This introduces significant (breaking) changes in the elog file format, and adds a set of associated configuration options; see the Sequence Chart section below for details.

• Added %< (trim preceding whitespace) to the list of accepted directives for log prefixes.

• The obsolete command-line options -x, -X, -g, and -G were removed.

• Made the -q option more permissive: if -c is missing, assume General

• Added the -e option, which prints the value of the given configuration option.

• opp_run -v output now includes the system architecture OMNeT++ was built for (e.g. ARCH_X86_64 or ARCH_AARCH64).

• -h resultfilters and -h resultrecorders now include the descriptions in the list of result filters and recorders.

• Added two new -h topics: latexconfigvars, sqliteschema. They are mainly used for producing info for the Appendices in the manual.

• In order to reduce OMNeT++'s external dependencies, we now use an embedded copy of Yxml as the default XML parser. Yxml (https://dev.yorhel.nl/yxml) is a small and fast SAX-style XML parser with a liberal license.

  Support for using LibXML2 remained in place, but very few users will actually need it. Expat support has been removed. Note that no significant functionality is lost when Yxml is used instead of LibXML2. LibXML2 is only needed for Schema or DTD-based validation (and possibly, default value completion), which virtually no simulation models require. Also note that Yxml-based parsing scales much better than LibXML2, both performance-wise and regarding memory usage.

• The bundled SQLite sources were upgraded to version 3.30.1.

Statistics recording:

• Added the warmup filter. This filter discards values during the warm-up period, and is automatically inserted at the front of the result filter chains when the warmup-period config option is present.

• Added the autoWarmupFilter statistic attribute that allows one to disable auto-adding the warmup filter to a statistic. Example:

  @statistic[foo](record=vector;autoWarmupFilter=false);
  

  This will cause all values from the foo signal to be recorded, even values emitted during the warm-up period (if one is set).

  However, the real motivation behind this feature is to allow the user to add the warm-up filter at a non-default location in the filter chain, because the default location is not always correct.

  For example, @statistic[foo](source=min;record=vector) is equivalent to @statistic[foo](source=min(warmup(foo));autoWarmupFilter=false;record=vector), and records (as vector) the minimum of the values which were emitted after the warmup period is over. In contrast, if we replace min(warmup(foo)) with warmup(min(foo)), it will compute the minimum of ALL values, but only starts recording the result after the warmup period has expired.

  This is a crucial difference sometimes. For example, a statistic might record queue length computed as the difference of the number of messages that entered the queue and those that left it:

  @statistic[queueLen](source=count(pkIn)-count(pkOut);record=vector); //INCORRECT
  

  In this case, if a warmup period is set, the result may even go negative because the pkIn and pkOut signals that arrive during the warmup period are ignored, and if pkOut arrives after that, we are at -1. The correct solution is to add the warmup filter after the difference between arrivals and departures have been computed:

  @statistic[queueLen](source=warmup(count(pkIn)-count(pkOut));autoWarmupFilter=false;record=vector); //OK
  

  The autoWarmupFilter option exists because either location for the warmup filter (beginning or end of the chain, or even mid-chain) may make sense for certain statistics. The model author needs to decide per-statistic which one is correct.

• Added the demux filter, which allows splitting the stream of values arriving from a signal to multiple streams. For example, if values from a foo signal are tagged with the labels first, second and third, then the following statistics:

  @statistic[foo](record=count(demux(foo)));
  

  will produce three scalars: first:foo:count(demux), second:foo:count(demux), and third:foo:count(demux). The labels are taken from the (full) name of the details object specified in the emit() call.

  This filter is especially useful if you intend to save multiple instances of the same statistics from the same module (e.g. per-connection TCP statistics).

• In result files, the ,vector suffix is now suppressed in the titles of vector results (similarly also ,histogram and ,stats), as they simply echo the result item's type. (They were there in the first place because recording mode is automatically appended to result titles @statistic(title=...) after a comma; it is now suppressed for the mentioned recording modes.)

• Added the merge filter which multiplexes several inputs onto a single output. It is available in the source= part of @statistic.

• Result filters: The count and sum filters now record the initial zero value as well.

• Result files now include two new result attributes for each item: recordingmode, which is the item in the @statistic(record=...) list that produced the given result item, and moduledisplaypath, the module/channel path that contains display names instead of the normal names where available.

• sumPerDuration filter: fix computation when invoked during warmup period.

Cmdenv:

• Added the cmdenv-fake-gui boolean configuration option, which enables "fake GUI" functionality during simulation. "Fake GUI" means that refreshDisplay() is periodically invoked during simulation, in order to mimic the behavior of a graphical user interface like Qtenv. It is useful for batch testing of simulation models that contain visualization. Several further configuration options exist for controlling the details: cmdenv-fake-gui-after-event-probability, cmdenv-fake-gui-before-event-probability, cmdenv-fake-gui-on-hold-numsteps, cmdenv-fake-gui-on-hold-probability, cmdenv-fake-gui-on-simtime-numsteps, cmdenv-fake-gui-on-simtime-probability, cmdenv-fake-gui-seed.

Qtenv:

• Modernized look: Material-style SVG-based icons, HIDPI support, dark theme support.

• New actions on the main toolbar: "Debug next event", "Debug on errors", "Show animation parameters". ("Load NED file" was removed from the toolbar as it was rarely needed, but it's still available from the menu.)

• The default digit separator used in the main simulation time and event number displays was changed to space.

• A lot of effort was made to refine packet animation, also with regard to the new "transmission updates" API. For example, the animation filter now affects deliveries as well, and transmissions on ideal channels are now shown as a full-length line. Transmission updates are drawn as "notches" on the message line.

• Turned off animating method calls by default. The rationale is that method call animations usually expose low-level (C++ implementation level) details on the GUI, which are rarely of interest to a casual user.

• Added the possibility to disable method call visualization locally (for that module type) via the context menu, even when the global switch in the Preferences dialog is turned on.

• Added support for showing a submodule's display name under the icon instead of, or in addition to, the normal name. The format can be selected in the context menu.

• The view mode (grouped/flat/inheritance/children) in the Object Inspector used to be tied to the type (class) of the object displayed in the inspector. Since that resulted in too much mode switching while the user navigated the object tree, and the switching logic was not easily discoverable by the user, we removed the feature of per-type remembering of view modes. The view mode now only changes when the user explicitly switches in on the UI.

• In the Object Inspector, added the possibility to select display mode (Children/Grouped/Flat/Inheritance) per-node. If display mode override is specified for a node, it will affect the whole subtree. The display mode for the selected tree can be changed via hotkey (Ctrl+B) or via the context menu.

• The "Set Sending Time as Reference" option was added to the messages view context menu. This option makes it possible to set a reference time, and display all other times as a delta compared to it.

• In the messages view, there was a slight change in the notation used for the source and destination modules of the message, in order to make it unambiguous. Use explicit "." and "^" to indicate the location of the module. Also, it now uses arrows of uniform lengths everywhere.

• The "Allow Backward Arrows for Hops" option was added to the messages view context menu. When this option is enabled, it allows the use of backward arrows to ensure a consistent relative ordering of modules in the log. For example, if two modules A and B exchange messages, this option will cause the window to display them as "A-->B" and "A<--B", as opposed to the default "A-->B" and "B-->A". This sometimes makes the log easier to follow.

• Added support for new columns in the packet log view: TxUpdate, Durations, Length, Info. This was implemented in the cDefaultMessagePrinter class which is part of the simulation library. This change makes it possible to see if a packet is a transmission update (except if the simulation installs its own packet printer like INET does).

• In the messages view, simulation time is now formatted with digit grouping on.

• In the log, the banners of component init stages that do not print anything are now suppressed.

• Added the "Fira Code" font as embedded resource, and set it to be used by default for the log window. The reason is that it provides nice "-->" arrow ligatures in the Messages view.

• Prevent manually enabled "Debug on Errors" setting from being turned off by (lack of) configuration option.

• Fix osgEarth viewpoints ignoring SRS (PR #851).

• Countless small improvements and bug fixes.

• Raised the minimum required Qt version to 5.9.

Tkenv:

• Tkenv has been removed. Use Qtenv for all simulations.

Tools:

• The names of all command-line tools now begin with opp_.

• Added opp_ide, an alternative to the omnetpp command that launches the Simulation IDE.

• Added opp_neddoc, a tool that makes it possible to generate HTML documentation from NED files from the command line. opp_neddoc works by launching the IDE in headless mode.

• opp_nedtool was rewritten for convenience and features. The main points are the following:

  • Removed msgc-related functionality, now it is really just about NED.
  • Command-line interface redesigned for better usability (subcommands, better help, etc.)
  • Added support for generating C++ source (cpp subcommand), for embedding NED files into an executable or library.
  • The tool now accepts directories as command-line arguments, too, and processes all NED files in them.
  • More convenient output (no *_n.ned, *_n.xml).
  • Removed obsolete @listfile and @@listfile support.
  • Fixed bugs in splitting NED files to one NED type per file.

• opp_msgtool was rewritten in the style of opp_nedtool. Details:

  • Made --msg6 the default mode, --msg4 was removed.
  • The command-line interface now uses subcommands; if no subcommand is specified, the default action is C++ code generation. The rarely useful -T (type of next file) and -h (here) options have been removed.
  • Better help. A builtindefs help page has also been added, which prints the built-in declarations.

• opp_scavetool had several improvements. A brief summary:

  • The tool now accepts directories as command-line arguments, too, and recursively loads scalar and vector files from them.
  • Command-line arguments may now contain double asterisk wildcards (**) in addition to normal wildcards (*,?). Double asterisks can match any number of directory levels. Example: results/**.vec matches all .vec files anywhere under the results/ directory. (When specifying wildcard arguments on the command line, be sure to quote them so that the shell does not expand them before opp_scavetool gets invoked.)
  • Added options to limit vector data by simulation time: --start-time <time>, --end-time <time>.
  • Accepts exporter options in the --<key>=<value> notation as well, not only with -x.
  • In filter expressions, run attributes now have to be referred to with the runattr: prefix. The attr: prefix now only matches result attributes.
  • In exporters, the way of representing histograms in the output has slightly changed: underflow/overflow values are now saved separately instead of as underflow/overflow "bins". Thus, there are now one more bin edges than bin values.
  • The possibility to apply vector operations to vector results was removed from opp_scavetool and exporters. The recommended way of processing output vectors is with Python and NumPy.
  • The help subcommand was refined.

• Added opp_charttool, a tool for "running" ANF files on the command line, e.g. for image or data export. Filtering options (-i, -n) allow multiple charts to be selected for exporting. The templates subcommand lists the available chart templates.

• opp_featuretool: Extensive refactoring as well as refinement of its operation and command-line options. In general, the tool has become more forgiving: a missing .featurestates file or extra/missing entries in it no longer causes an error or warning. Missing file and file entries are initialized with the default enablement state; extra entries are preserved (in the hope they'll be useful, e.g. after switching to a different topic branch). The content of the .nedexclusions file is now also automatically adjusted without stopping with an error. User-visible changes are the following:

  • Removed the validate and repair subcommands (all commands implicitly validate and repair now).
  • Better validation of the .oppfeatures file: Detect and report duplicate feature IDs and unresolved feature dependencies.
  • Check for the existence of the C++ source root and NED folders.
  • Preserve unknown features in the .featurestate file instead of fail/warn about them. Reason: they often occur when switching between branches.
  • isenabled -v prints list of disabled features to stdout, not to stderr
  • Complain less about fixable problems.
  • Non-verbose operation by default.
  • Improved error/warning messages.

• opp_makemake: The makefrag file is now included instead of copied into the generated makefile. Also, a help target has been added to the generated makefiles: typing make help now prints the list of accepted targets (all, clean, etc.) and user-settable makefile variables (MODE, V, CFLAGS, etc.), complete with helpful descriptions and usage examples.

• opp_test: The set of possible test outcomes has been refined. Possible outcomes are now PASS, FAIL, ERROR, SKIP and EXPECTEDFAIL. SKIP means that the test was not performed, because e.g. it would test an optional feature which is currently disabled; ERROR means that the test was not performed because of an unrecoverable error (i.e. crash or exception). The diagnostic output for failed tests is now a colorized diff instead of a simple printout of the expected and the actual contents. It is possible to designate a test case as an "expected failure", by specifying %expected-failure: <reason> in the test file. This is useful if we know that a certain test case is correct, but it is not possible to fix it for some reason.

IDE / Analysis Tool:

• The Analysis Tool in the IDE has been rewritten, using a new approach. The number one goals were to allow ARBITRARY computations to be performed on the data, VISUALIZE the result in the most appropriate form chosen from a multitude of chart/plot types, and produce PUBLICATION QUALITY output. Additional goals were an intuitive user interface that makes straightforward tasks easy and convenient, scalability that allows the processing of a large amount of simulation results inside the IDE, and facilities to make (most of) the UI's functionality available on the command line as well.

  The key technologies the new Analysis Tool employs are Python, NumPy, Pandas, and Matplotlib. The use of Python and Pandas gives access to advanced data manipulation and analysis capabilities, while Matplotlib offers dozens of plot types out of the box, endless customizations, and proven high-quality output. A large effort was made to properly integrate these technologies into the IDE, so that using the Analysis Tool provides a superior user experience, and brings the power of Python close to users without necessarily requiring them to write code in Python.

  Common charting tasks are accessible with a few mouse clicks, via predefined Chart Templates that can be configured using dialogs. The heart of all Chart Templates is Python code that performs all of the computation and plotting. The Python code behind a chart can be viewed and freely edited using an integrated language-aware editor. Matplotlib plots appear inside the Analysis Tool's UI, and they are live (i.e. not just images): zooming, panning, and interacting with possible embedded controls in the plot all work seamlessly. IDE-native plots can also be chosen as an alternative to Matplotlib, as they provide increased scalability at the cost of being less flexible and featureful.

  Special attention was paid to scalability. The UI is now easily capable of dealing with at least several tens of thousands of result files, and several million result items.

  The OMNeT++ Python API for querying, transforming and plotting simulation results is available in the form of Python packages for use in Python scripts outside the IDE as well. There is also a command-line tool (opp_charttool) that can "run" Analysis (anf) files e.g. for image export. opp_charttool can be integrated e.g. into the build process of a paper written in LaTeX.

  The documentation of the Analysis Tool's user interface can be found in the User Guide. A reference of the Python API has a dedicated Appendix in the Simulation Manual, while the "Result Recording and Analysis" chapter in the same Manual provides some practical guidance on how to use the API.

IDE / Sequence Chart Tool:

• The visualization of events have been horizontally expanded on the chart, now it uses long rounded rectangles instead of small circles. This change allows the visualization of method calls without their arrows overlapping. If method calls are hidden then the chart falls back to the old behavior where events are small circles.

• The set of displayed axes can be explicitly configured independently from the set of displayed events. The chart now also supports displaying events on a compound module axis if the corresponding submodule axis is hidden. Collapsing and expanding module axes can be done using the mouse.

• The chart now also displays a set of axis headers on the left side that shows the module hierarchy in a compact and interactive way.

• All parts of the sequence chart can be independently shown/hidden.

• The selection has been extended with support for axes and method call arrows.

• A new time measurement feature has been added that allows measuring the time difference between multiple selected events and other interesting points in time.

• Several automatic configuration presets have been added (e.g. network level, full detail, default) to make the configuration for the most common use cases easier.

• A new pattern-matching-based user-defined colorization (e.g. message sends, method calls, axes, events) feature has been added. This feature allows creating more easily understandable sequence charts by encoding certain model properties as colors.

• The chart can display diagnostics information such as eventlog file statistics and operation statistics.

• Added support for SVG export.

IDE / NED Documentation Generator:

• The documentation generator now allows you to inject your own documentation fragments (possibly generated by 3rd-party tools) at various points in the documentation.

• Modern look for the generated pages (Material design).

• It is now possible to specify excluded directories during documentation generation, in order to be able to exclude samples, showcases etc. that are not integral part of the documentation.

• Now generates nedtags.xml and msgtags.xml files which are compatible with the doxytags.xml file that Doxygen generates. This allows crosslinking to the NED documentation from a Sphinx-based documentation, using the doxy-link plugin.

• Generate usage and inheritance diagrams only if they are meaningful.

• Use SVG files as the usage/inheritance diagram image. Removed map files as SVG already contains proper links.

• Generate "Implementors" table for interfaces. The Implementors table includes indirect implementors as well.

• Fix: Inheritance diagrams were missing in module interface pages, even if they had implementors. This bug made INET documentation much less useful.

• The functionality of the documentation generator is now also available from the command line (opp_neddoc).

IDE / Inifile Editor:

• Added support for ignorable options. User can mark custom config options as ones to be ignored by the editor.

• Config option values that contain expressions are no longer falsely flagged as errors.

• The confusing "Unused entry (does not match any parameters)" warning that often appeared falsely for INET simulations due to deficiencies in analyzing the network structure has been re-worded to include the possibility that it is false, and has also been demoted from being "warning" to "info".

• Eliminated the asynchronous/delayed form page reread in Form mode, which often caused editing glitches.

IDE Miscellaneous:

• Install Simulation Models dialog: Added support for changing the project name and location on download.

• Turned on showing the line numbers ruler in source editors by default.

• Added an XML editor, Terminal (a view that contains a shell prompt), PyDev (Python editor), and the Eclipse Marketplace client to the IDE.

• The simulation launcher now passes NED exclusions to the simulation program as -x options. NED exclusions typically come from disabled project features, e.g. in INET.

• Added SVG export capability to the NED Editor.

• Updated to Eclipse 4.22, CDT 10.5 and PyDev 9.2.

• The JRE is now provided by the Eclipse JustJ project, so the IDE no longer requires Java to be installed on the host OS.

• Added support for ARM-based Linux distros.

C++ Debugging:

• Better debugging experience by fine-tuning the compiler options, especially with the clang compiler.

• Added LLDB pretty printers for various OMNeT++ types. They can be useful if you use LLDB-based external debuggers like XCode or VS Code. You should manually import them from the LLDB debugger console with the following command:

  command script import <OMNETPP_ROOT>/python/omnetpp/lldb/formatters/omnetpp.py
  

• Allow Qtenv's "Debug on Error" and "Debug Next Event" functionality to use the integrated debugger of the Simulation IDE. This required multiple changes. First, the IDE was extended to accept an URL which, when opened in the IDE, causes the integrated debugger to start a debug session and attach to a process given with its PID. This URL is:

  omnetpp://cdt/debugger/attach?pid=<pid>

  The URL can also be opened from the command line, by running the omnetpp command with the URL as argument. The command opens the URL in the existing IDE instance if it is already running, or starts a new one if it does not.

  The second change was to update the default value of the OMNeT++ debugger-attach-command configuration option to use the above command. (Previously it has used various other debuggers which were likely to be found on the host OS: GDB, Nemiver, VS Code, etc.)

  Hint: You can force Qtenv to use Visual Studio Code as your external debugger by setting the following environment variable:

  export OMNETPP_DEBUGGER_COMMAND="code --open-url \"vscode://vadimcn.vscode-lldb/launch/config?{request:'attach', pid:'%u'}\""
  

  Alternatively, you can specify the same value (code --open-url ...) to the "debugger-attach-command" configuration option in omnetpp.ini.

Result file format changes:

• There were a number of changes in the format of result files (.sca and .vec files), so the file format version has been bumped from 2 to 3. (The file format is recorded at the top of each result file in a version line.) The set of changes is relatively small; see details below.

• Iteration variables are no longer saved as run attributes but in separate itervar lines, in order to be able to tell them apart with certainty.

• param lines (which recorded parameter assignment entries in the configuration) have been replaced with the more general config lines. config lines record all configuration entries, not just parameter assignments.

• In version 2, concrete parameter values (if requested) were recorded as scalars, whereas in version 3 they are recorded as a separate result item type, in par lines. This allows the recording of volatile parameters (as expressions) and non-numeric values as well.

• Component NED type names are now recorded, as typename pseudo parameters.

• The sum and sqrsum fields of weighted statistics are no longer recorded, as they are irrelevant.

SQLite result file format changes:

• SQLite result files underwent a similar change in the database schema. Files in the old format are no longer understood. A brief summary of changes follows.

• The runParam table was renamed to runConfig, and its columns were also similarly renamed: paramKey, paramValue and paramOrder became configKey, configValue and configOrder, respectively.

• Iteration variables are in a new table called runItervar, with columns runId, itervarName and itervarValue.

• Two new tables were added for representing the new result item types: parameter (with the columns paramId, runId, moduleName, paramName and paramValue), and paramAttr (with the columns paramId, attrName and attrValue). Note that paramValue contains values in the syntax it would have to be written in a NED file or in omnetpp.ini, i.e. string constants include the quotation marks.

Eventlog file format and configuration:

• The eventlog file format has been changed substantially. You won't be able to open older eventlog files with this version of the IDE, nor new files in previous IDE versions.

• The most prominent change is the introduction of snapshot and index chunks in addition to the already recorded event chunks. The former contains a complete snapshot of the relevant simulation state without referring to any other line in the file. The latter provides the set of changes in the relevant simulation state since the last index or snapshot chunk. The contents of the index chunk is expressed as references to other lines of the eventlog file. This change in the eventlog format provides the foundation for a better user experience in the IDE especially for large eventlog files.

• Several new eventlog-recording-related configuration options have been added:

  • The eventlog-snapshot-frequency configuration option specifies how often snapshots are recorded in the eventlog file. Snapshots help various tools to handle large eventlog files more efficiently. Specifying greater value means less help, while smaller value means bigger eventlog files.

  • The eventlog-index-frequency configuration option specifies how often indices are recorder in the eventlog file. An index is much smaller than a full snapshot, but it only contains the differences since the last index. Specifying greater value means less help, while smaller value means bigger eventlog files.

  • The eventlog-max-size configuration option specifies the maximum size of the eventlog file in bytes. The eventlog file is automatically truncated when this limit is reached.

  • The eventlog-min-truncated-size configuration options specifies the minimum size of the eventlog file in bytes after the file is truncated. Truncation means older events are discarded while newer ones are kept.

  • The eventlog-options configuration option allows for recording only certain categories (e.g. text, message, module, method call, display string), to reduce the eventlog file size.

Build environment:

• If a file called setenv_local is present in the installation root, it is automatically sourced from the setenv script. setenv_local can be used to set up user specific environment variables.

• The content of the $PLATFORM makefile variable has changed. Until now, it contained a <platform>.<architecture> pair (e.g. win32.x86_64) which was misleading. From now on, Makefile.inc provides $PLATFORM (e.g. win32) and $ARCH (e.g. x86_64) as separate variables. makefrag files must be updated if $PLATFORM variable was used in them.

• To build OMNeT++ with Akaroa support, WITH_AKAROA=yes must be specified in the configure.user file. The configuration script no longer tries to autodetect Akaroa without the user explicitly requesting it.

• osgEarth support is now disabled by default. You must explicitly set WITH_OSGEARTH=yes in the configure.user file. Some Linux distibutions no longer include osgEarth so you may need to build it manually from sources.

• Debug builds are now compiled with -O0 for maximum debuggability. Release builds are compiled with -O2 -ffp-contract=off to disable fused multiply-add operations. This ensures that floating point operations will generate exactly the same results in DEBUG and RELEASE mode and their accuracy would not depend on unpredictable optimizations.

Windows Support:

• On Windows, the toolchain (compiler, libraries, etc.) can now be found in tools/win32.x86_64.

• Setting of environment variables has been moved into the setenv script. It is automatically sourced when mingwenv.cmd or vcenv.cmd is started.

• On Windows, libraries and other dependencies used by simulations, such as Qt, OSG, osgEarth, etc., are now separated from the rest of the toolchain binaries (compiler, etc.). You can find them in the opt subdirectory of the tools/win32.x86_64 folder.

• On Windows, when creating a shared library, the build system now generates a proper import library and also a module definition file (<targetname>.dll.a, <targetname>.def). External projects must link against that library instead of linking directly with the <targetname>.dll file. (Note that the linker automatically uses the .dll.a files if they are present in the library path and falls back to use the pure .dll file only if the import library is not present. It means that you don't have to do anything extra to use these files apart from making them available along your .dll files.)

• The Windows toolchain now contains the (much faster) LLD linker. LLD is also used on other platforms instead of the GNU linker, if available. For large projects, LLD is dramatically faster than the standard GNU linker. In one instance, the use of LLD, together with other changes that were partly done in INET, reduced INET linking time on Windows from 380s to 2s in DEBUG mode, and from 90s to 5s in RELEASE mode on one of our dev boxes.

macOS support:

• On macOS, the toolchain (compiler, libraries, etc.) can now be found in tools/macos.x86_64.

• Rudimentary support for Apple silicon: source setenv now automatically launches a (nested) x86_64 emulation shell on ARM-based Macs.

Sample simulations:

• Added "openstreetmap", an example simulation that displays a city map, with some animated car traffic on it. Map data come from an OSM file exported from openstreetmap.org.

• Added "petrinets", an example simulation demonstrating how to implement stochastic Petri nets, a well-known formalism for the description of distributed systems.

• Added the "wiredphy" sample simulation to demonstrate transmission updates.

• The "fifo" example simulation was extended with a TandemQueues network and related configurations in omnetpp.ini.

• The "resultfiles" folder project now contains scalar and vector result files from the Fifo1, Fifo2, and the new TandemQueues simulations.

Documentation:

• Simulation Manual has been updated. The largest changes were in the "Message Descriptions" and "Result Analysis" sections (which were practically rewritten). There are also two new appendices: "Python API for Chart Scripts", and "Message Class/Field Properties".

• User Guide: The chapter about the Analysis Tool ("Result Analysis") has been rewritten.

• Install Guide has been updated. New sections in the macOS chapter: "Enabling Development Mode in the Terminal", "Running OMNeT++ on Apple Silicon". We also added instructions on installing OMNeT++ on WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux) on Windows 10, which is important because we found that running OMNeT++ on WSL is considerably faster than using it with the MinGW toolchain.

• Converted all of our structured documents (User Guide, Install Guide, etc.) from their original source format (DocBook or AsciiDoc) to reStructuredText, except for the Simulation Manual which remains in LaTeX.

Bugs fixed: https://github.com/omnetpp/omnetpp/issues?q=is%3Aissue+is%3Aclosed+milestone%3A6.0

OMNeT++ 5.7.1 (August 2023)

This is a modernized maintenance release of omnetpp-5.7.

Changes:

• Source code updated to eliminate warnings issued by modern C++ compilers. Backported several smaller fixes.

• Updated the setenv and configure scripts, to make them more consistent with those in more recent or modernized releases. This includes:

  1. configure now mandates having setenv sourced before it runs.
  2. setenv now sets OMNETPP_IMAGE_PATH, in order to prevent model frameworks from accidentally making omnetpp's bundled icons unaccessible from Tkenv by simply appending to OMNETPP_IMAGE_PATH.
  3. configure now creates configure.user from configure.user.dist if it does not already exist.

• Allow running tests in other than "debug" mode.

OMNeT++ 5.7 (Sept 2021)

This version is intended to be the last release of the 5.x series. The main purpose of this release is to make it possible to write model code, primarily NED, which is also compatible with the upcoming OMNeT++ 6.0. It also contains several bug fixes backported from the 6.0 branch.

For compatibility with 6.0:

• NED: support for "parent.foo" syntax of parameter references (and other references too, see below) in expressions. Using the "parent" qualifier is only allowed inside submodule and connection blocks (within the curly braces), but not on compound module level. This change is necessary for being able to write NED files which are compatible with both OMNeT++ 5.7+ and 6.x. The interpretation of parameter references in expressions have changed in 6.0. In 6.0, a "foo" parameter reference in a submodule means the parameter of the same submodule ("this.foo"), while in 5.x it means the parameter of the enclosing compound module (which would be expressed in 6.0 as "parent.foo").

  The way to write NED files compatible with both is to always explicitly qualify the parameter with "this" or "parent". In a NED file written for 5.x, prefix plain parameter references inside subcomponent curly brace blocks with "parent." to ensure that their meaning doesn't change in version 6.0.

  The same change applies to submodule and gate references as well, e.g. in the argument of exists() and sizeof().

  The change also affects the interpretation of references in expressions that occur in ini files.

  Example:

  network Network {
    node: Node {
      foo = foo; // CAVEAT: means "parent.foo" in 5.x, "this.foo" in 6.x!
      bar = this.foo;  // OK: unambiguous, recognized by all versions
      faa = parent.foo;  // OK: unambiguous, recognized in 5.7 and 6.x
      baz = node2.foo;  // CAVEAT: means "parent.node2.foo" in 5.x, "this.node2.foo" in 6.x!
      bax = parent.node2.foo;  // OK: unambiguous, recognized in 5.7 and 6.x
    }
  }
  

• MatchExpression: added field =~ pattern syntax as alternative to field(pattern)

• Added Ws, Wh, kWh, MWh to the list of recognized measurement units

Core:

• Statistic recording: Added a way to disable auto-adding of the warmup filter. One needs to specify "autoWarmupFilter=false" in the @statistic for that. This opens the possibility for the user to add warmup filters to a custom place, not just before all other filters. E.g. consider "min(warmup(foo))" (which is produced by auto-adding of the warmup filter), and "warmup(min(foo))" which might be what the user wants instead.

• Fingerprints: Fixed a bug in cHasher::add(const char *) which caused some bits in the input not affect the fingerprint. This bugfix does not affect the fingerprint of most simulations, because very few fingerprints use strings as input.

• Canvas: In cPathFigure, path parsing was refined: If an op char is missing, assume previous one, in accordance with the SVG specification.

• cHistogram and histogram strategy classes: work around several problems caused by the finite precision of 'double'.

• Miscellaneous other bug fixes.

Cmdenv:

• Added Fake GUI mode. Fake GUI means that refreshDisplay() is called periodically during simulation, in order to mimic the behavior of a graphical user interface like Qtenv. It is useful for testing simulation models with visualization using Cmdenv, e.g. in smoke or fingerprint tests. Fake GUI can be enabled with the cmdenv-fake-gui=true configuration option.

  The set of currently supported options for Fake GUI: cmdenv-fake-gui-before-event-probability, cmdenv-fake-gui-after-event-probability, cmdenv-fake-gui-on-hold-probability, cmdenv-fake-gui-on-hold-numsteps, cmdenv-fake-gui-on-simtime-probability, cmdenv-fake-gui-on-simtime-numsteps, cmdenv-fake-gui-seed.

Qtenv:

• Added Ctrl+W as shortcut for closing toplevel inspector windows.

• Made the "Run" and "Fast" buttons "pop out" (and stop simulation) if triggered again. This adds a radiobutton-like behavior to these actions, which is handy for running the simulation for a very short time, with a single button.

• Log Inspector: Perform "find" on plain text comment, i.e. ignore formatting escape sequences.

• Log Inspector: After a search, scroll the found text into the middle of the viewport instead of just to the edge.

• Find dialog: Select the entire searched text when opening the find dialog, to allow easier and quicker typing of a different query.

• Further bug fixes.

Tools:

• JsonExporter: Fix: In the exported file, result items appeared under multiple runs due to missing filtering. Applies to both the IDE and opp_scavetool.

• In the Simulation Manual, the section about opp_scavetool was out of date.

Simulation IDE:

• Welcome screen theme changed (circle -> solstice) due to problems with dark theme with the old 'circle' theme.

• The Download Simulation Models dialog now supports specifying a custom project name and location. Also, the default project name is now coming from the downloaded descriptor file (not from the .project file in the archive.)

• Fixed the download issues in the Download Simulation Models dialog.

• NED, Ini Editor: Syntax highlight for the NED "parent" keyword

• Ini Editor: group fingerprint and fakegui-related fields on a separate new form page.

• NED Editor: Fix rendering issue with the mouse cursor for the creation tool in the palette.

• Launcher: Print working directory and command line to console when debugging simulations, similar to the simple "run" mode launch.

• Launcher: On macOS, use lldbmi2 for debug launches by default.

• Makefile generation brought in sync with omnetpp-6pre11.

Build:

• Use Eclipse 4.21, and JustJ as the private JRE.

• Use python3 as the interpreter for Python scripts.

• opp_makemake: Makefile generation brought in sync with omnetpp-6pre11.

• Got rid of a few bison warnings and properly test for Bison 3.

• Fixes for the Windows build.

• Updated bundled sqlite3 amalgamation sources.

Bugs fixed: https://github.com/omnetpp/omnetpp/issues?q=is%3Aissue+is%3Aclosed+milestone%3A5.7

OMNeT++ 5.6.3 (August 2023)

This is a modernized maintenance release of omnetpp-5.6.2.

Changes:

• Source code updated to eliminate warnings issued by modern C++ compilers. Backported several smaller fixes.

• Updated the setenv and configure scripts, to make them more consistent with those in more recent or modernized releases. This includes:

  1. configure now mandates having setenv sourced before it runs.
  2. setenv now sets OMNETPP_IMAGE_PATH, in order to prevent model frameworks from accidentally making omnetpp's bundled icons unaccessible from Tkenv by simply appending to OMNETPP_IMAGE_PATH.
  3. configure now creates configure.user from configure.user.dist if it does not already exist.

• Allow running tests in other than "debug" mode.

OMNeT++ 5.6.2 (May 2020)

This release contains minor stability fixes.

Bugs fixed: https://github.com/omnetpp/omnetpp/issues?q=is%3Aissue+is%3Aclosed+milestone%3A5.6.2

OMNeT++ 5.6.1 (February 2020)

Minor bug fixes.

• Fix makefile template glitch in the IDE which caused unnecessary rebuilds of the projects in IDE.

• Added missing .cproject file for the canvas example.

Bugs fixed: https://github.com/omnetpp/omnetpp/issues?q=is%3Aissue+is%3Aclosed+milestone%3A5.6.1

OMNeT++ 5.6 (January 2020)

This is primarily a bugfix release, with a small but practically quite useful NED feature (@reconnect) and minor additions to the simulation library. Regarding bugfixes, Qtenv has received quite a lot of attention.

NED:

• The new @reconnect property allows reconnecting already connected gates by specifying it in the new connection's body. This is especially useful in INET Framework, e.g. because it eliminates the need for "hook" modules in compound modules that represent network interfaces.

Simulation library:

• SimTime: Added the fromRaw() method.

• cGate: Added the isGateHalf() and getOtherHalf() methods.

• The deleteModule() method was moved from cSimpleModule to cModule, revised, and its functionality extended: it is now allowed for a running module to delete itself, also as part of a module tree. (Note: direct deletion of a module or channel object, i.e. via the "delete" operator, is still not allowed.)

• cLabelFigure: Added rotation support (setAngle() method).

• cAbstractHistogram: Fixed the getCDF() method which was broken.

• cFigure: Fixed a bug that caused adding figures to be O(n) or slower, causing a huge performance penalty with 10000 or more figures.

• Several further smaller improvements.

Qtenv:

• Added a "Debug Now" option to the Simulate menu.

• Allow dragging submodules around by holding Shift. (This works by changing the coordinates in the display string.)

• Added option to export module graphics to an image, and a dialog to select the exported area.

• Start the animation at t=0, not right before the first event.

• Add some sideways offset to methodcall animation lines and text, to reduce overlap with connection arrows.

• Connection arrows: Make the "m=[nesw]" display string tag work better with border-to-border connections.

• Align the lines of info text ("t" display string tag) of submodules and connections appropriately in the left/top/right positions.

• Performance: cache min(animSpeed) in cCanvas, so that Qtenv doesn't have to compute it every time.

• Set a busy indicator (spinny cursor) during more potentially long operations.

• When the layouting process takes a long time (more than five seconds), ask the user what to do (wait or finish).

• Added an option to disable logging from refreshDisplay().

• Default log prefix format changed to use %K instead of %C. (%K only prints the context component if it is different from the event's module; %C always prints it.)

• Log prefix format: Added the %< (trim preceding whitespace) directive.

• Keep caret (cursor) near the same event when switching Log Inspector modes.

• Removed the unused scrollback limit option. Updated the Preferences dialog accordingly.

• Dozens of further bug fixes and improvements.

IDE:

• Updated to use Eclipse 4.14, CDT 9.10.

• IDE: Made the "Project Features" menu item more creative in finding the project. (It said "Select a project first" much too often.)

• Fix weighted histogram PDF/CDF computation (use sum of weights instead of observation count).

• NED editor: added manual connection routing using the "m" tag.

• SequenceChart: Avoid out of bounds error when selecting manual axis ordering, or switching between "Manual" and "Minimize crossings" modes.

• EventlogTable, SequenceChart: Strip ANSI escape sequences from log message lines.

• Let the user permanently turn off the "OMNeT++ libraries not yet compiled" dialog.

• Some further fixes and improvements.

Other:

• scavetool: Fixed vector file indexing bug that caused certain blocks to be left out from the index. This also affects the Analysis Tool in the IDE, which uses the same code for result file access.

• opp_test, opp_featuretool: Various small fixes.

Bugs fixed: https://github.com/omnetpp/omnetpp/issues?q=is%3Aissue+is%3Aclosed+milestone%3A5.6

OMNeT++ 5.5.2 (August 2023)

This is a modernized maintenance release of omnetpp-5.5.1.

Changes:

• Source code updated to eliminate warnings issued by modern C++ compilers. Backported several smaller fixes.

• Updated the setenv and configure scripts, to make them more consistent with those in more recent or modernized releases. This includes:

  1. configure now mandates having setenv sourced before it runs.
  2. setenv now sets OMNETPP_IMAGE_PATH, in order to prevent model frameworks from accidentally making omnetpp's bundled icons unaccessible from Tkenv by simply appending to OMNETPP_IMAGE_PATH.
  3. configure now creates configure.user from configure.user.dist if it does not already exist.

• Allow running tests in other than "debug" mode.

OMNeT++ 5.5.1 (June 2019)

This release contains minor stability fixes.

Bugs fixed: https://github.com/omnetpp/omnetpp/issues?q=is%3Aissue+is%3Aclosed+milestone%3A5.5.1

OMNeT++ 5.5 (June 2019)

This release contains minor fixes. See the individual ChangeLogs for details.

Core:

• Added the intuniformexcl() NED and C++ function. It returns a random integer with uniform distribution over [a,b). that is, including a and excluding b.

• The contents of resultfilters.h and resultrecorders.h are now public API, i.e. part of <omnetpp.h>. This change allows one to derive new result filters/ recorders by subclassing the built-in ones.

• A description string can now be specified when registering new result filters and recorders. New registration macros have been added for this purpose.

• cXMLElement was optimized to use less memory when large files are loaded.

• cHistogram: Now collects the number of positive and negative infinity values separately.

• SimTime: Added preciseDiv() for a precise division of an integer and a simulation time.

• cQueue, cPacketQueue: added a constructor that accepts a comparator object (not just a function).

• cModule: Added containsModule() method.

Other:

• Several Qtenv-related fixes and improvements

• Added support for osgEarth 2.10 and above

• Updated IDE to Eclipse 4.11. This resolves compatibility issues with JDK 11.

• Workaround for long C++ indexer runtimes in the IDE.

Bugs fixed: https://github.com/omnetpp/omnetpp/issues?q=is%3Aissue+is%3Aclosed+milestone%3A5.5

OMNeT++ 5.4.2 (August 2023)

This is a modernized maintenance release of omnetpp-5.4.1.

Changes:

• Source code updated to eliminate warnings issued by modern C++ compilers. Backported several smaller fixes.

• Updated the setenv and configure scripts, to make them more consistent with those in more recent or modernized releases. This includes:

  1. configure now mandates having setenv sourced before it runs.
  2. setenv now sets OMNETPP_IMAGE_PATH, in order to prevent model frameworks from accidentally making omnetpp's bundled icons unaccessible from Tkenv by simply appending to OMNETPP_IMAGE_PATH.
  3. configure now creates configure.user from configure.user.dist if it does not already exist.

• Allow running tests in other than "debug" mode.

OMNeT++ 5.4.1 (June 2018)

This release contains minor fixes. See the individual ChangeLogs for details.

Bugs fixed: https://github.com/omnetpp/omnetpp/issues?q=is%3Aissue+is%3Aclosed+milestone%3A5.4.1

OMNeT++ 5.4 (June 2018)

This release contains last-minute features and improvements, mostly motivated by the upcoming INET 4 release. Highlights are the typename and exists() operators in NED; nan and inf keywords in NED; support for logarithmic units like dB, dBW, dBm, dBV, dBmV. Qtenv has also gained much more powerful just-in-time debugging capabilities than before.

Details follow.

NED:

• Allow 'typename' in expressions. Motivation: we want to be able to write: foo: <> like IFoo if typename!=""

• Added the exists operator. Syntax: exists(<submodulename>)

• Introduced nan and inf as keywords for numeric constants

Core:

• SimTime now has a new method named ustr() that prints the time in an appropriate unit. It is now used in cClassDescriptor for displaying simtime_t fields and at a few other places.

• SimTime: more precise computation for integer-SimTime division.

• Measurement units are now available as NED functions as well. They accept dimensionless numbers and quantities with a compatible unit. E.g. the expressions mW(2*100) and mW(0.2W) both result in 200mW.

• New measurement units: K, Ohm, mOhm, kOhm, MOhm, uW, nW, pW, fW, THz, kmps, binary and decimal multiples of bit (Kib, Mib, Gib, Tib, kb, Mb); deg, rad; pct (percent), ratio.

• Support for logarithmic units: dBW, dBm, dBV, dBmV, dBA, dBmA, dB. Conversion between logarithmic and corresponding linear units (W vs. dBW) is supported. Conversion between bit and byte (and multiples) is also supported.

• cPacket: refined str() method

• Several smaller improvements.

Qtenv:

• Debug-on-error functionality can now be turned on interactively, via the Simulate -> Debug on Errors menu item.

• When an error occurs and debug-on-error is enabled, Qtenv now offers to launch and attach an external debugger unless the simulation program is already being debugged. The same applies to the Debug Next Event functionality. External debuggers can be configured with the debugger-attach-command configuration key, and can also be overridden with the OMNETPP_DEBUGGER_COMMAND environment variable.

• Workaround for a crash with Qt 5.11.

IDE:

• Launcher: fix: The IDE sometimes started build in the UI thread, locking up the UI for the time of the build, potentially for several minutes.

• Fixed "unknown" image as module background in the graphical NED editor.

• Fix: do not report "undefined parameter" for typename assignments in NED

• Fix: inifile analysis: typename deep assignments in NED were ignored

Bugs fixed: https://github.com/omnetpp/omnetpp/issues?q=is%3Aissue+is%3Aclosed+milestone%3A5.4

OMNeT++ 5.3.1 (August 2023)

This is a modernized maintenance release of omnetpp-5.3.

Changes:

• Source code updated to eliminate warnings issued by modern C++ compilers. Backported several smaller fixes.

• Updated the setenv and configure scripts, to make them more consistent with those in more recent or modernized releases. This includes:

  1. configure now mandates having setenv sourced before it runs.
  2. setenv now sets OMNETPP_IMAGE_PATH, in order to prevent model frameworks from accidentally making omnetpp's bundled icons unaccessible from Tkenv by simply appending to OMNETPP_IMAGE_PATH.
  3. configure now creates configure.user from configure.user.dist if it does not already exist.

• Allow running tests in other than "debug" mode.

OMNeT++ 5.3 (April 2018)

Highlights of this release are an improved message compiler (required for INET 4), much improved histogram support, a more powerful cMessagePrinter API and its implementation in Qtenv, and better support for smooth animation in Qtenv. Details follow.

Core:

• Revised message compiler, added import support and more. See src/nedxml/ChangeLog for details. Use --msg6 to turn on the new features.

• cPar: integer representation changed from long to int64_t. See src/include/omnetpp/ChangeLog for details.

• Evaluation of NED expressions now uses integer arithmetic when operands are integers. Conversions that incur precision loss should now be explicit: converting a double to integer requires the int() cast; also, converting an int to double will raise an error if there is actual precision loss, and you can suppress that error by explicit double() cast. There are many smaller-scale changes related to this change -- see include/omnetpp/ChangeLog for details.

• cHistogram has been replaced with new implementation. (The old one is still available under the name cLegacyHistogram.) The new cHistogram is more general (supports arbitrary bins), more configurable, and produces much higher quality histograms even in the default setup due to newly introduced techniques such as adaptive precollection, bin size rounding and bin edge snapping, auto-extension with new bins, bin merging to keep the number of bins optimal, etc. Histogram operation can be customized via histogram strategy classes (cIHistogramStrategy); several histogram strategies are provided.

• In recording histograms with @statistic, the number of bins can be specified by adding numBins=nn: @statistic[x](record=histogram;numBins=100). The actual number of bins produced might slightly differ, due to auto-extension and bin merging during result collection.

• cMessagePrinter: API was extended with tags and column names

• cCanvas: added getAnimationSpeed(); better documentation for setAnimationSpeed() and holdSimulationFor().

• cHistogram, cNedValue: minor changes in the public API

• Result recorders: Added "timeWeightedHistogram" recorder

Qtenv:

• Implemented support for the improved cMessagePrinter Options API, and added a respective configuration dialog.

• The log viewer now supports ANSI control sequences for text styling: foreground/background color, and bold/italic/underline text. Styling is supported in both message history view and log view, i.e. it can be used in text returned from cMessagePrinter and logged by the EV and other logging macros.

• Rewritten the controller for smooth animation. The new algorithm is now able to scale linearly, as long as the simulation can keep up.

• Usability improvements in the Animation Parameters dialog, e.g. it now also displays the current simulation speed, and it is colored red if the simulation cannot keep up with the requested animation speed.

• Histogram inspector: visualize outlier bins (drawn with a different color than normal bins), and show info about them. Setting up the bins while in the precollection phase can be forced from the GUI. Fix numeric overflow when large numbers (>= 2^64) are shown.

• Histogram result objects are easier to locate on the GUI, and are now also found by the Find/Inspect dialog.

• Made statistic recorders "findable" from Qtenv

Tkenv:

• The Tcl/Tk based runtime interface is now deprecated and turned off by default. It will be removed in future OMNeT++ versions. You can still enable it in configure.user by setting WITH_TKENV = yes, but we strongly suggest using Qtenv instead.

Toolchain and dependencies:

• Updated toolchain on Windows (clang 5.0.1, gcc 7.3, gdb 8, osgEarth 2.7)

• Updated toolchain on macOS (OpenSceneGraph 3.2.3, osgEarth 2.7)

• OMNeT++ now requires osgEarth 2.7 or later (check the Install Guide for further instructions on how to upgrade osgEarth.)

Tools:

• opp_runall, opp_fingerprinttest, opp_test: portability fixes for Windows and macOS

• opp_fingerprinttest: fix: error messages from the simulation did not appear

• 'march=native' and 'mtune=native' compiler options are no longer used by default for a release build, because on certain CPUs this caused rounding differences so simulations ran on a different trajectory depending on the actual CPU used.

Samples:

• canvas: Added smooth animation with CarAnimator::refreshDisplay().

• osg-earth, osg-satellites: Switch from ObjectLocator to GeoTransform. The former was removed after osgEarth 2.8, and the latter has been around for quite some time now.

Documentation:

• Documented smooth animation in detail, and updated the section on statistical data collection classes (cStdDev, cHistogram) in the Simulation Manual.

Bugs fixed: https://github.com/omnetpp/omnetpp/issues?q=is%3Aissue+is%3Aclosed+milestone%3A5.3

OMNeT++ 5.2.2 (August 2023)

This is a modernized maintenance release of omnetpp-5.2.1.

Changes:

• Source code updated to eliminate warnings issued by modern C++ compilers. Backported several smaller fixes.

• Updated the setenv and configure scripts, to make them more consistent with those in more recent or modernized releases. This includes:

  1. configure now mandates having setenv sourced before it runs.
  2. setenv now sets OMNETPP_IMAGE_PATH, in order to prevent model frameworks from accidentally making omnetpp's bundled icons unaccessible from Tkenv by simply appending to OMNETPP_IMAGE_PATH.
  3. configure now creates configure.user from configure.user.dist if it does not already exist.

• Allow running tests in other than "debug" mode.

OMNeT++ 5.2.1 (December 2017)

This is a maintenance release.

• Minor bug fixes and improvements in Qtenv.

• Other minor bug fixes.

• Updates to the C++ Development and Launcher chapters of the User Guide.

See ChangeLogs in individual folders for details.

Bugs fixed: https://github.com/omnetpp/omnetpp/issues?q=is%3Aissue+is%3Aclosed+milestone%3A5.2.1

OMNeT++ 5.2 (September 2017)

Highlights of this release are the fine-tuning of result recording and processing (especially around weighted statistics); many bug fixes and improvements in Qtenv; makefile changes to allow DEBUG and RELEASE builds of models to co-exist, and several related changes in the IDE.

Core:

• Figure zIndex is now additive: the effective zIndex is now the sum of the zIndex values of the figure and all its ancestors up to the root figure. This provides more flexibility, as the stacking order of figures is no longer constrained by their position in the figure tree.

• Added cPanelFigure, a new figure type that turns off zoom for its children. cPanelFigure is handy when one needs to do relative positioning unaffected by zoom, for example when adding decorations next to submodule icons.

• Statistics recording: added support for collecting time-weighted statistics. This is useful for variables like queue length. Add timeWeighted=1 or timeWeighted=true to a @statistic to make it collect time-weighted statistics. timeWeighted=1 affects the operation of the following filters/recorders: "mean", "stats" and "histogram". The "timeavg" recorder always computes time average; an additional recorder "avg" has also been added that always computes unweighted mean. "mean" emulates either "avg" or "timeavg", depending on the presence of the timeWeighted=1 option.

• Changed result filters/recorders so that they interpret NaN as "missing data" and ignore it. The change affects "count" (which now also ignores nullptrs), "sum", "min", "max", "avg", "timeavg", "sumPerDuration", "stats", "histogram". For the time weighted case, NaNs mark intervals to be ignored.

• cResultFilter: added an init() method to allow filters access the content of the @statistic property they occur in.

• The packetBytes/packetBits filter now throw error if object is not a cPacket. They still accept (and ignore) nullptr.

• Added support for weighted statistics to histogram classes and to cStddev (the cWeightedStddev class is no longer needed.) The primary motivation for weighted statistics is the existence of variables where time average makes much more sense than arithmetic mean, e.g. queue length.

• The OSG viewer was factored out from Qtenv into a separate support library which is only loaded at runtime on demand. Core OMNeT++ no longer has any dependence on OSG or OSGEarth. This change improves simulation startup times and also debugging experience, as it eliminates the loading of the huge number of shared libraries that OSG and OSGEarth depends on. (The library loading overhead was also present in simulations that did not even contain 3D visualization.) The only API change is that one must use cOsgCanvas::EarthViewpoint instead of osgEarth::Viewpoint when using the cOsgCanvas::setEarthViewpoint().

Build:

• opp_makemake: IMPORTANT CHANGES regarding debug/release-mode builds:

  • Models are built in RELEASE mode by default. Until now, DEBUG was the default, which resulted in casual users always running their simulations in DEBUG mode, i.e. much slower than possible.

  • RELEASE and DEBUG mode binaries can now co-exist, so users do not have to recompile when they switch modes (e.g. when they want to debug a simulation.) This is a significant gain especially for large models like INET. The goal was achieved by adding the "_dbg" suffix to the names of DEBUG-mode binaries so they don't collide with RELEASE-mode ones.

  • Binaries are now hard-linked from the build directory (out/) to the target directory instead of being soft-linked. This leaves the copy in the target directory intact when the one in the build directory is deleted.

• Refinements on the build process of OMNeT++ itself: generated files are created only once, even when using parallel build; do not copy build artifacts if not actually changed; Makefiles in the samples/ folder are re-created only if they are missing; etc.

• The samples/ folder is now optional: deleting it in an OMNeT++ installation will no longer break the build.

IDE/Base:

• The Eclipse platform was updated to the latest Oxygen build (4.7.1)

IDE/Build:

• Makefile generator: follow changes in the command-line opp_makemake tool

IDE/Launching:

• The Run, Profile and Debug launch types now automatically trigger build.

• The launcher now switches the project (and optionally all projects it depends on) to the appropriate build configuration if necessary: Run and Profile will perform RELEASE build, Debug will perform DEBUG build.

• For Debug launch, the "_dbg" suffix is added implicitly to the target name (only for the exe files). The simulations will also load the "_dbg" versions of libraries when compiled to DEBUG.

• A new "Build before launch" section was added to the Launch config dialog, which allows you to control whether to switch build configuration automatically or to ask before the build. The scope of build can also configured; options are: "None", "This project", or "Project + dependencies".

• If the launch is configured as "Ask before build" (default), a confirmation dialog is shown on launch (and before the build), asking whether to switch the active build configuration to the appropriate one. The dialog allows you to set the decision as permanent and reconfigures the launch config accordingly.

• Better progress reporting and cancellation for batch runs. Internally, this is the result of switching to the new JobGroups API of Eclipse.

IDE/Analysis Tool:

• Added support for "statistic" items and for weighted statistics.

  Background: Specifying "record=stats" in a @statistic NED property, or or calling the record() method on a cStddDev object saves a "statistic" object in the output scalar file. A "statistic" object includes fields like the count of observations, mean, standard deviation, minimum and maximum value. "statistic" objects so far have been blown up to several unrelated scalars upon loading into the Analysis Tool. Now they are loaded as objects, and appear in the Histograms and All tabs of the Browse Data page. Statistics fields continue to be available as scalars as well, so they can be used as chart input.

  Also, weighted statistics (like those saved from cWeightedStddev) were not properly displayed in the Analysis Tool. This has been rectified as well.

  Details:

  • The Histograms tab on the Browse Data page now includes "statistics"- type results as well.

  • The Histograms tab now has new table columns: "Kind", "SumWeights", "#Bins", "Hist.Range", all displayed by default. "Kind" indicates whether a result item is a "statistic" or a "histogram", and whether it is weighted or unweighted.

  • Individual fields of "statistic" and "histogram" result items are no longer displayed on the Scalars page.

  • Properties for "statistic" and "histogram" result items now includes "Kind" ("weighted"/"unweighted") and "Sum of weights".

  • On the All tab of Browse Data page, result item fields are now in natural order (i.e. no longer alphabetically sorted).

• Export dialog refined: Added "Open exported file afterwards" checkbox, better filename generation and validation, etc.

• Changed the syntax for accessing iteration variables in filter expressions. Before, they could be accessed like run attributes, with the "attr:" prefix. Now, one needs to use the "itervar:" prefix, which is more explicit.

• Properties view: properly display attributes, iteration variables and parameter assignments for runs

• Better display of histogram bins in the Properties view. The display format of bins was changed from "a..b" to "[a,b)", in order to clearly indicate that "a" is inclusive and "b" is exclusive.

• The "Variance" line has been removed from Properties view because it's not too useful and can be easily computed as the square of the standard deviation.

• Missing or unavailable data in table cells is now displayed with a hyphen instead of "n.a."

• New icon for scalar items on the All tab of Browse Data page

Qtenv:

• OSG Viewer is now a separate library, loaded only on demand.

• Improved the appearance and usability of the Animation Parameters dialog.

• Show (debug) or (release) in the window title based on NDEBUG.

• Completely overhauled figure rendering. This should improve performance and fix many issues.

• The size of arrowheads on connections and line figures is now more reasonable with many combinations of zoom level, line width, and the "zoomLineWidth" property.

• Implemented cPanelFigure support and cumulative zIndex.

• Figures without a tooltip inherit it from their nearest ancestor that has one. Empty strings break this inheritance, but are not shown. The own tooltip of the figure now overrides that of its associated object.

• The special value "kind" is now also accepted as a color in the "i" tag of display strings of messages as well.

• A large number of miscellaneous improvements, fixes and cleanups; see src/qtenv/ChangeLog.

Envir:

• EnvirBase: changed the lifecycle of several plugin objects to per-run, i.e. those objects are now deleted and re-created between runs. Affected plugins: event log recorder, output vector file recorder, output scalar file recorder, snapshot recorder, future event set (FES).

  The corresponding configuration options have also become per-run options: eventlogmanager-class=, outputvectormanager-class=, outputscalarmanager-class=, snapshotmanager-class=, futureeventset-class=.

  Side effect: in output vector files, vector IDs now start again from 0 at the start of each run when running multiple runs. Before, they continued from where the previous run left off.

Scavetool:

• Added --list-itervars option

• Removed obsolete export commands 'vector' and 'scalar'

• Do not export itervars as scalars by default; added -y, --add-itervars-as-scalars option to turn exporting itervars back on

• Sort runs by runId, for consistent query output

• JSON and CSV exporter changes (applies to IDE Analysis Tool as well):

  • Python export changed to JSON export with optional Python flavour
  • CSV export renamed to "CSV for spreadsheet" and significantly improved (also saves iteration variables for better run identification, etc.)
  • another CSV export added ("CSV Records"), provenly suitable as input for the read_csv() of Python Pandas

Result recording and processing:

• Switch to new scalar/vector file recorders: The default values for the outputscalarmanager-class= and outputvectormanager-class= config options are now the new classes OmnetppOutputScalarManager and OmnetppOutputVectorManager. These classes rely on the new result file writer classes in common/.

  The old classes cIndexedFileOutVectorManager and cFileOutScalarManager still exist. They will be removed in a later version of OMNeT++.

• Save iteration variables separately from run attributes ("itervar" lines). NOTE: This changes result file format!

• omnetpp recorders: ensure order of "param" lines in the file mirror the order in the ini file

• Output scalar file recorders: sum and sqrSum are no longer saved for weighted statistics. This is to follow recent cStddev/cWeightedStddev change.

• Output scalar files: do not save numeric iteration variables (of parameter studies) as scalars. Instead we'll add them (as scalars) at load time, if needed.

• Proper loading and exporting of weighted statistics

• Added StatisticsResult (HistogramResult sans histogram). Until now, statistic results in scalar files were loaded as several unrelated scalars, and were not available as a single object.

• OmnetppResultFileLoader: fix: 'run' line is mandatory since version 4.0

• SqliteResultFileLoader: updated: histBin table was renamed to histogramBin

• SqliteResultFileLoader: loading of vector attrs and run params was missing

• SQLite recorder: slight changes in file format

Bugs fixed: https://github.com/omnetpp/omnetpp/issues?q=is%3Aissue+is%3Aclosed+milestone%3A5.2

OMNeT++ 5.1.2 (August 2023)

This is a modernized maintenance release of omnetpp-5.1.1.

Changes:

• Source code updated to eliminate warnings issued by modern C++ compilers. Backported several smaller fixes.

• Updated the setenv and configure scripts, to make them more consistent with those in more recent or modernized releases. This includes:

  1. configure now mandates having setenv sourced before it runs.
  2. setenv now sets OMNETPP_IMAGE_PATH, in order to prevent model frameworks from accidentally making omnetpp's bundled icons unaccessible from Tkenv by simply appending to OMNETPP_IMAGE_PATH.
  3. configure now creates configure.user from configure.user.dist if it does not already exist.

• Allow running tests in other than "debug" mode.

OMNeT++ 5.1.1 (May 2017)

This release contains only minor bugfixes.

• The IDE on Windows now can be started directly from a shortcut. Previously the IDE was not able to load its native library if it was started from a shortcut instead of the MinGW shell.

Bugs fixed: https://github.com/omnetpp/omnetpp/issues?q=is%3Aissue+is%3Aclosed+milestone%3A5.1.1

OMNeT++ 5.1 (March 2017)

This is the final version of OMNeT++ 5.1. This release significantly improves and builds upon functionality introduced in version 5.0, and also raises the bar in other areas.

Highlights:

• A matured Qtenv that now replaces Tkenv as the default runtime GUI.
• Support for smooth custom animation and video recording.
• Better support for simulation campaigns in managing and performing a large number of runs and in result recording/processing.
• Experimental support for SQLite-based result files.
• Updated toolchain and libraries on Windows including 64-bit Windows support.
• Updated Eclipse base for the IDE (Eclipse v4.6.3).

For further details see the preview version announcements below.

Changes since OMNeT++ 5.1 Preview 3:

Result Analysis:

• Data export functionality in scavetool and the IDE has been reimplemented. Currently the following export formats are available: CSV, Python source, OMNeT++ scalar/vector files, SQLite scalar/vector files. The new exporter interface allows for defining new exporters (including UI) without any change to scavetool or the Analysis Tool in the IDE, and for more flexible output formats.

  In scavetool, the new 'export' command replaces the now-deprecated 'vector' and 'scalar' commands.

Qtenv:

• Added graphical inspectors for output vectors and histograms. They are enabled for cOutVector and cStatistic-based histogram objects, i.e. they are currently not available for @statistic-based output vectors and histograms.

Build:

• The configure script no longer detects and tests for the presence of the 'pcap' library. If models need it, they have to implement their own method to detect and configure it.

Samples:

• The routing example was modified to demonstrate the new, built-in packet animation in Qtenv. Packets are displayed as arrows along the connection showing the actual packet length on the wire. Added parameter to be able to switch between cut-through switching and store-and-forward. Also added a parameter study into its omnetpp.ini.

Bugs fixed: https://github.com/omnetpp/omnetpp/issues?q=is%3Aissue+milestone%3A5.1

OMNeT++ 5.1 Preview 3 (February 2017)

This version is expected to be last preview version before releasing OMNeT++ 5.1 final.

Core:

• Ordering of 'platdep/sockets.h' and 'omnetpp.h' is no longer important. It is recommended to include 'omnetpp.h' first.

• Changes in the Canvas API: the insertBelow()/insertAbove() methods have been added to cFigure; cFigure's parse(cProperty*) and getAllowedPropertyKeys() methods are now public API; the first argument of the recently introduced Register_Figure() macro must now be quoted.

• Added opp_get_monotonic_clock_usecs(). This function should be used for measuring wall-clock time intervals in schedulers and other places instead of gettimeofday() which is not monitonic.

• opp_run (and all executable simulations) now support the '-h configvars' to print the list of dollar variables that can be used in configuration values.

• Other minor improvements.

Documentation:

• Install Guide has been updated and covers the installation procedure on the most recent operating system versions.

• The Simulation Manual has been heavily updated. Look for the (new) symbol to see the updated content.

• User Guide now has a new chapter about the Qtenv runtime environment.

Build:

• omnetpp.h is now treated as a 'system header', so it will no longer generate warnings in case a model specifies more stringent checking for the compiler.

• The configure script now accepts WITH_XXX=yes/no options on the command line. Look into the configure.user file to see the supported variables.

• Cross compilation of OMNeT++ for Windows on a Linux host is now supported.

IDE:

• Fixed an issue when generating NED documentation on Windows

• IDE can now generate a makefile that is exactly the same as the one generated by the opp_makemake tool.

Qtenv:

• Numerous bug fixes and enhancements.

Tools:

• scavetool: the -f option for the 'query' command adds statistics fields (min, max, sum, etc.) as scalars.

• msgc: Message compiler now correctly generates 'override' keywords for certain functions.

• The message compiler now generates code which produces no warnings even when -Wall -Wextra -Wpedantic is used as a compiler command line option.

Samples:

• osg-earth now has a configuration where off-line map tiles are used instead of an on-line map tile provider. (Note that this may not work on current Debian/Ubuntu distros, because they contain an osgEarth library version that is too old.)

Bugs fixed: https://github.com/omnetpp/omnetpp/issues?q=is%3Aissue+milestone%3A5.1pre3

OMNeT++ 5.1 Preview 2 (December 2016)

This release significantly improves and builds upon functionality introduced in version 5.0, and also raises the bar in other areas. Highlights include: a much-improved Qtenv that now replaces Tkenv as the default runtime GUI; support for smooth custom animation and video recording; better support for simulation campaigns in managing and performing a large number of runs and in result recording/processing; experimental support for SQLite-based result files; updated toolchain and libraries on Windows; 64-bit Windows support; updated Eclipse base for the IDE.

Note:

1. There are now separate downloads for Linux, Windows and macOS. A fourth package labelled "core" comes without the IDE, and can be used on all other systems.
2. 32-bit Windows and Linux are no longer supported.

Known Issues:

1. The manuals have not yet been updated.
2. Documentation generation on Windows is currently not working.

Changes since version 5.0:

Core:

• Support for smooth custom animations. The goal was to allow models to visualize their operation using sophisticated animations while the simulation is running under a GUI (Qtenv). The key idea is that refreshDisplay() is called repeatedly at a reasonable rate to render frames. refreshDisplay() knows the animation position from the simulation time (which is now interpolated between events) and the "animation time", a variable also made accessible to the model. Animation-to-simulation speed ratio (sec/simsec) is determined by an "animation speed" variable (or rather, several such variables) that can be set explicitly from code. Different animation speeds can be chosen dynamically to adapt the animation to the current time scale of the interesting events or processes in the simulation. Animations that need to take place in zero simulation time are supported with "holds", i.e. holding up the simulation for a certain animation time period. The actual playing speed of the resulting animation can be controlled in Qtenv using the "Speed" slider on the toolbar. Note that this feature is only available in Qtenv (and not in Tkenv which is more-or-less in maintenance mode from now on).

• If a model implements such full-blown animations for a compound module that OMNeT++'s default animations (message sending/method call animations) become a liability, they can now be programmatically turned off for that module with a setBuiltinAnimationsAllowed(false) call.

• Support for self-refreshing figures. cFigure now has a refreshDisplay() method which is called on every display refresh as long as the containing canvas is open in the GUI. Overriding that method in custom figure classes allows the figure to update itself according to the state of the simulation. The self-refreshing feature is especially useful for figures that implement various meters, gauges, plots or charts, because this way they don't require an additional helper module to update them. Note this feature is only available in Qtenv.

• Custom figure classes are now registered using Register_Figure(), not with Register_Class(). This allows for more flexibility and a cleaner handling of C++ namespaces.

• The stacking order of figures is now jointly determined by the child order and a new runtime-settable cFigure member called zIndex, with the latter taking priority. In @figure properties in NED files, "zIndex" replaces "childZ" which was only used at parse time but not stored in figures afterwards.

• A figure can now have a tooltip text set.

• A figure can now be associated with a simulation object, for example a module or a packet. Association means that the figure more-or-less "stands for" (or visually represents) the other object in the GUI. For example, when the user clicks or double-clicks the figure under Qtenv, the associated object is focused or opened in the GUI. The figure also "inherits" the tooltip of its associated object, provided it does not have its own tooltip.

• For text figures, one can now optionally turn on a "halo", which makes the text more readable on all backgrounds.

• Support has been added to load custom images for use by cImageFigure/cIconFigure and in display strings (cEnvir::loadImage()). It is also possible now to programmatically add new directories to the image path (cEnvir::appendToImagePath()).

• The dimensions of images used by cImageFigure/cIconFigure can now be determined programmatically (getImageNaturalWidth() / getImageNaturalHeight() methods).

• Support for measuring the text has been added to cTextFigure and cLabelFigure (getBounds() method). Note that getBounds() assumes zoom level 1.0.

• Support for accessing the coordinates of auto-layouted submodules (cEnvir:: getSubmoduleBounds()). This functionality is needed by some visualizers in INET, where nodes of a wired network are typically not explicitly placed.

• In cObject and subclasses, info() has been renamed to str(). The old method still exists and delegates to the new one. The detailedInfo() method has been deprecated due to lack of usefulness.

• In NED statistic declarations (@statistic), signal names in the "source" attribute can now be qualified with the name of a submodule. This will cause the signal listener to be added to the given submodule instead of the module containing the @statistic. Example: @statistic[foo](source=a.b.foo). Note that there is no syntax to specify modules above or outside the one containing the @statistic, as that would limit the module's reusability (encapsulation violation).

• In cModule, the arrived() method has been made public API. arrived() is invoked as part of the send() protocol, and its default version inserts the message into the FES after some bookkeeping. Overriding arrived() allows one to perform custom processing at the destination module of a send() call immediately, still within the send() call.

• cPacket's default getDisplayString() method now falls back to returning the encapsulated packet's display string, instead of just returning an empty string.

• When formatting error messages, location/time information is now placed after the exception text, not before. The goal was to improve readability, as user now needs to go through less blabla before getting to the actual error message. Individual error messages have also been revised for brevity and consistency (capitalization, use of quotation marks, etc.)

• Several things have been made inspectable at runtime (e.g. from Qtenv): simulation results being collected (i.e. result filter/recorder objects added via @statistic); per-signal listeners lists; values of XML module parameters and cXMLElement trees.

• Unit conversion now knows about C (coulomb) and related units As, mAs, Ah, mAh.

• Many other smaller-scale changes, fixes and refactoring, in part related to the ones above; see ChangeLogs under src/ for details.

Qtenv:

• Qtenv has reached maturity and it is now the default GUI for simulations.

• Qtenv now requires Qt5.4, and optionally OpenSceneGraph 3.2-3.5 and osgEarth 2.5-2.7.

• You can use your own Qt bundle by setting the QT_PATH variable in configure.user before running ./configure. (This may be needed if your Linux distribution comes with an older version.)

• Added support for smooth custom animations. This means that simulation time is interpolated between events, and the animation can be stopped between events. In the event number display, the event number is prefixed with either 'last:' or 'next:' to make it unambiguous. A new 'Animation Parameters' window has been added where one can view the current animation speed, framerate, and other metrics.

• One-stepping now stops right before events so pressing F4 will execute the next event instantly. For consistency, after initialization, the simulation time will be set to that of the first event (not always to 0s).

• The simulation time display now has digit grouping and units turned on by default for better readability. Settings can be changed in the context menu.

• Added built-in support to record animation into a high quality video. (Press the record button on the toolbar for instructions.)

• Improvements on built-in animations: Messages sent with a nonzero propagation delay are now animated properly (not instantaneously). Packets of nonzero length are now displayed as "strips" when transmitted on a link with a transmission rate and propagation delay. The animation of method call hierarchies now represents the call graph better.

• Two-way connections are now drawn as two half-length lines so that they don't cover one another.

• Module layouts are now shared among all graphical inspectors of the same module. Layout seeds are now persistent between runs.

• The Configuration/Run selection dialog now accepts run filters from the command line and will display the matching runs on the top of the list.

• Inspector windows made persistent between runs and will be re-opened on simulation restart.

• Other improvements, including tweaks to the Preferences dialog, context menu usability in inspectors, updated application and toolbar icons, a new 'Rebuild network' button on the toolbar, and many bug fixes.

• Experimental support to run as a native Wayland client (start the simulation with the QT_QPA_PLATFORM=wayland environment variable set).

Tkenv:

• While Qtenv is now the default runtime GUI, simulations can still be launched under Tkenv by adding "-u Tkenv" to the command line. Tkenv is being maintained, but it is not actively developed any more. This means that most new features, including the ones added in this OMNeT++ release (smooth custom animations, self-refreshing figures, etc) will not be available under Tkenv.

Envir:

• Run filtering: The -r option of simulations now also accepts a run filter expression as an alternative to a list of run numbers and run number ranges. This makes it possible to use the values of iteration variables for filtering, instead of the artificial and more-or-less meaningless run number. The new -q option (see below) can be used to query the list of matching runs. Example: ./aloha -c PureAlohaExperiment -r '$numHosts>5 and $numHosts<10' -q runs

• To query the list of matching runs, the new -q option can be used together with -c and -r . The argument to -q can be any of: "numruns", "runnumbers", "runs", "rundetails", "runconfig", "sectioninheritance".

• The nesting order of iterations has been made configurable, and the default has changed: the repeat counter has been switched from being the innermost loop to being the outermost one. This is more practical, as it allows one to get early results for all data points, then refine the picture as more runs are being completed. The nesting order (also among iteration variables) can be specified using the new iteration-nesting-order configuration option.

• Bugfix: the constraint option did not take effect when specified on the command line (--constraint=...)

• The -s (silent, i.e. non-verbose) option has been added, partly to facilitate machine processing of -q output.

• By default, error messages are written to stderr. A -m (merge output) option has been added that redirects errors to stdout; a practical benefit is that it preserves the relative order of the output.

• Default result file naming scheme been changed to be more practical. The traditional naming scheme contained the run number, which has now been replaced by the values of the iteration variables and the repetition counter. Example: old: Aloha-16.sca, new: Aloha-numHosts=10,mean=0.9-#3.sca. Illegal and inconvenient characters are encoded in an urlencode-like manner. This naming scheme applies to cmdenv output files, eventlog files and snapshot files as well.

• Experimental support for SQLite as result file format. SQLite result files can be browsed using existing GUI tools (SQLite Browser, SQLite Studio), can be queried using SQL, and can be accessed and manipulated from all major programming languages including Python and R. These benefits are in exchange for slight performance penalty. SQLite result files contain the same information as OMNeT++ native result files, they can co-exist, and OMNeT++ tools and the IDE understand both. To switch to SQLite as default result file format, compile OMNeT++ with PREFER_SQLITE_RESULT_FILES=yes set in configure.user. To use SQLite only for specific simulations, add the following lines to their omnetpp.ini files:

  outputvectormanager-class="omnetpp::envir::SqliteOutputVectorManager" outputscalarmanager-class="omnetpp::envir::SqliteOutputScalarManager"

• In output scalar files, when run attributes (iteration variables, etc.) are saved as scalars, the module name they are saved with has been changed from . to _runattrs_.

• The cpu-time-limit option has been fixed to work as expected; a new real-time-limit option also has been added.

Cmdenv:

• All changes described in the Envir section above apply, plus:

• When performing multiple runs, Cmdenv now stops after the first run that stops with an error. This behavior can be controlled with the new cmdenv-stop-batch-on-error= option.

• When performing multiple runs, Cmdenv now prints run statistics at the end. Example output: "Run statistics: total 42, successful 30, errors 1, skipped 11"

• The cmdenv-output-file option can now be specified per run, and now has a default file name that follows the naming scheme of result files (but with the .out extension). Since saving the output can no longer be disabled by omitting the cmdenv-output-file setting, new option cmdenv-redirect-output= has been added for that purpose.

• The cmdenv-interactive option can now be specified on per-run basis.

Tools:

• scavetool: The command-line interface (options and help) has been redesigned for usability.

• scavetool: The tool now supports querying the contents of result files in a user-friendly way, via the new "query" subcommand. This subcommand has also been made the default operation mode. For example, a simple "scavetool *.vec *.sca" command reports the number of runs, vectors and scalars found in the specified files.

• scavetool: CSV and other tabular export has been improved: run attributes (iteration variables, etc) are now added to the output as columns. Note that scavetool currently cannot export to SQLite.

• opp_makemake: OMNeT++ and generated model makefiles now use compiler- generated dependencies (gcc/clang -MMD option) that are saved in the out/ directory in *.d files. "make depend" is no longer needed.

• opp_makemake: Support for deep includes (automatically adding each subfolder to the include path) has been dropped, due to being error-prone and having limited usefulness. In projects that used this feature, #include directives need to be updated to include the directory as well.

• opp_makemake: Removed support for generating nmake-compatible makefiles, as we now use GNU Make on all platforms.

• opp_featuretool: Symbols for enabled features (e.g. WITH_IPv4 for the IPv4 feature in INET) are now placed into a generated header file, instead of being passed to the compiler via -D options. The name of header file can be specified in the feature definition file (.oppfeatures).

• opp_runall has been reimplemented in Python, and its command-line interface has been redesigned to not only allow using multiple CPUs but also several runs per Cmdenv instance. (This change allows one to execute a large number of short simulation efficiently by reducing process startup overhead.) Internally, opp_runall now uses the new "-q" option of simulations to expand a run filter expression to a list of runs.

• opp_test: export "run" script and "retest" scripts under work/ for each test, to facilitate running tests manually. Minor bug fixes.

• Removed unused utilities like opp_makedep, lcg32_seedtool, abspath, and some others.

IDE:

• The IDE is now based on Eclipse 4.6 Neon and CDT 9.0 (Java 1.8 required).

IDE/C++ Build:

• The "Collecting includes..." phase of project build (that could take quite a significant amount of time, and was often seen as a pain point) has been eliminated. The key was to switch from IDE-generated dependencies to compiler-generated dependencies (see corresponding opp_makemake change) that made include analysis in the IDE redundant.

• Change in "Project Features" feature: Preprocessor symbols for enabled features (e.g. the WITH_IPv4 macro for the IPv4 feature) are now placed into a generated header file, and not added to the build configuration (Paths & Symbols page) as macros to be passed to the compiler via -D options. The name of header file is part of the feature definition file (.oppfeatures). Using a generated header file reduces the number of things that can go wrong during indexing and project build, and also has the advantage of being seen from derived projects.

• The "Export build tester makefile" button has been removed from the Project Features property page. The INET Framework project now has an opp_featuretool-based shell script for the same purpose (tests/featuretest) that can be easily adapted to other projects as well.

• Support for deep includes (automatically adding each subfolder to the include path) has been dropped from the IDE as well, due to being error- prone and having limited usefulness.

• Improvements in the Makemake Options dialog that opens from the Makemake project property page. For example, an "Include directories" listbox has been added to the Compile tab page, and less frequently used options on the same page have been moved under the More>>> link.

• CDT integration: renamed the default C/C++ project configuration names from "gcc-debug"/"gcc-release" to simply "debug" and "release".

IDE/Simulation Launching:

• In the Run/Debug Configurations dialog, the "OMNeT++ Simulation" form page has been revised for usability and to better support simulation campaigns. The launcher (code that schedules and actually runs the simulations and arranges feedback in the Progress view and the Console) has also been improved. Details follow.

• The "Runs" form field now accepts a run filter expression that can refer to iteration variables. (This form field corresponds to the -r option of simulations.)

• Batch execution of simulations is now controlled with two new spinner widgets: "Number of CPUs to use", "Runs per process".

• The form page now allows specifying time limits for the simulation ("Simulation time limit", "CPU time limit" fields)

• Radio buttons have been replaced by tri-state checkboxes (with on/off/grayed states, where the grayed state means "no setting specified, let the inifile setting take effect".) The consequent space saving allowed other options to be added to the form page: "Verbose", "Stop batch on error", "Express mode", "Save stdout", "Record scalar results", "Record vector results", "Record eventlog".

• User interface selection now also uses an editable combo instead of radio buttons.

• Added content assist for Additional Arguments field.

• Improvements in the launcher: Simulation batches are now easier to cancel; in case of a simulation error, the error dialog now correctly displays the error message, not just a "Finished with error" text.

IDE/Inifile Editor:

• Updated to know about option changes and new options.

IDE/Analysis Tool:

• In the Browse Data page, display Experiment/Measurement/Replication columns instead of Folder/Filename/RunId/Config/RunNumber. Note that this is just the default value for a preference, so the change will only take effect in new installations or new workspaces. The default columns widths have also been increased.

• Initial support for SQLite result files. From the end user perspective, they should work exactly as OMNeT++ result files.

• CSV and other tabular export has been improved in the same way as in scavetool (as they use the same export engine).

Build:

• The Windows version now targets 64-bit Windows, using MinGW-w64. Both the GCC and Clang compilers are included, as well as all necessary libraries (Qt5, OSG, etc.) Support for 32-bit Windows has been dropped.

• Compiling OMNeT++ now requires a C++11 compliant compiler.

Samples:

• aloha: The updated example highlights the use of the new smooth animation API. The server and all hosts now have fixed positions (still random but deterministic, and not using auto-layouting), so that their individual propagation delays can be computed. Each transmitted packet is visualized with a ring and many concentric circles, illustrating the propagation of the electromagnetic wave. The visualization is faithful, e.g. multiple signals visually overlapping at a receiver actually means a collision. Animation speed is controlled by each node, taking three parameters for different states (idle, transmission edge, midtransmission) into account.

• osg-earth: Made the mobile nodes in the 'Boston streets' configuration more easily noticeable by increasing their sizes, and adding a color parameter. Movement trails have been raised off the ground a bit to avoid Z-fighting glitches.

• osg-satellites: Refactored mobility logic and replaced the discontinued MapQuest public tile source with a single offline image to avoid dependency on external sources.

• queueinglib: Fixed a race condition by requiring the PassiveQueue to allocate the Server before sending a job to it.

• resultfiles: Result files were renamed to reflect the new default naming scheme (i.e. configname-itervars-#repetition).

• Note: The systemc-embedding, sockets and cqn/parsim examples are NOT working currently in the Qtenv runtime environment. If you want to run those examples please run them in either Tkenv or Cmdenv ('-u Tkenv' or '-u Cmdenv').

Bugs fixed: https://github.com/omnetpp/omnetpp/issues?q=is%3Aissue+is%3Aclosed+milestone%3A5.1pre2

OMNeT++ 5.1 Preview 1 (September 2016)

This Preview release was only circulated at the OMNeT++ Summit in Brno, Czech Republic on September 15-16, to get immediate feedback from the participants.

OMNeT++ 5.0.1 (August 2023)

This is a modernized maintenance release of omnetpp-5.0.

Changes:

• Source code updated to eliminate warnings issued by modern C++ compilers. Backported several smaller fixes.

• Updated the setenv and configure scripts, to make them more consistent with those in more recent or modernized releases. This includes:

  1. configure now mandates having setenv sourced before it runs.
  2. setenv now sets OMNETPP_IMAGE_PATH, in order to prevent model frameworks from accidentally making omnetpp's bundled icons unaccessible from Tkenv by simply appending to OMNETPP_IMAGE_PATH.
  3. configure now creates configure.user from configure.user.dist if it does not already exist.
  4. configure now accepts WITH_FOO=no macros as command line options

• Allow running tests in other than "debug" mode.

OMNeT++ 5.0 (April 2016)

Release 5.0 is a result of development effort of nearly two years. This is a major release that introduces significant new features compared to the last 4.x version, for example the Canvas API (2D graphics), OpenSceneGraph-based 3D graphics support, improved logging, a new Qt-based runtime environment that will eventually replace Tkenv, and much more.

We have also taken the opportunity of the major release to improve several corners of the OMNeT++ API, and also to get rid of deprecated functionality. For porting models from OMNeT++ 4.x, see doc/API-changes.txt which lists all changes, with hints on how to update the model code.

Changes since the release candidate:

Documentation:

• Several organizational and rendering improvements on the API documentation generated using Doxygen.

• The User Manual has been renamed to Simulation Manual to reduce the chance of confusing it with the User Guide (which describes the IDE and Tkenv/Qtenv).

• Improved the contents and the HTML rendering of the Simulation Manual.

Core:

• cFigure: skew() methods now take a coefficient instead of an angle.

• cOsgCanvas: initialize zNear/zFar to NaN (to indicate they are unset by default), and added the methods setZLimits(), clearZLimits(), hasZLimits(). Missing zNear/zFar will turn on automatic zNear/zFar computation in the viewer.

• Removed a Register_Enum()-related workaround introduced around OMNeT++ 5.0b2 so that it could compile INET-3.0.

• cFingerprint renamed to cFingerprintCalculator.

• cKSplit: method rangeExtension(bool) has been renamed to setRangeExtension().

• cModule::size() has been deprecated (use getVectorSize() instead).

• Several methods in cComponent, cModule, cSimpleModule, cChannel, cArray, cQueue, cTopology, cStatistic and other classes have been made virtual to allow the user override them.

• Fix: simtime_t was not part of the omnetpp namespace.

• Fixed #943 which prevented using cDatarateChannel's forceTransmissionFinishTime() method when the channel's busy state signal was recorded into an output vector.

Tkenv:

• Fixed tooltip-related problems: large tooltips could not appear (e.g. the help for log prefix in the Preferences dialog); submodule tooltips were missing from the canvas

Qtenv:

• Added help to the Log Prefix field in the Preferences dialog and filter fields in the Find Objects dialog

• Added tooltips to timeline messages

• Fix: on Windows, Earth scenes appeared distorted in the osg-earth and osg-satellites sample simulations

• Fix: Earth scenes did not display in the osg-intro sample simulation (blank viewer window)

Utils:

• opp_featuretool refinements

Additionally, several bug were fixed in the IDE, Tkenv and Qtenv.

Bugs fixed: https://github.com/omnetpp/omnetpp/issues?q=is%3Aissue+is%3Aclosed+milestone%3A5.0

OMNeT++ 5.0 rc1 (March 2016)

This release brings numerous refinements to APIs introduced in previous beta versions, several bug fixes, and relatively few new features. The manual has been improved and brought up to date for the most part, although there are still gaps that will be filled in for the final 5.0 release. The most conspicuous change will be the new simulation time display in Tkenv and Qtenv.

Build:

• Introduced WITH_TKENV, WITH_QTENV, WITH_OSG and WITH_SYSTEMC in configure.user; these options allow one to disable certain features if they are not needed. In particular, WITH_TKENV=no replaces NO_TCL=1

Core:

• The logging API was refined. In addition to several renames (e.g. GLOBAL_COMPILETIME_LOGLEVEL was changed to COMPILETIME_LOGLEVEL), the numeric order of log level constants (LOGLEVEL_*) was reversed to make the values consistent with semantics, and LOGLEVEL_OFF was added to allow one completely disable logging. Support for log filtering was added in the form of compile-time and runtime predicates. The default compile-time log levels were also changed (to TRACE in debug builds, and DETAIL in release builds).

• In the OpenSceneGraph API, OmnetppObjectNode was renamed to cObjectOsgNode. Static cOsgCanvas methods that existed for creating and manipulating such nodes (createOmnetppObjectNode(), isOmnetppObjectNode(), setOmnetppObject(), getOmnetppObject()) were removed, and one should directly use cObjectOsgNode instead. Also, the osgutil.h header is now part of omnetpp.h, so it doesn't need to be included separately.

• In cOsgCanvas, the redundant setPerspective() method was removed (it was a union of two other setters).

• There were several refinements in the cFigure API:

  • replaced getClassNameForRenderer() with getRendererClassName()
  • spelling: ArrowHead changed to Arrowhead in method names, enum name, etc.
  • move() made recursive, nonrecursive version is called moveLocal()
  • Pixmap: renamed resize() to setSize()
  • Transform: skew() methods to use coefficient instead of angle
  • Transform: the matrix was transposed so points can be column vectors instead of row vectors
  • added NUM_GOOD_DARK_COLORS and NUM_GOOD_LIGHT_COLORS
  • some cPixmapFigure methods were also renamed

• Refined @figure syntax, the way figures can be defined in NED files:

  • transform= now accepts "((a b) (c d) (t1 t2))" and matrix(a,b,c,d,t1,t2) syntaxes as well
  • in transform=, scale() now accepts center as well
  • in transform=, skew() now expects coefficient instead of angle
  • arc, rectangle, image, etc to support bounds=x,t,width,height as an alternative to the pos=,size=,anchor= triplet

• Revised the configuration options that control recording of @statistics, individual scalars, and histograms. As a result, the **.statistic-recording and **.bin-recording options were introduced that take over some of the responsibility of the formally overloaded **.scalar-recording option. Rationale and details in src/envir/ChangeLog.

• Added cIEventlogManager, a new Envir plugin class that allows one to replace the built-in eventlog manager. Eventlog managers are responsible for recording simulation history into an eventlog file. A new eventlog manager can be activated with the eventlogmanager-class configuration option.

• The cFingerprint class was renamed to cFingerprintCalculator, and the fingerprint-class config option to fingerpringcalculator-class.

• In cEnvir, renamed getRNGMappingFor(component) to preconfigure(component).

• In cSimulation, moved both updating the event number and simulation time into executeEvent(). They were updated inconsistently, plus executeEvent() is a better place for that than getNextEvent(), considering cScheduler's putBackEvent().

• Removed cEnvir::isDisabled() and added cEnvir::isLoggingEnabled(). Renamed cEnvir::disableTracing member variable to cEnvir::loggingEnabled.

• cModule: size() deprecated, use getVectorSize() instead

• More methods made virtual in cSimpleModule and other classes

• Improved the descriptions of several per-object config options.

Tkenv:

• Added a large simulation time and event number display to the toolbar that display the current simulation time (or the time of the last event), as opposed to the time of the next event displayed previously. The status bar below the toolbar displays information about the next event, together with the time delta from the current simulation time. Information on the currently set up simulation, along with message statistics, have been moved to the bottom status bar of the main window.

Qtenv:

• Added a large simulation time and event number display to the toolbar. (This is the same GUI change as in Tkenv, see above.)

• Changed the name of the preferences file to .qtenvrc.

• Numerous bug fixes and improvements.

Cmdenv:

• Configuration options controlling logging in non-express mode (cmdenv-express-mode=false) have been simplified. The following options have been removed: cmdenv-module-messages, cmdenv-global-log-level, **.cmdenv-ev-output. The equivalent functionality (enabling/disabling logging and setting the log level globally and per-module) is now controlled with **.cmdenv-log-level. Logging can be disabled with **.cmdenv-log-level = OFF. Note that the cmdenv-event-banners and cmdenv-log-prefix options still exist.

• The cmdenv-message-trace configuration option has been removed. It had very limited usefulness, and it was somewhat overlapping with eventlog.

• The cmdenv-log-format option has been renamed to cmdenv-log-prefix.

Examples:

• Updated visualization in samples to use the new refreshDisplay() callback.

• Removed google-earth demo. (We already have a similar demo, osg-earth.)

Utils:

• opp_featuretool revised and improved

Bugs fixed: https://github.com/omnetpp/omnetpp/issues?q=is%3Aissue+is%3Aclosed+milestone%3A5.0rc1

OMNeT++ 5.0 beta 3 (December 2015)

The highlights of this release are the experimental version of Qtenv (which is a Qt-based runtime environment that will eventually replace Tkenv), support for 3D graphics using OpenSceneGraph, and the addition of the much-requested opp_featuretool utility. The full list follows:

Core:

• Use of the omnetpp namespace was made permanent. The recommended way of porting models is to add the "using namespace omnetpp;" like to header files. To compile models without change, add -DAUTOIMPORT_OMNETPP_NAMESPACE to the compiler command line.

• Added 3D graphics support via OpenSceneGraph. The 3D scene graph is to be built using the OpenSceneGraph API (e.g. loaded from file via osgDB:: readNodeFile()), and then set onto a cOsgCanvas instance. 3D scene(s) can be visualized in the new Qtenv runtime GUI. (There is no 3D support in Tkenv, due to technical limitations.)

• Added resolveResourcePath() to cEnvir and cComponent. The method searches a number of folders for a resource given with its file name or relative path, and returns the path for the first match. It can useful for locating various data files for models, OSG model files, and other files.

• Visualization: added a method to the base class of modules and channels to serve as a container of visualization-related code. refreshDisplay() is invoked by graphical user interfaces (Qtenv, Tkenv) whenever GUI contents need to be refreshed. Display string updates, canvas figures maintenance, and OSG scene graph updates are probably best done inside refreshDisplay() methods, as it can result in significant performance gain and, in some cases, also in more consistent information being displayed.

• An isExpressMode() method has been added to cEnvir to query whether the simulation runs in Express mode under a GUI. This information can be useful additional input for refreshDisplay() code.

• The simtime-scale config option has been replaced by simtime-resolution, a more user-friendly incarnation. simtime-precision accepts time units (s, ms, us, ns, ps, fs, as), power-of-ten multiples of such a unit (e.g. 100ms), and also base-10 scale exponents in the -18..0 range (mostly for backward compatibility with simtime-scale).

• RNG-to-module mapping made more flexible: the **.rng- config option now allows expressions, including those containing index, parentIndex, and ancestorIndex(level). This change allows things like assigning a separate RNG to each element of a module vector.

• Fingerprint computation has changed. It was also made more flexible, e.g. it is now possible to control which ingredients are added into the fingerprint computation. Define USE_OMNETPP4x_FINGERPRINT at compile-time to get back OMNeT++ 4.x fingerprints.

• Signal listener interface change: A cObject *details argument has been added to emit() methods to allow simulation models provide extra information with primitive data types (double, long, etc) they emit, without the need to switch over to emitting cObject altogether. This is a non-backward- compatible change: signal listeners will need to be updated with the extra argument. To facilitate transition, you can compile OMNeT++ and models with WITH_OMNETPP4x_LISTENER_SUPPORT defined; this will set up cIListener to delegate to the old methods, so existing listeners will work.

• Result filter/recorder interfaces, being based on signal listeners, have undergone a similar change. Models containing custom result filters or recorders will need to be updated.

• SimTime overhaul to increase accuracy (i.e. use integer arithmetic where possible), improve the API, and add missing operations/functions.

  Details:

  • Added missing * and / operators for integral types. This causes integer multiplications/divisions to be computed with integer arithmetic instead of floating point, resulting in better accuracy.
  • Added overflow checking for integer multiplication and negation
  • Use int64 arithmetic and overflow checking when assigning from integer types
  • Added isZero()
  • Replaced "int exponent" with "SimTimeUnit unit" in the two-argument constructor (value + unit) and several other methods, with the aim of making the API more user-friendly (and model code easier to read). Models that call affected methods with integers will need to be updated.
  • Moved math functions like fabs(SimTime) into the omnetpp namespace
  • Added div(SimTime, SimTime); also refined related fmod()'s documentation

• Removed SIMTIME_RAW(), STR_SIMTIME(), and SIMTIME_TTOA(). These macros are no longer needed, as were introduced in OMNeT++ 4.0 to assist porting models from version 3.x where simulation time was stored in double. Also, MAXTIME was renamed to SIMTIME_MAX.

• The tkenv-image-path config option has been replaced with image-path.

• NOTE: The above descriptions have been edited for brevity. More information is available in the ChangeLog files (e.g. include/omnetpp/ChangeLog and src/sim/ChangeLog), and in doc/API-changes.txt.

Qtenv:

• Qtenv, the Qt-based runtime environment is currently in preview status, Tkenv is still the default runtime. Qtenv can be activated by adding the '-u Qtenv' switch to simulation command lines. Alternatively, specify 'PREFER_QTENV=yes' in configure.user to make Qtenv the default GUI. Note that 3D visualization is only available in Qtenv.

SystemC:

• Updated the bundled SystemC reference implementation to version 2.3.1

Examples:

• Several new examples (osg-intro, osg-earth, osg-indoor, osg-satellites) have been added to the 'samples' folder to demonstrate the new 3D visualization capabilities in Qtenv.

• Aloha has been updated to use the new refreshDisplay() method.

Tools:

• Added 'opp_featuretool', which is basically the command-line equivalent of the Project Features dialog in the IDE: it allows one to enable/disable project features defined for an OMNeT++ project, e.g. the INET Framework.

Build:

• Because of the new Qtenv runtime environment, OMNeT++ now has several additional dependencies: Qt4 is mandatory, while OpenSceneGraph and osgEarth is optional. Qtenv can be fully disabled by commenting out the QT_VERSION= variable in the configure.user file and then re-running ./configure. Building Qtenv without the OpenSceneGraph libraries will disable 3D visualization support in Qtenv.

• A separate Mac OS X specific installation bundle was created that contains the binary files for all the external dependencies (Tcl/Tk, Qt, OSG, osgEarth etc.) As a consequence you no longer have to manually install Quartz before installing OMNeT++. We have now separate installation bundles for Linux/Mac/Windows.

• The bundled toolchain on Windows has been updated to use MinGW-w64 (32-bit) containing both the 'gcc' and 'clang' compilers. The bundle contains all the dependencies needed to build OMNeT++ (including Tcl/Tk, Qt4, OpenSceneGraph, osgEarth etc.)

• Because of the large size of the extra dependencies (Qt, OpenSceneGraph), the tools directory is now distributed as a highly compressed archive file inside the Windows installation bundle. It is extracted to its final location when mingwenv.cmd is first started.

• On systems that have both the 'gcc' and 'clang' compilers installed, OMNeT++ will pick 'clang' by default. This behavior can be changed by the PREFER_CLANG variable in the configure.user file.

Bugs fixed: https://github.com/omnetpp/omnetpp/issues?q=is%3Aissue+is%3Aclosed+milestone%3A5.0b3

OMNeT++ 5.0 beta 2 (July 2015)

Core:

• OMNeT++ classes are now in the "omnetpp" namespace. Models need to be modified to compile, e.g. by adding "using namespace omnetpp" or USING_NAMESPACE lines at appropriate places. (The latter conditionally expands to the former when needed, and to the empty string when not, making your code compatible with OMNeT++ 4.6 too.) If you don't want to change the model source code, you can define the AUTOIMPORT_NAMESPACE macro on the compiler command line (add -DAUTOIMPORT_NAMESPACE to CFLAGS), which will basically add the using namespace directive at the end of <omnetpp.h>.

  Turning off the omnetpp namespace (by setting USE_NAMESPACE=no in configure.user) is no longer fully supported, and will be removed in the next beta.

• Introduced cRandom, which encapsulates a random number stream into an object. Random numbers can be extracted with the draw() method. Added the following cRandom subclasses: cUniform, cExponential, cNormal, cTruncNormal, cGamma, cBeta, cErlang, cChiSquare, cStudentT, cCauchy, cTriang, cWeibull, cParetoShifted, cIntUniform, cBernoulli, cBinomial, cGeometric, cNegBinomial, cPoisson. They encapsulate the similarly named functions (e.g. exponential()) with their parameters and the random number generator (cRNG). cStatistic also now subclasses from cRandom: it can generate a random variate from the distribution observed in the collected sample.

• Random variate generation functions (normal(), etc.) signature change: the trailing "int rng" (RNG index of context module) argument was changed to cRNG*, and moved to the front. Motivation: break the functions' dependence on the context module.

  However, to lessen the impact of the signature change, random variate generation functions with their original signatures have been added to cComponent as methods. Thus, models that only use those functions from module methods will not notice any change.

• The interface of iterators (GateIterator, SubmoduleIterator and ChannelIterator in cModule, cQueue::Iterator, etc.) have been changed to make them more consistent with STL iterators. Therefore, operator() as a means of dereferencing has been deprecated, and operator* and operator-> have been added instead. The increment/decrement operators have also been revised.

• FES made replaceable. To this end, an abstract cFutureEventSet base class has been introduced, and cMessageHeap (now renamed cEventHeap) was made to extend cFutureEventSet. An accessor method (cFutureEventSet* getFES()) has been added to cSimulation, and the older members msgQueue and getMessageQueue() have been removed. Simulations now accept a

   futureeventset-class=<classname>
  

  configuration option.

• Further refinement of the new canvas API (cCanvas and cFigure + subclasses)

• The "simulation" and "ev" macros have been removed, to reduce pollution of the global namespace. You can use the newly introduced getSimulation() and getEnvir() functions instead.

• cObject::parsimPack() has become const. You only need to pay attention (and add "const" manually) if you have classes that redefine parsimPack().

• cQueue and cMessageHeap had both length()/getLength() and empty()/isEmpty() methods; the former have been removed; use getLength() and isEmpty() instead.

• There have been several other, smaller changes and improvements in many classes, e.g. cException, cStatistic, cDensityEstBase, cObjectFactory, etc.

• Most methods, typedefs and other items deprecated in previous versions have been removed.

• See doc/API-changelog.txt for a complete list of changes.

NED:

• Allow a "module" to extend a "simple" (motivation: INET 3.x)

• The message compiler no longer appends "_var" to the names of data members in generated classes. In cases where this change breaks existing code (classes with @customize(true) or with subclasses), you can emulate the old behavior by adding the following to the message definition:

   @fieldNameSuffix("_var");
  

• In message compiler generated code, doPacking() has been renamed to doParsimPacking(), doUnpacking() to doParsimUnpacking().

Tkenv:

• Feature: double-clicking a module in the object tree will open it in the main area instead of opening a new inspector window. A new inspector can still be opened from the context menu.

• Added the "Hide namespaces" option in the Preferences dialog that turns off the display of the namespace part of C++ class names when they appear in the GUI.

• Images under images/old/ are no longer accessible without the "old/" prefix, so if you use such an icon, you must add the "old/" prefix manually for them to continue to work. For example, you have to change "i=cloud" to "i=old/cloud" in display strings. The feature to let old/* images be accessible without the prefix was originally introduced to ease the transition from OMNeT++ 3.x to 4.0.

• Several bug fixes

General:

• The include/ folder was restructured: only the public header <omnetpp.h> was left in it, all other include files were moved into an omnetpp/ subfolder under include/.

• The source tree (src/) has gone through several modernizing and cleanup steps:

  • Per-folder nested namespaces have been introduced, e.g. Tkenv code is now in the omnetpp::tkenv namespace.

  • Qualified includes with the folder, i.e. #include "stringutil.h" became #include "common/stringutil.h". This increases readability and reduces the chance of including a wrong header.

  • Use fully qualified header guards

  • Modernizing: use the 'nullptr' and 'override' keywords; use C++ names of C headers (e.g. instead of <stdio.h>).

  • Code style: renamed many identifiers (local variables, arguments, private data members, etc.) to have a consistent, camelcase naming); codebase reformatted to have a consistent indentation style.

• Clarifications in the Academic Public License.

Contrib:

• Removed JSimpleModule due to lack of users and good use cases

Bugs fixed: https://github.com/omnetpp/omnetpp/issues?q=is%3Aissue+is%3Aclosed+milestone%3A5.0b2

OMNeT++ 5.0 beta 1 (Feb 2015)

Core:

• Added the Canvas API, a figure-based 2D drawing API. The Canvas API allows augmenting simulations with graphical elements. Item types include various shapes, text and image, including an SVG-like "path" item (a generalized polygon/polyline, with arcs and Bezier curves). Transformations (scaling, rotation, skewing) are supported, as well as transparency.

• New logging API. It features six log levels (FATAL, ERROR, WARN, INFO, DETAIL, DEBUG, TRACE), category support, compile-time and runtime global and per-module log level thresholds.

  Also, much more information is passed with each log line to the user interface code, allowing one to display a wealth of information in the log prefix (log level, file/line, event number, simulation time, module name and type, object name and type, and so on).

  Incompatibilities:

  • lower-case ev<< is no longer legal, use EV<< instead
  • ev.printf() was removed, use the stream API (EV<<) instead

• Introduced cEvent as a base class of cMessage. cEvent allows scheduling of arbitrary code for a simulation time that runs independent of modules. Override the execute() method of cEvent to specify the code. cEvent is not intended for use in simulation models; the primary motivation is to allow implementing simulation time limit with an "end-simulation" event, and to encapsulate foreign events (e.g. SystemC events and crunching) for seamless integration with the simulation event loop.

• Added support for simulation lifecycle listeners. Listeners are called back before and after network setup, on network initialization, before and after network finalization, and so on. The motivation was to allow more flexibility when writing initialization and shutdown code for schedulers, result file managers and other extensions.

• Signal checking has been enabled by default for debug builds. This means that all signals must be declared with @signal in the NED definition of the module type that emits them, unless check-signals=false is configured.

• Channel objects made equal to modules in the sense that now they also have IDs (the getId() method was moved from cModule to cComponent, the common base class of modules and channels), and they are also registered with cSimulation.

• cTopology improvements:

  • added factory methods for links and edges
  • added methods to manipulate the graph (e.g. build a graph from scratch)

• Removed int8..int64 and uint8..uint64. Models should use the standard integer types from <stdint.h> that end in "_t": int8_t, uint8_t, etc.

• check_and_cast<> improved; added check_and_cast_nullable<> that accepts NULL pointer as input

• New fingerprint computation algorithm. The goal was to make the fingerprint less sensitive to uninteresting changes (e.g. removal of an inactive module), and more sensitive to interesting ones (e.g. change in packet lengths). To get the old fingerprints, define USE_OMNETPP4x_FINGERPRINTS when compiling OMNeT++.

• cClassDescriptor interface changes (method renaming and arg list changes)

• Code cleanup, including:

  • removal of 3.x backward compatibility features (WITH_DOUBLE_SIMTIME, WITHOUT_CPACKET)
  • removal of deprecated classes, functions and macros (cLinkedList, cSimulation::operator[], Define_Function(), etc.)
  • cTopology: internals refactored (use STL instead of arrays, etc.)
  • error code enum members renamed from eXXX to E_XXX

Cmdenv:

• Log lines can now be prefixed with information such as the module path; simulation time; event's class and object name; file/line of the log statement; class, name and pointer of the object containing the log statement; etc. The format of this prefix can be changed from ini files.

• New inifile config options: cmdenv-log-format, cmdenv-log-level.

Tkenv:

• The bgs (background scaling) display string tag has been removed. It was originally introduced more or less as a default zoom level, but lost its significance since interactive zoom has been introduced.

• Zooming no longer affects icon sizes on the screen (but you still have the Increase/Decrease Icon Size, Ctrl+I/Ctrl+O menu items in Tkenv).

• Finished implementation of the Canvas API Tkenv rendering. The implementation is based on figure renderers (see FigureRenderer class) that can be registered for various figure classes. The implementation is based on the Tkpath Tcl/Tk extension, which was significantly enhanced by our team.

• Tkpath is now also used internally for drawing submodules, connections and the like. Benefits include:

  • unlimited zooming of image backgrounds
  • antialiased drawing (Tk canvas didn't have antialiasing)
  • OS X: images are no longer forced into 1-bit transparency
  • labels are now outlined (have a "halo") to make them readable on noisy backgrounds
  • range indicator fill is now semi-transparent (because Tkpath supports that)
  • performance improvements e.g. on OS X, and with image backgrounds

• Display log prefix; log prefix format and log level configurable via the Options dialog

IDE:

• Several minor improvements. NED editor support for canvas items is pending.

Example simulations:

• Added samples/canvas, a demo for the Canvas API

Bugs fixed: https://github.com/omnetpp/omnetpp/issues?q=is%3Aissue+is%3Aclosed+milestone%3A5.0b1

OMNeT++ 4.6.1 (August 2023)

This is a modernized version of omnetpp-4.6 that makes it possible to build and use the now 9-year-old package in today's software environments. The primary objective of this release is to facilitate the execution of old simulation models, e.g. for reproducing simulation results or as a basis of porting them to more recent versions of OMNeT++.

Changes:

• Source code updated to eliminate warnings issued by modern C++ compilers. Backported several smaller fixes.

• Updated the setenv and configure scripts, to make them more consistent with those in more recent or modernized releases. This includes:

  1. configure now mandates having setenv sourced before it runs.
  2. setenv now sets OMNETPP_IMAGE_PATH, in order to prevent model frameworks from accidentally making omnetpp's bundled icons unaccessible from Tkenv by simply appending to OMNETPP_IMAGE_PATH.
  3. configure now creates configure.user from configure.user.dist if it does not already exist.

• Allow running tests in other than "debug" mode.

OMNeT++ 4.6 (Dec 2014)

IMPORTANT: To install OMNeT++ on OS X, you must install both the Apple Java support package (http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1572) and (Oracle) JDK 1.7 or later (from http://java.com).

Tkenv:

• Improved zooming/panning support: use double click to zoom in around a point, and Shift + double click to zoom out; use Ctrl + left mouse button to drag out a rectangle to zoom to (a.k.a. marquee zoom; implementation based on patch from Christoph Sommer), right-click cancels marquee zoom; use left mouse button for panning

• Further small UI fixes (see ChangeLog)

Core:

• The testing tool opp_test has been revised and is now an official part of OMNeT++.

• The Manual now has a new chapter that covers the testing of simulation models as well as the usage of the opp_test tool.

• The message compiler opp_msgc was reimplemented as a part of nedtool. opp_msgc still exists as a wrapper script that points to nedtool.

IDE:

• The IDE is now based on Eclipse 4.4 Luna, and requires JDK 1.7 or later.

• The IDE is now a 64-bit application on Mac OS X.

Other:

• OMNeT++ is now using C++11 by default (-std=c++11) when models are compiled. The simulator itself does not use any of the C++11 features, so C++11 support may be disabled in configure.user. Update your models to compile properly using the C++11 standard, as later OMNeT++ versions will require C++11 compliance.

• OMNeT++ can be configured to use the 'omnetpp' namespace by setting USE_NAMESPACE=yes in configure.user

• Clang compiler support: Clang is used by default on OS X, and can be turned on on Linux. Clang is still not supported on Windows (we are waiting for the MSYS Clang packages to mature).

• The bundled MSYS/MinGW toolchain was updated to use MSYS2. MSYS2 resolves a number of issues:

  • No more memory errors during build
  • The make command now properly supports parallel build (-j4, -j8 etc.)
  • The bundled MSYS2 toolchain now contains the pacman package manager, so you can install additional packages if you wish
  • Change in OMNeT++: The msys/ directory has been moved to tools/win32/, and the mingw/ directory that contains the compiler has been moved to tools/win32/mingw32/.

Bugs fixed: https://github.com/omnetpp/omnetpp/issues?q=is%3Aissue+is%3Aclosed+milestone%3A4.6

OMNeT++ 4.5.1 (August 2023)

This is a modernized version of omnetpp-4.5 that makes it possible to build and use the now 9-year-old package in today's software environments. The primary objective of this release is to facilitate the execution of old simulation models, e.g. for reproducing simulation results or as a basis of porting them to more recent versions of OMNeT++.

Changes:

• Source code updated to eliminate warnings issued by modern C++ compilers. Backported several smaller fixes.

• Updated the setenv and configure scripts, to make them more consistent with those in more recent or modernized releases. This includes:

  1. configure now mandates having setenv sourced before it runs.
  2. setenv now sets OMNETPP_IMAGE_PATH, in order to prevent model frameworks from accidentally making omnetpp's bundled icons unaccessible from Tkenv by simply appending to OMNETPP_IMAGE_PATH.
  3. configure now creates configure.user from configure.user.dist if it does not already exist.

• Allow running tests in other than "debug" mode.

OMNeT++ 4.5 (June 2014)

Core:

• Compound modules are now represented with cModule, and the (almost empty) cCompoundModule class has been removed. This change was made to allow simple module classes to be used for compound modules.

• Added cMessagePrinter and the Register_MessagePrinter() macro. By implementing a message printer you can customize the line Tkenv prints about a packet in the log's "Message/Packet Traffic" view. In a way, message printers are analogous to Wireshark dissectors.

Tkenv:

• The Tkenv GUI has been redesigned for single-window mode to improve usability and user experience. Tkenv has also received a new, modern look and feel, due to the use of the Ttk widgets and a custom Ttk theme.

  Details:

  • single-window mode, with object navigator + 3 built-in inspectors that interact in a meaningful way (new inspector windows can still be opened)
  • keep inpector windows on top of the main window at all times
  • use Ttk widgets everywhere, with custom theme - this makes a huge difference in looks on all platforms but esp. on OS X
  • BLT no longer needed (we use Ttk instead)
  • inspectors are no longer tied to a single object; visited objects are remembered as navigable history (back/forward)
  • module graphics now remembers zoom level and settings per NED type
  • for each log line, the context module is now stored, and is shown as a line prefix where it makes sense (differs from event's module)
  • Tkenv now stores message sendings and also a clone of corresponding message objects (cMessage), and can show them in the log window
  • message printer classes can be contributed to customize the messages view of log windows
  • more concise status area that shows more information at the same time
  • part of the status area can be turned off to free up vertical space
  • timeline drawing now adapts to font size
  • on-demand scrollbars (i.e. they are hidden when not needed)
  • main menu cleanup (reorganized, removed obsolete items)
  • dialogs where it makes sense now remember size and location
  • additional hotkeys: Ctrl+Plus/Minus for Zoom, Ctrl+F5 Run Until, Ctrl+Q Quit, etc.
  • OS X: use Command key for hotkeys instead of Ctrl
  • countless other, smaller improvements

Other:

• In the Windows bundle, the debugger have been upgraded to gdb-7.7; Tcl/Tk has been upgraded to version 8.6.0.
• New configure.user option to prefer clang over gcc if both are installed
• New configure.user option to enable/disable C++ 11 compilance (-std=c++11) Note that this is NOT supported on Windows because of issues with the bundled MinGW 4.7 compiler.
• Tcl/Tk version 8.5 is required, 8.6 is preferred; BLT is no longer in use

Bugs fixed: https://github.com/omnetpp/omnetpp/issues?q=is%3Aissue+is%3Aclosed+milestone%3A4.5

OMNeT++ 4.4.2 (August 2023)

This is a modernized version of omnetpp-4.4.1 that makes it possible to build and use the now 9-year-old package in today's software environments. The primary objective of this release is to facilitate the execution of old simulation models, e.g. for reproducing simulation results or as a basis of porting them to more recent versions of OMNeT++.

Changes:

• Source code updated to eliminate warnings issued by modern C++ compilers. Backported several smaller fixes.

• Adjusted to make the code compatible with more recent versions of Tcl/Tk libraries. In addition to the original Tcl/Tk-8.4 and BLT-2.4z, Tkenv now works with Tcl/Tk-8.6 and BLT-2.5.3, too.

• Updated the setenv and configure scripts, to make them more consistent with those in more recent or modernized releases. This includes:

  1. configure now mandates having setenv sourced before it runs.
  2. setenv now sets OMNETPP_IMAGE_PATH, in order to prevent model frameworks from accidentally making omnetpp's bundled icons unaccessible from Tkenv by simply appending to OMNETPP_IMAGE_PATH.
  3. configure now creates configure.user from configure.user.dist if it does not already exist.

• Allow running tests in other than "debug" mode.

OMNeT++ 4.4.1 (Feb 2014)

Bugs fixed: https://github.com/omnetpp/omnetpp/issues?q=is%3Aissue+is%3Aclosed+milestone%3A4.4.1

OMNeT++ 4.4 (Dec 2013)

Sim:

• Support for optional signal checking. When signal checking is turned on, signals emitted by modules/channels must be declared with a @signal property in the module's or channel's NED description; undeclared signals will result in a runtime error. Signal declarations are of the form

   @signal[<signalName>](type=<dataType>).
  

  may contain wildcards (?,*). Type is optional; if present, data type can be long, unsigned long, double, simtime_t, string, or a registered class name. To allow NULL pointers, append a question mark to the class name. Example:

   @signal[receivedPk](type=cPacket?);
  

  This feature is controlled by the check-signals= configuration option, and it is turned off by default for now.

• Support for @statistic-style declarative result recording on dynamically registered signals (e.g. "conn-" where n is an integer). Instead of @statistic, add a @statisticTemplate property in the NED file, and for each new signal call ev.addResultRecorders(...).

• Support for programmatically adding result filters and recorders on signals: cResultRecorder has been revised to allow result recorders to be used without a corresponding @statistic attribute, e.g. they can now be added to signals programmatically.

• Further signals-related changes:

  • added emit(simsignal_t, const cObject*) to cComponent
  • added receiveSignal() overload for bool to cIListener
  • introduced SimsignalType which replaces the older cITimestampedValue::Type
  • added cObjectFactory::isInstance() method that effectively wraps a dynamic_cast
  • added Register_Abstract_Class() macro that allows abstract classes to be used in signal declarations as type.

• Added cNEDValue::parseQuantity()

• New result filter: removeRepeats

• Feature: Just-in-Time debugging support. It adds the following new configuration options: debugger-attach-on-startup=, debugger-attach-on-error=, debugger-attach-command=, debugger-attach-wait-time=. When any of the first two options are set to true, the simulation kernel will launch an external debugger attached to the simulation process at the appropriate time. The default debugger on Linux is Nemiver.

NED:

• More freedom in NED property syntax: (1) Hyphens, dots and colons are now allowed in property names and indices; and (2) values no longer need to be enclosed in quotes if they contain parens, provided that parens are balanced.

Tkenv:

• Feature: Animation filters (right-click on any message, and select "Exclude messages like '...' from animation" from the context menu.)

• Feature: "Debug Next Event" (Ctrl+F9). It causes the simulation program to stop in the debugger just before entering the handleMessage() call.

• Fixes and workarounds for various issues on Mac OS X (poor animation speed, missing icons on OS X Mavericks, hang on the F5 key, etc.)

• Fix: the "Filter Window Contents" dialog could lose state

• Source cleanup (consistent naming style for Tcl procedures)

IDE:

• Use Eclipse 4.3 as base platform

• Support for project-specific images: icons from the "images/" folder of the project and its dependencies are automatically used by the NED editor, and added to the Tkenv image path when the simulation is launched. (The folder name is currently hardcoded; it will become configurable in future versions.)

• Sequence Chart: Fixed bug that caused including the same reuses multiple times. Fixed error handling when the error occurs in paint during startup.

Improved support for C++11, Mac OS X:

• The source now compiles without any warning with both gcc and clang, using the "-std=c++11 -Wall" flags (clang is the default compiler on OS X since version 10.9 Mavericks).

• Added proper support for cross-compilation using ./configure --host=i686-w64-mingw32

• Updated install instructions for OS X 10.9 Mavericks. Specifically, gdb is no longer distributed with OS X; users are expected to install it themselves from MacPorts, and digitally sign it.

• IDE: fixed the launcher not to throw error if the toolchain is clang.

• Updated the source to compile with both Bison 2.3 and 3.0

Bugs fixed: https://github.com/omnetpp/omnetpp/issues?q=is%3Aissue+is%3Aclosed+milestone%3A4.4

OMNeT++ 4.3.2 (August 2023)

This is a modernized version of omnetpp-4.3.1 that makes it possible to build and use the now 10-year-old package in today's software environments. The primary objective of this release is to facilitate the execution of old simulation models, e.g. for reproducing simulation results or as a basis of porting them to more recent versions of OMNeT++.

Changes:

• Source code updated for C++11 compatibility, and to eliminate warnings issued by modern C++ compilers. Backported several smaller fixes.

• Adjusted to make the code compatible with more recent versions of Tcl/Tk libraries. In addition to the original Tcl/Tk-8.4 and BLT-2.4z, Tkenv now works with Tcl/Tk-8.6 and BLT-2.5.3, too.

• Updated to compile with both Bison 2.3 and 3.0.

• Updated the setenv and configure scripts, to make them more consistent with those in more recent or modernized releases. This includes:

  1. configure now mandates having setenv sourced before it runs.
  2. setenv now sets OMNETPP_IMAGE_PATH, in order to prevent model frameworks from accidentally making omnetpp's bundled icons unaccessible from Tkenv by simply appending to OMNETPP_IMAGE_PATH.
  3. configure now creates configure.user from configure.user.dist if it does not already exist.

• Allow running tests in other than "debug" mode.

OMNeT++ 4.3.1 (Sept 2013)

The IDE was made more friendly to first-time users:

• When the IDE is started with an empty workspace (e.g. on first-time launch), it offers the user the following options: (1) Import the OMNeT++ sample simulations into the workspace; and (2) Download and install the INET Framework.

• The latter function is also available via the Help > Install Simulation Models... menu item. The menu item brings up a dialog with the list of simulation models available for automated installation, and lets the user choose. Currently only the INET Framework is listed there, but it is planned to add further models.

• When the IDE is started for the first time, it now displays some helpful introductory pages in the editor area: "Getting Started" (practical advice for getting past the first 10 minutes spent in the IDE); "At a Glance" (explains the common file types like NED, msg and ini, and their purposes); "OMNeT++ Samples" (describes each example simulation in two sentences, then provides links for opening the project, viewing the README, launching the simulation, etc.) These pages are also available from the Help system (except the last one, which has a dedicated menu item under the Help menu.)

Further IDE improvements:

• IDE launcher script: fixed #670 (vmargs conflict between omnetpp.ini and the launcher script). This bug could cause IDE crashes by PermGenSpace exhaustion.

• Analysis Tool, Output Vector View: show "Go to" actions in the context menu (instead of the view's pulldown menu)

• Analysis Tool: fixed #389 (Useless items in the Statistic Name filter): The filter hints of combos is now computed from the result items filtered by the other 2 combos.

• Analysis Tool: fixed #388 (add '.host[].*' variant to module filter hints)

• Ability to import sample projects even if workspace is different from omnetpp/samples

• Trying to launch a closed project will now offer opening it

• NED documentation generator: fixed #672 (Illegal group reference error)

• Changed default appearance of the main welcome page to be more user friendly

• Some other bug fixes

Bugs fixed: https://github.com/omnetpp/omnetpp/issues?q=is%3Aissue+is%3Aclosed+milestone%3A4.3.1

OMNeT++ 4.3 (March 2013)

IDE:

• Updated to Eclipse 3.8.2.

• The CDT debugger no longer stops at the main() function by default.

• The bundled GDB has been downgraded to 7.4, due to problems with the one in the 4.3rc1 version

Tools:

• The configure script now correctly detects the X headers on Mac OS X 10.8.

Bugs fixed: https://github.com/omnetpp/omnetpp/issues?q=is%3Aissue+is%3Aclosed+milestone%3A4.3

OMNeT++ 4.3rc1 (Jan 2013)

IDE:

• Analysis tool: added support for computed scalars. Read the updated the User Guide for further details.

• Analysis tool: added 'Logarithmic X axis' option to scatter chart.

• Added NED editor support for named channels.

• Added support for opening files from the command line, i.e. use: `omnetpp Aloha.ned``

• Added full screen mode (Ctrl-Shift-F11).

• Usability improvements in the Analysis Tool.

• Better error reporting in the Sequence Chart and Event Log views.

• The CDT C++ code analyzer has been turned off as it was reporting too many false positives.

• The IDE has been switched over to use CDT's DSF debugger instead of the older CDI.

• The IDE no longer runs the C/C++ Indexer before build (the code now collects the information for makefile dependency generation by other means)

• Added pretty printing of STL containers (std::map, etc), simtime_t and other objects to the debugger; see the updated User Guide for details.

• Updated the bundled MinGW (GCC, linker and GDB).

• Updated to Eclipse 3.8.1; the IDE now requires Java 1.6+.

NED:

• Added named channels support, e.g. "...<--> eth1: EthernetChannel <-->...", with the purpose of making it easier to address channel objects when assigning parameters from ini files. Channel definitions can now specify a default name (via the @defaultname property), too.

Sim:

• Added the cPatternMatcher and cMatchExpression utility classes to the API. cPatternMatcher is a glob-style pattern matching class. cMatchExpression builds on top of cPatternMatcher and lets you combine patterns with AND, OR, NOT for matching fields of arbitrary objects.

• Added hasEncapsulatedPacket() to cPacket.

• Implemented calculateWeightedSingleShortestPathsTo() in cTopology.

• Signals implementation now allows static initialization of simsignal_t variables.

• Fixed a bug in Expression where '-2m' was evaluated to '2' (meter was lost)

Tools:

• The simulator now supports Mac OS X 10.8 (you need to install XQuartz; see the Install Guide)

• Simplified makefile output: Makefiles now output only the filenames to the console instead of whole commands. This makes the build output less noisy. If you need the old behavior, use the 'V=1' (verbose on) option on the make command line.

Bugs fixed: https://github.com/omnetpp/omnetpp/issues?q=is%3Aissue+is%3Aclosed+milestone%3A4.3rc1

OMNeT++ 4.2.3 (August 2023)

This is a modernized version of omnetpp-4.2.2 that makes it possible to build and use the now 11-year-old package in today's software environments. The primary objective of this release is to facilitate the execution of old simulation models, e.g. for reproducing simulation results or as a basis of porting them to more recent versions of OMNeT++.

Changes:

• Source code updated for C++11 compatibility, and to eliminate warnings issued by modern C++ compilers. Backported several smaller fixes.

• Adjusted to make the code compatible with more recent versions of Tcl/Tk libraries. In addition to the original Tcl/Tk-8.4 and BLT-2.4z, Tkenv now works with Tcl/Tk-8.6 and BLT-2.5.3, too.

• Updated to compile with both Bison 2.3 and 3.0.

• Updated the setenv and configure scripts, to make them more consistent with those in more recent or modernized releases. This includes:

  1. configure now mandates having setenv sourced before it runs.
  2. setenv now sets OMNETPP_IMAGE_PATH, in order to prevent model frameworks from accidentally making omnetpp's bundled icons unaccessible from Tkenv by simply appending to OMNETPP_IMAGE_PATH.
  3. configure now creates configure.user from configure.user.dist if it does not already exist.

• Allow running tests in other than "debug" mode.

OMNeT++ 4.2.2 (March 2012)

Bugs fixed: https://github.com/omnetpp/omnetpp/issues?q=is%3Aissue+is%3Aclosed+milestone%3A4.2.2

OMNeT++ 4.2.1 (Jan 2012)

Bugs fixed: https://github.com/omnetpp/omnetpp/issues?q=is%3Aissue+is%3Aclosed+milestone%3A4.2.1

OMNeT++ 4.2 (Nov 2011)

Bugs fixed: https://github.com/omnetpp/omnetpp/issues?q=is%3Aissue+is%3Aclosed+milestone%3A4.2

OMNeT++ 4.2rc2 (Nov 2011)

Documentation:

• Revised and significantly expanded the "C++ Development" chapter in the User Guide to better assist model developers; smaller improvements in other chapters

Tools:

• Updated MSYS and MinGW binaries in the Windows distribution.

• The build system now creates 64-bit binaries on Mac OS X 10.6 and 10.7 (if your processor supports it). Previously the -m32 flag was added to the GCC command line to force the creation of 32-bit binaries. (This was necessary because earlier versions of CDT did not support 64-bit debugging).

• Enabled pretty-printing of variables in gdb (see below)

IDE:

• Better C++ debugging experience: std::string, std::vector, std::map and other standard classes as well as simtime_t are now displayed in a meaningful way; simulation objects (cObject) display their full paths. This functionality is enabled by gdb pretty printer extensions written in Python, and is thus available for command-line gdb debugging too. For activating the pretty printers, see misc/gdb/README.

• NED documentation generator improvements: better-looking tables in the generated documentation; running Doxygen is now cancellable; etc.

• Dropped PowerPC support for the IDE because Mac OS X 10.7 no longer supports this architecture.

Sim:

• Refactored operator= and copy constructor in all classes. Now they delegate to the same function in the super class, and the common part of the two is factored out to private copy() functions.

• Fixed all warnings to make it compile using -Wall -Werror.

• Coroutines used for 'activities' are now implemented using the swapcontext() POSIX call (if it is available on the system).

Sample simulations:

• Database example revived. It demonstrates using database as configuration source, as storage for output scalars and vectors, and as source of network topology. Currently it works with MySQL.

Countless bug fixes and smaller improvements.

Bugs fixed: https://github.com/omnetpp/omnetpp/issues?q=is%3Aissue+is%3Aclosed+milestone%3A4.2rc2

OMNeT++ 4.2rc1 (Aug 2011)

Ini files:

• Ini files: iterations (${...}) can now refer to other iteration variables, using the dollar or the dollar-brace syntax ($var or ${var}). This improvement makes it possible to have loops where the inner iteration range depends on the outer one. When needed, the default top-down nesting order of iteration loops is modified (loops are reordered) to ensure that expressions only refer to more outer loop variables, but not to inner ones. When this is not possible, an error is generated with the "circular dependency" message. Variables are substituted textually, and the text resulting from substitution is NOT evaluated except in the '.. step ' syntax, and in the 'constraint=' ini file option. CAUTION: textual substitution means that variables in arithmetic expressions should be protected with parentheses. The text substitution model was chosen for greater flexibility as well as the ability to produce a more consistent semantics. See src/envir/ChangeLog for more details.

• Incompatible change: In the constraint= configuration option, variables now MUST be referenced with the dollar sign ($foo or ${foo} syntax), and also be surrounded with parens (to ensure precedence after the textual variable substitution). For example, the expression x+y<10 must be changed to $x+$y<10, or for greater safety, to ($x)+($y)<10.

• Parallel iteration: it is now supported to use named iteration variables and parallel iteration together (${foo=...!bar} syntax.) This was not supported previously.

• Some iteration-related error messages have been improved to provide more context.

Sim:

• Result filter/recorder interfaces and registration macros made public (moved to src/sim), so that users can contribute their own result filters and recorders. Files: cresultlistener.h, cresultfilter.h cresultrecorder.h. Result filters have to be subclassed from cResultFilter or the more specific cNumericResultFilter or cObjectResultFilter base classes and registered with the Register_ResultFilter() macro; result recorders have to be subclassed from cResultRecorder or the more specific cNumericResultRecorder, and registered with the Register_ResultRecorder() macro. After that, the new filter or recorder can be used in the source= and record= attributes of @statistic, and with the **.result-recording-modes configuration option.

• The Define_Function() macros have been renamed to Define_NED_Math_Function(). For backwards compatibility, the old macro definitions remain, but issue a deprecation warning. Note that the preferred way of defining new NED functions is now the Define_NED_Function() macro.

• The API for custom NED functions defined via Define_NED_Function() has been changed. cDynamicExpression::Value (the old value class) has been factored out to a new cNEDValue class. Data members are no longer public, they can be manipulated via various methods. NOTE: This change is NOT backwards compatible: user-supplied NED functions will need to be revised. Look at src/sim/nedfunctions.cc for code examples.

• Measurement unit support: added "mps" (m/s) and "kmph" (km/h) as recognized units; changed "Kbps" to the more standard "kbps"; changed byte multiples notation to use the now-standard IEC binary prefixes: KB -> KiB, MB -> MiB, GB -> GiB, TB -> TiB. The latter changes affect backwards compatibility, i.e. you may need to update existing models.

Tools:

• opp_run: bugfix: release-mode simulation models compiled as shared libraries could not be run using a debug-mode opp_run program (they either crashed or reported that a module was not registered with the Register_Module() macro.) As part of the fix, a new opp_run_release program has been introduced, and opp_run (which is now always compiled as debug) delegates to it when necessary. Due to makefile changes related to the fix, you may need to re-create the makefiles of your simulation when upgrading to OMNeT++ 4.2. (You only need to do that when working on the command line. The IDE automatically recreates the makefiles, so no action is needed on your part if you are using only the IDE.) See src/envir/ChangeLog for details of this change.

• Implemented number filter expressions using multiple inputs for statistics source expressions. For example:

   @statistic[dropRate](source="count(packetDropped)/count(packetSent)");
  

• opp_msgc: improvement: announcements and type definitions now observe whether they are above the namespace declaration (=outside the namespace) or below it (=inside the namespace). This change makes it consistent with cplusplus blocks that had this behavior for quite some time. A related improvement is that type lookup in namespaces has been modified to make it possible to use unqualified names when declaring fields. See src/nedxml/ChangeLog for details.

• Akaroa support improved; samples/aloha/akaroa.ini was added as example

Documentation:

• Several chapters in the User Manual have been updated; especially, the Message Definitions section was turned into a separate chapter, and was completely revised.

IDE:

• Upgraded to Eclipse 3.7

• Added Eclipse Marketplace to the Help menu. You can now install additional features from the market.

• Before running the simulations, the IDE will show the command line in the console view to help you execute the same simulation from the command line.

• Ctrl-Tab now works on freshly opened NED files even if you do not explicitly select a simple module. In that case, the IDE opens the .h and .cc files associated with the first simple module in the NED file.

• Improvement on the Manage Build Configurations dialog: newly created build configurations are now configured, by copying the source entries from one of the existing build configurations.

• Project Makemake Options property page: overhaul for better usability.

• Documentation generator: turn on JAVADOC_AUTOBRIEF in newly generated doxy.cfg files. (When this option is on, there is no need for @brief in C++ doxy comments; instead the first sentence of the comment is taken automatically as brief description.)

• Bug fixes on: IDE makefile generator; the Project Features feature; the Inifile Editor (hover info, content assist, etc); the NED editor (display string proposals for connections and channels, etc.); Organize Imports feature; NED documentation generator; Simulation Launcher (e.g. launching folders with simulations in them works again);

• SVN support removed from the IDE. It had very few users, and can be installed from the Market if needed.

• Removed Animation Player as it was only a "technology preview" bundled with the beta releases to gather feedback from the user community. The animator is scheduled to appear in the next major OMNeT++ release.

Bugs fixed: https://github.com/omnetpp/omnetpp/issues?q=is%3Aissue+is%3Aclosed+milestone%3A4.2rc1

OMNeT++ 4.2b2 (May 2011)

Most important feature: "Project Features" (see below).

NED:

• Added support for conditional submodules. Syntax:

   udp: UDP if needsUDP {...}
   tcp: <tcpType> like ITCP if needsTCP {...}
  

• Added the xml() NED function, which accepts a string argument and parses it as XML. Its most notable use is eliminating "empty.xml" files from INET: one can use xml("") in NED files instead.

• Implemented default value for parametric submodule and channel types. NED now supports the following syntax:

   mobility: <default("NullMobility")> like IMobility;
  

  The effect is that the NullMobility NED type will be used for the mobility submodule if the type name is not specified otherwise, e.g. in the config- uration with something like

   **.mobility.type-name = "ConstSpeedMobility"
  

• Added the firstAvailable() NED function, which is helpful with the Project Features feature (see below). It accepts any number of strings (see new varargs support for NED functions), interprets them as NED type names (either short names or fully qualified names), and returns the first one that exists and is also "available" (its C++ implementation class exists). Example usage:

   tcp: <default(firstAvailable("TCP_lwIP", "TCP_NSC", "TCP"))> {..}
  

  It chooses the TCP_lwIP, TCP_NSC or TCP module type for the tcp submodule, in this order, unless the type is explicitly defined to be something else in the configuration.

• Parametric submodule type can now also be specified in NED files, using patterns that end in the new "typename" keyword. An example:

   network Net {
       parameters:
           host[*].tcp.typename = "TCP_lwIP";
           ...
   }
  

Ini files:

• The "type-name" per-object configuration option (**.typename=) has been renamed in to "typename", for consistency with the similar new NED feature.

Sim:

• Implemented varargs support for NED functions. If the signature (see Define_NED_Function() and Define_NED_Function2() macros) ends in ", ...", then the function will accept any number of additional arguments of any type. At runtime, the implementation has access to both the actual number and types of args. When passing extra args, optional arguments (those marked with '?' in the signature) must all be present, i.e. varargs can only come when all typed args are there.

IDE:

• Upgraded to Eclipse 3.6.2

• Implemented the "Project Features" feature, which makes it possible to disable unused parts ("features") of a project to reduce compilation time and complexity. It has been invented to help INET Framework users and developers deal with the growing size of the framework. Features are described in the project's .oppfeatures file, authored by INET developers. Users can activate/deactivate features in the Project Features page of the Project Properties dialog (this page is directly accessible from the Project menu and from the Build Configurations submenu of the project's context menu in Project Explorer). Features map to NED packages and C++ source folders; disabling a feature maps to NED package exclusion, and folder exclusion in CDT (C++ Development) configuration. Features can also define C/C++ symbols (for #ifdefs), and extra libraries to link with. At build time, the IDE checks the project's configuration (NED, CDT) and if it is inconsistent with the selected features, it offers fixing it. Features can also be used from the command line by exporting Makefiles (or opp_makemake commands) that reflect a particular enablement of features.

• Support for excluding (disabling) NED packages. This feature is needed for the Project Features feature. Exclusions can be edited on the NED Source Folders project property page, and are saved into the project's .nedfolders file.

IDE/Animation Player:

• Implemented lazy loading of the eventlog file: the tool can now animate large eventlog files with acceptable performance.

• Animation effects refined, e.g. packet transmission on a datarate channel.

• Heavy bugfixing. Note that the tool is still being actively developed, and it is generally not yet ready for everyday use.

IDE/Inifile Editor:

• Usability: the editor now comes up with the page (text or form) that was used last time, and not always with the form editor. (When you flip the editor to the other page, the page type is stored in the preferences. When an editor is opened, the setting is read from the preferences and the corresponding page is activated.)

• Improved text hover (F2) and hyperlink (Ctrl+click) support: the editor can now show information and go to the definition of modules that occur in the inifile key. For example, for a **.host[*].tcp.sackSupport = true line, the user can hover over (or Ctrl+click) the host[*] part, and the editor will show relevant information and go to the definition of the host[] submodule vector in the NED network description.

• Improved content assist: per-object configuration options are now filtered by the type of object that the key refers to; for example, if you type **.ppp[*].txPkBytes. <Ctrl+Space>, the editor will know from the NED files that txPkBytes is a statistic, and offer completions accordingly.

• Content assist: different types of completions (modules, parameters, statistics, configuration options, etc) are now marked with icons.

• Markers on included inifiles are now removed when the main inifile is closed. (Fix for #176)

• Added the Copy action to the Module Parameters view context menu: you can now select the key for an unassigned parameter in the view, and copy/paste it into the editor area.

IDE/Wizards:

• New Tictoc Example and New Source-Sink Example wizards: fix: the root Makefile executed opp_makemake in the src/ folder at each build, overwriting the IDE-generated Makefile.

• New OMNeT++ Project wizard template: now it is possible to set "custom make" for a folder: specify <foldername>:CUSTOM in the makemakeOptions= template variable in template.properties. Use . to name the project root folder. Example: makemakeOptions = .: CUSTOM, src: --deep -meta:recurse...

• New option for template.properties: preRunTemplate=. Example: preRunTemplate = main.fti. The option causes the given template file to be evaluated for its side effects, just after the user hits Finish but before any file is copied or template is evaluated. It is not allowed to produce text output, but the variables it sets will be substituted into other template.properties variables, and will also be available in other template files. (Note: all other templates are run in isolation, and cannot change variables for other templates!) The preRunTemplate option is the only way to programmatically set the value of makemakeOptions and similar template.properties options.

IDE/Graphical Editor:

• Switched back double-click behavior to Open NED Type action. The Properties dialog can now opened with Ctrl+Enter (Alt+Enter was unavailable.)

IDE/Sequence Chart and Event Log:

• Added show/hide options for arrows that represent mixed dependencies. (Such arrows are drawn when the sequence chart is filtered, and represent e.g. a sequence of message sendings and self-messages)

• Eventlog: enhanced performance of event tracing filter

• Simulations now record the termination message and result code into the eventlog file

• Note: eventlog file format has changed (in order to better serve the Animation Tool) -- .elog files recorded with any prior version of OMNeT++ have to be re-recorded.

Bugs fixed: https://github.com/omnetpp/omnetpp/issues?q=is%3Aissue+is%3Aclosed+milestone%3A4.2b2

OMNeT++ 4.2b1 (Feb 2011)

Partial list of changes since 4.1 (see ChangeLog files in individual folders for a more complete list):

Simulation runtime:

• Removed #include <winsock.h> from <platdep/timeutil.h>; the reason is that it conflicted with lwIP code recently integrated into INET. <platdep/sockets.h> still includes <winsock.h>, but now <platdep/sockets.h> (and <platdep/timeutil.h>) MUST precede <omnetpp.h> in all source files.

• Ini files: implemented multiple inheritance for sections. Syntax:

   [Config Foobar]
   extends = Foo, Bar
  

  When the runtime looks for a config option or param assignment, sections are examined in a "fallback order" until the first match is found. In the above example the order would be: Foobar, Foo, Bar, General. OMNeT++ uses C3 linearization to compute the section fallback order, see e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C3_linearization

• Ini files: better parsing for iteration variables, e.g. the value in ${x=uniform(1,2)} is now parsed as one item, not as "uniform(1" and "2)". Nested parens/brackets/braces and string literals are recognized; escaping commas and close-braces is now possible using backslash.

• NED: fixed deep parameter assignments: parameter references were interpreted in the wrong context. Deep parameter assignments are when an inifile-like pattern is used to name the parameter(s) to be set, as in:

   network Inet {
       parameters:
           host[*].tcp.nagleEnabled = true;
       ...
   }
  

• Resolved spurious errors: 'Class "..." not found -- perhaps its code was not linked in, or the class wasn't registered with Register_Class()' Added a check to ensure that the debug and the release versions of the simulation library are not loaded at the same time. This problem occurred when a model was built as 'release' and the debug version of 'opp_run' was used to start it. As a result, the simulation seemingly started but complained about missing classes.

• Fix: Some classes were thrown out by the linker if OMNeT++ was statically built, and the simulation was complaining at runtime about the missing cCompoundModule class.

• Eventlog recording: .elog file format change: message creations and duplications (cloning) are now recorded; MC (ModuleCreated) entries now precede GC (GateCreated) entries. IMPORTANT: The sequence chart in the IDE will only work on .elog files in the new format, existing event logs need to be re-recorded!

IDE/Animation Player:

• This is a new component in the IDE, you can access it by right-clicking an .elog file and selecting "Open With / OMNeT++ Animation Player" from the context menu. This is a preliminary implementation (Technology Preview) not yet optimized for large files, the practical maximum file size it can handle is about 10MB.

IDE/C++ Development:

• Added a new "Clean Local" item to the project's context menu that does not clean referenced projects. This resolves the problem that CDT's "Clean Project" command also cleans the referenced projects, e.g. if you have a Foo project that depends on INET, cleaning Foo also cleans INET which takes a long time to recompile. Now you can use the "Clean Local" command to clean Foo only.

• Added new "OMNeT++ Code Formatter" profile. This coding convention follows the rules used in the OMNeT++ kernel and the INET Framework. (No tabs, etc.)

• Added MachO64 binary parsers and error parsers. This makes it possible to debug a 64-bit executable on Mac OS X 10.6

• Linux only: Added support for profiling with Valgrind. To activate this feature, select "Profile as... / OMNeT++ Simulation" from the Project Explorer context menu. This feature requires Valgrind to be installed on your system. (Note: the main IDE toolbar does not show a Profile button next to the Run and Debug buttons at this time, but profiling is still available via the Project Explorer context menu.)

• The Makemake page in Project Properties can now fix the "Source Folders differ across configurations" problem in the project setup, which usually occurs when you add a build configuration to an existing project later. The dialog now displays a "Fix it" link.

IDE/Graphical Editor:

• Several performance optimizations for the NED Editor. It can open much larger files than before. NED validation is done now in a background thread and does not block the UI.

• Select 'NED Type Selection' dialog now works correctly on first open. It shows the defining projects for the types.

• Enhanced drag and drop capabilities in NED Graphical Editor. You can drop NED types into a compound module either to create submodules (if you drop it into the submodule area), or to turn it into an inner type (if you drop on the title of the compound module).

• The Graphical Editor now displays the file's package name at the top.

• Graphical Editor displays self-connections as arcs in the module's upper right corner.

• The resize/move feedback figures have been changed from a simple outline to translucent blue.

• Added a 'Properties' dialog that can edit one or several objects at a time, and allows you to change graphical and type information. It also has a preview panel.

• Enhanced editing of type fields in the 'Property View'. The editor correctly enumerates the possible choices and adds an import statement if necessary.

• 'Open Type' and 'Open Supertype' have been reassigned to the F3 function key. Double-click now opens the 'Properties' dialog.

• The IDE now uses the use native (C++) layouter code for placing unpinned submodules, which means better performance and consistency with the simulation runtime (Tkenv).

IDE/Inifile Editor:

• Support for inifile improvements in this release, namely multiple section inheritance and better parsing for iteration variables

• Performance improvements: inifile is now analyzed in the background so that it does not block the UI, and features that need its results (hover text, content assist, etc) have a timeout how long they are willing to wait for it (see bug #132 for details). It is now also possible to disable inifile analysis. Further performance and UI responsiveness improvements are planned.

IDE/Sequence Chart:

• Added 'Go to Simulation Time' and 'Go to Event Number' in the context menu.

• 'Go to Simulation Time' in the 'Event Log' view now supports relative values.

• The Sequence Chart tool now knows about message creations and duplications (cloning), and as a result, in certain situations it is now able to better identify relationships between events and draw a better sequence chart. NOTE: Due to changes in the .elog file format, the tool will only work with newly recorded files. Existing event logs need to be re-recorded!

IDE/Launcher:

• The command-line for launching the simulation now uses relative paths instead of absolute ones. This makes the starting command-line easier to understand.

IDE/Documentation Generator:

• Added tilde notation as an alternative to automatic hyperlinking of module names in comments. The latter was often too aggressive (e.g. linking to the IP module in the phrase "IP address" is wrong). Automatic hyperlinking can now be turned off in the generator, and then the user is expected to mark words to be hyperlinked with a tilde: "the ~IP module". The INET Framework has already been converted to use the tilde notation.

• Added Javascript to autoload frameset page if a content page is opened by itself. This is useful when URLs to specific content pages are posted on the mailing list or sent over email.

• Implemented @include in NED comments. Lines in the included file don't have to start with "//", but otherwise they are processed exactly as NED comment text.

• Fix: External pages (@externalpage) now appear under the "Selected Topics" node of the navigation tree in the generated documentation.

• Several minor fixes: recognize the <u> (underline) HTML tag; sanitize the file names for @page; added/refined test cases

Tkenv:

• Parallel simulation: Placeholder modules are now displayed with a semi- transparent icon (or if it's a rectangle or oval, with dotted border).

• Fix (bug #248): compute coordinates (and sizes) in double and not int; necessary if background scaling (bgs display string tag) is set up.

• Better choice of default user interface font, especially on Linux.

• The generic UI font and the font used in graphics are now configurable in the Simulation Options dialog.

• The default font for log text is now proportional (same as the generic UI font), for better readability and space efficiency. It can be customized (switched back to a monospace font, etc) in the Simulation Options dialog.

• Minor: menu items have been changed to title case

• Tcl errors are now logged into .tkenvlog instead of dumping them on stdout.

Misc:

• Added -g option to 'scavetool scalar' command. You can specify how the scalars are grouped into columns/variables.

• The build system can now build large projects on windows. The 32K command-line limitation has been resolved.

• Updated base system to Eclipse 3.6.1

• Added a detailed IDE change log file doc/IDE-Changes

Bugs fixed: https://github.com/omnetpp/omnetpp/issues?q=is%3Aissue+is%3Aclosed+milestone%3A4.2b1

OMNeT++ 4.1.1 (August 2023)

This is a modernized version of omnetpp-4.1 that makes it possible to build and use the now 13-year-old package in today's software environments. The primary objective of this release is to facilitate the execution of old simulation models, e.g. for reproducing simulation results or as a basis of porting them to more recent versions of OMNeT++.

Changes:

• Source code updated for C++11 compatibility, and to eliminate warnings issued by modern C++ compilers. Backported several smaller fixes.

• Adjusted to make the code compatible with more recent versions of Tcl/Tk libraries. In addition to the original Tcl/Tk-8.4 and BLT-2.4z, Tkenv now works with Tcl/Tk-8.6 and BLT-2.5.3, too.

• Updated to compile with both Bison 2.3 and 3.0.

• Backported the setcontext()/switchcontext() based coroutine library from omnetpp-4.2, to make activity() modules work again. (The original "portable coroutines" library which used setjmp()/longjmp() to switch stacks no longer works with recent glibc versions.)

• Updated the setenv and configure scripts, to make them more consistent with those in more recent or modernized releases. This includes:

  1. configure now mandates having setenv sourced before it runs.
  2. setenv now sets OMNETPP_IMAGE_PATH, in order to prevent model frameworks from accidentally making omnetpp's bundled icons unaccessible from Tkenv by simply appending to OMNETPP_IMAGE_PATH.
  3. configure now creates configure.user from configure.user.dist if it does not already exist.

• Allow running tests in other than "debug" mode.

• Added missing dependency to enable parallel build.

OMNeT++ 4.1 (June 2010)

Changes after 4.1rc2:

• Testing on various Linux distros, updated Installation Guide

• Simulation error messages now contain the event number and the simulation time

• Tkenv: contents of simulation error dialogs are now inserted into the main window as well, for reference and easier copy/paste

• Various bug fixes

Bugs fixed: https://github.com/omnetpp/omnetpp/issues?q=is%3Aissue+is%3Aclosed+milestone%3A4.1

OMNeT++ 4.1 rc2 (June 2010)

Simulation kernel:

• cChannel: added forceTransmissionFinishTime(simtime t), so that channels can support aborted transmissions (needed e.g. for Ethernet).

• cChannel: added getNominalDatarate(). This is often needed in models, for example in INET to fill in the interface entry.

• added forgetXMLDocument(filename) and flushXMLDocumentCache() to cEnvir (see bug #131)

• cPar: added a note to the xmlValue() method that the lifetime of the returned objects may be limited. Modules should NOT hang on to cXMLElement pointers between events!

Envir:

• Ini file inclusion now behaves as textual substitution: if an included ini file does not contain [General] or [Config XXX] lines, the file's content will be treated as if copy/pasted into the section containing the include. Ini files that do not start with a section heading will now be accepted and treated as if they started with [General]. Rationale: allow factoring out orthogonal pieces of config into separate files.

IDE:

• Added support for the m tag on connections allowing to set the preferred directions of a connection between a submodule and its compound module.

Misc:

• various fixes on Tkenv, the IDE and the build system

Bugs fixed: https://github.com/omnetpp/omnetpp/issues?q=is%3Aissue+is%3Aclosed+milestone%3A4.1rc2

OMNeT++ 4.1 rc1 (May 2010)

Partial list of changes since 4.1b4 (see ChangeLog files in individual folders for a more complete list):

Simulation kernel:

• Enter_Method_Silent() may now take arguments (a printf-like arg list), and it logs the call into the event log file.

• Re-added cChannel::calculateDuration() that was removed in 4.1b3

• Fix: exponential(), normal(), truncnormal() and geometric() could produce +INF, due to log(dblrand()) in their code where dblrand() can produce zero. As a side-effect of the fix, the fingerprints of all simulations that use those distributions as input have changed.

NED:

• New NED function: expand(). It substitutes ${} config variables into a string. Example usage in a NED parameter:

   string fileName = default(expand("${resultdir}/${configname}-${runnumber}.txt"));
  

MSG:

• Implemented @sizetype property for array fields; it can be used to specify the C++ type of the array size and array indices (by default it is unsigned int).

• Fix: A "using namespace" line inside a cplusplus {{...}} block confused the parser.

Tkenv:

• Implemented bilinear filtering for image/icon resize in Tkenv.

• Simulation Options dialog: layouting algorithm can now be chosen from Fast, Advanced and Adaptive (default: Adaptive)

• Implemented minimum icon size, resize window on layout and auto-adjust zoom options. New controls in the Simulation Options dialog:

  • "[] Resize window to fit network with current zoom level first"
  • "[] Adjust zoom so that network fills window"
  • "Minimum icon size when zoomed out (pixels)"

• Added hotkeys for zoom in/out: Ctrl+N and Ctrl+M. Ctrl+N was already used by "Toggle module name", it was reassigned to Ctrl+D.

• Improvements on the classic ("fast") layouting algorithm

• Application icon for Tkenv

• Several bug fixes (see ChangeLog)

IDE:

• Analysis Tool: charts now support a much higher zoom level

• NED Documentation Generator: generating full inheritance and usage diagrams can now be turned off (they were often too busy to be useful)

• Several other bug fixes

Bugs fixed: https://github.com/omnetpp/omnetpp/issues?q=is%3Aissue+is%3Aclosed+milestone%3A4.1rc1

OMNeT++ 4.1 beta 4 (April 2010)

Simulation kernel:

• Added statistics to the built-in channel types, ned.DatarateChannel and ned.DelayChannel. They are not recorded by default; recording can be turned on with "**.channel.result-recording-modes = all" in the configuration. DatarateChannel records the following: busy state (as vector); utilization (time average as scalar); number of packets (as scalar); number of bytes (as scalar); number of packets discarded in channel disabled state (as scalar); throughput (bps, as scalar). You can see the declarations of these statistics by running "opp_run -h neddecls".

• handleParameterChange() is now called for each component with NULL as the parameterName after the last stage of the initialization phase. This allows the components to refresh their cached parameter values if some parameters were changed during the initialization phase. Existing code needs to be updated to accept name=NULL and interpret it as "any parameter".

• signals framework: changes in the cIListener interface since the previous beta; changed cTimestampedValue class (which is used to emit a signal for statistics purposes with a different timestamp than the current simulation time) to support all data types

• histogram classes: added getters getNumFirstVals() and getRangeExtension- Factor(); for integer histograms, cell boundaries are now at whole numbers, not halfs; implemented dup(); default number of cells changed

• cChannel's process() method (which was introduced in the previous beta) was renamed to processMessage()

NED:

• Inner types can now refer to the parameters of their enclosing type.

• Statistics recording: introduced the source=key within the @statistic property, which lets you use a derived value as statistic. For example: @statistic[dropPercent](source=100*dropRatio;record=vector,last), where dropRatio is a signal emitted from the module. This feature also lets one emit message or packet objects as signals, and record some property of them as statistics. For example: @statistic[bytesSent](source=packetBytes(pkSent);record=sum).

• The @signal property can now be used to declare signals, for example those that can be used as source for @statistic. An example: @signal[pkSent](type=cPacket).

• Introduced optional statistic recording modes: now you can add optional items to the record= key of the @statistic property, by appending "?" to them. For example: @statistic[eed](record=vector?,histogram?,mean). By default, only non-optional items are active; optional ones can be turned on with **.result-recording-modes = all (see below).

• Implemented the @dynamic property. When a submodule is marked with @dynamic or @dynamic(true) inside a compound module, the submodule will not be instantiated at network setup; rather, it is expected that it will be instantiated at runtime, using dynamic module creation. A module created this way will pick up parameter values from the submodule declaration in the NED file as well as from the ini file. @dynamic submodules are displayed in the graphical NED editor as semi-transparent, but otherwise can be edited (and configured in the inifile editor) like other submodules.

Envir:

• The result-recording-mode= configuration option was renamed to result-recording-modes=.

• result-recording-modes now has support for optional recording modes (those marked with "?" in @statistic(record=..), see above). The value "default" selects non-optional modes from @statistic(record=..), and "all" selects all of them. The list can be fine-tuned by adding recording modes prefixed with "+" or "-" (for "add" and "remove", respectively). A lone "-" disables all recording modes. Some examples:

   **.result-recording-modes = default,+vector,-histogram
   **.result-recording-modes = all,-vector
   **.result-recording-modes = last
  

  The first one selects non-optional recording modes plus records everything as output vector, but disables histogram recording. The second one selects all recording modes but disables vector recording. The third one only records the last value from all statistics. There are further examples in src/envir/ChangeLog.

• Created a result filter and result recorder API, for filters/recorders that can be used in the source= and record= keys of @statistic. Result filters must subclass from ResultFilter, recorders subclass from ResultRecorder; classes must be registered with the Register_ResultFilter() and Register_ResultRecorder() macros.

• New command-line options: -h neddecls prints the NED declarations for built-in types (ned.DatarateChannel, etc); -h resultfilters and -h resultrecorders prints the list of available result filters and result recorders (such as min, max, mean, timeavg, last, histogram, vector, packetBytes, packetBits, etc).

• Result file change: integer histograms are now marked with "attr type int" instead of "attr isDiscrete 1" in output scalar files.

IDE:

• NED editor: added banner comment for module/channel types created graphically

• Ini file editor usability: more specific names for table columns in form editor; split "Output Files" page into "Result Recording" and "Event Log" pages in form editor

• Analysis editor: separate horizontal and vertical zoom controls; more usable context menu for charts; result file reading made more robust (better error messages on errors); at the same time, removed support for reading old-style (3.x) vector files

• Sequence Chart: more usable context menu; display of method calls and message reuse arrows turned off by default

• Improved the display of @statistic and @signal properties in Module Hierarchy view

• Dozens of bugfixes and other improvements

Tooling:

• Updated MinGW and MSYS tools in the Windows distribution. The new MSYS now should work on Win64 (although the compiler still produces 32bit code). The GCC compiler is updated to a pre-release version of MinGW 4.5 (this solves the debugging issues on Windows platform).

Build system:

• Extra long command lines are supported now for the MinGW linker. (Uses a temporary file to pass args to the linker if the command line is >32K.)

Tkenv:

• It is now possible to turn eventlog recording on/off interactively, not only via omnetpp.ini options; see "Toggle eventlog recording" toolbar button.

• Module initialization messages are now not printed; we added an option to turn them back on in the Simulation Options dialog.

Cmdenv:

• Printing of module initialization messages is now suppressed in express mode

Bugfixes since beta 3:

• in express mode, log messages (ev<<) were not recorded into the eventlog
• NED graphical editor added explicit "ned.IdealChannel" to connections
• NED editor failed to add blank lines between components created graphically
• pack/unpack error for "long long" type fixed (on MinGW compiler)
• fixed (reduced) the size of filter text field in the NED editor palette
• Go To C++ Definition in NED file is working again
• opp_test: %subst to understand backrefs ($1) in the replacement string
• many other bug fixes

Bugs fixed: https://github.com/omnetpp/omnetpp/issues?q=is%3Aissue+is%3Aclosed+milestone%3A4.1b4

OMNeT++ 4.1 beta 3 (March 2010)

Simulation library:

• New channel programming model. The user needs to override the process() method of cChannel, which has the following parameters: the message; the time the message will reach the source gate of the connection; and a reference to a struct (cChannel::result_t) in which the method should return the results. result_t fields to be filled in are the propagation delay, the transmission duration, and a flag to indicate whether to model that the message got lost in the channel (when this is set, the simulation kernel will delete the message after process() returns).

• New class: cHistogram. It is a merger of cDoubleHistogram and cLongHistogram (which have been kept for compatibility). cHistogram can work in "integers" or "doubles" mode; the difference is that in "integers mode", cell boundaries will be chosen to be integers. The default behavior is to automatically choose the mode after precollecting some (by default 100) observations. The significance of cHistogram is that the "histogram" recording mode of the new statistics framework (see below) uses cHistogram in its default setup.

• New statistics recording framework using signals. The module's C++ code emits statistics as signals, and collector objects are attached externally, by the simulation framework. Statistics are declared in NED files using @statistic properties, and actual recording (whether to record values as output vector, or as histogram, or the average/minimum/maximum etc value as scalars) can be configured from ini files. The runtime cost of statistics that are not recorded is minimal, which allows module authors to emit lots of statistics in the code, and let the end users decide which statistics they want to record and in what form. Earlier, such functionality would have required extensive C++ programming in module.

• Added a simTime() NED function that returns the current simulation time. simTime() makes it possible to create time-dependent distributions, e.g.: interArrivalTime = exponential(simTime()<10s ? 0.5s : 2s)

Envir:

• New configuration option: warmup-period. This is associated with the new statistics recording framework: when specified, values produced during the first X seconds of the simulation will not be calculated in the results. For existing statistics that are calculated manually inside modules and recorded e.g. as recordScalar() in finish(), the module C++ code of course needs to be modified to respect the warmup period; the length of the warmup period can be obtained from C++ code as simulation.getWarmupPeriod().

• New configuration option: result-recording-mode (renamed to ~-modes in beta4); this option specifies what to record from statistics declared in NED. Example value: vector,histogram,timeavg,min,max.

• New configuration option: debug-statistics-recording. When turned on, the simulation program will dump what result recorders have been attached to which module signals.

• Renamed "vector-recording-interval" configuration option to "vector-recording-intervals" (plural) which is a more precise name, plus more consistent with eventlog-recording-intervals.

NED:

• New properties associated with the statistics recording framework (above): @signal defines a signal emitted by the module, and @statistic defines a statistic that is available for recording. (A statistic can use a signal "as is", or can be some function of it; for example, a signal can be a packet, and a corresponding statistic can be the length of the packet.)

IDE:

• The IDE is now based on Eclipse 3.5.2 and CDT 6.0.2.

• Content assist for icons (with preview!), colors and other display string tags in the NED source editor. Content assist is now also supported for channel parameters, and @signal and @statistic properties.

• Statistic and signal declarations are now shown in the Module Hierarchy view.

• Content assist for statistics names in the ini file editor.

• Several usability enhancement in the Analysis Editor:

  • SVG export for charts.
  • Redesigned filter interface on the Browse Data page provides more space.
  • Tree view in the Browse Data page: it shows results in a tree organized along runs, modules, results and result properties as tree levels. Tree levels can be freely configured.
  • Charts in the Chart Sheet are resized fill the editor window automatically.
  • The number of columns can be configured on the Chart Sheet.

• Direct method calls can be visualized in Sequence Charts (needs to be turned on manually)

• Generated NED documentation now includes signal and statistic declarations.

• New FreeMarker template editor for editing of ".ftl" files, used for the new templated wizards feature (see 4.1b1).

Tooling:

• The git package has been updated to version 1.6.5.

Documentation:

• Extensive documentation review and proofreading.

Bugfixes since beta 2:

• Fixed regressions related to parameter handling.
• The IDE no longer crashes on multi-processor Windows machines.
• git commands are working correctly now on Windows (git merge etc.)
• The new version of Eclipse platform (3.5.2) solves the 'dead button' problem found on Linux systems with the latest version of GTK.
• Documentation generator now correctly generates docs from NED files containing the @titlepage property.
• Boolean parameters now can be recorded as scalars.

Bugs fixed: https://github.com/omnetpp/omnetpp/issues?q=is%3Aissue+is%3Aclosed+milestone%3A4.0b3

OMNeT++ 4.1 beta 2 (Jan 2010)

API:

• Added a "signal mechanism" to support emitting signals from a model. Signals can be used to decouple production of simulation results (statistics) from recording them, for model change notifications, publish-subscribe style module communication, and several other purposes. See the Manual for more information.

Simulation kernel:

• Source files are now compatible with GCC 4.4 version.

• Performance and memory optimizations.

IDE:

• Result charts and sequence diagrams can now be exported in SVG format. This allows the creation of publication quality charts and diagrams.

Tooling:

• The bundled MinGW GCC compiler and MSYS binaries have been updated to their latest version (on Windows).

Documentation:

• A very detailed Installation Guide has been created. It provides step-by-step installation instructions for the most popular operating systems.

• An IDE Developers Guide has been created that describes how to enhance the OMNeT++ IDE and extend it with new functionality.

Bugs fixed: https://github.com/omnetpp/omnetpp/issues?q=is%3Aissue+is%3Aclosed+milestone%3A4.0b2

OMNeT++ 4.1 beta 1 (Jan 2010)

Simulation kernel:

• Added setCapacity()/getCapacity() to cArray. setCapacity() can be used to trim back the internally allocated array after a large number of items have been removed from it.

• cGate: added getNameSuffix() method.

• FES performance improvement: cMessageHeap was changed to more efficiently handle the insertion and removal of events scheduled for the current simulation time. Such events are actually quite common due to plain (zero delay, zero datarate) connections between modules.

• Performance improvement: cMessage::getArrivalTime() was consuming 10-20% of CPU time in many configurations. Solution is return a reference (const simtime_t&) instead of a value.

• Fixed cPacketQueue::remove() incorrect behavior when called with a packet that was not in the queue

• Dynamic module creation: modules now pick up parameter values from the parent compound module's submodules section in the NED file. This will be useful with the @dynamic() submodule property (see later beta releases).

• Fix: parse() and some other cPar methods did not cause handleParameter- Changed() to be called on the owner module

• Many other bugfixes and improvements; see include/ChangeLog and src/sim/ChangeLog

NED:

• Deep parameter assignments: it is now possible to assign parameters of sub-submodules, sub-sub-submodules, etc. from a compound module, using inifile-like wildcards. For example, **.tcp.mss=1024 may be used in a network NED file to configure TCPs inside all hosts in the network. This feature also involves a slight NED DTD change (doc/ned2.dtd).

• Re-assigning a parameter that has an already assigned non-default value in an ancestor is no longer allowed.

• Compound modules may now have a custom C++ implementation class, i.e. the @class() property is now understood for compound modules as well

• Fix: operands of the '%' (integer modulo) NED operator now must be dimensionless (otherwise the result of truncation depends on the choice of the measurement unit)

Msg files:

• opp_msgc: fixed namespace support. It is now possible to use types from other namespaces as base class, field type, or field enum. The src/nedxml/ChangeLog file contains some examples for this.

• opp_msgc: improved cplusplus {{..}} blocks: their contents can be placed into or outside the namespace {...} block in the generated header file, depending on whether the block occurs before or after the namespace declaration in the msg file.

• opp_msgc: removed support for enum inheritance (which was an undocumented and generally unused feature, with several issues)

• opp_msgc: the message compiler can now be used to generate reflection info (cClassDescriptor) for existing classes. If you add @existingClass(true) into a message/class/struct, opp_msgc will not generate code for the class, only a descriptor object. (Corresponds to -Xnc command-line option.)

• opp_msgc: generating descriptors can also be controlled via properties now. @descriptor(false) instructs opp_msgc not to generate a cClassDescriptor, and @descriptor(readonly) instructs it not to generate field setters into the cClassDescriptor. (Corresponds to -Xnd, -Xns command-line options.)

Envir:

• When parallel simulation is enabled, host name and process ID will be included by default in the output file names.

• A related fix: host name and PID are now inserted before default file extension instead of appending them at the end.

IDE:

• The IDE is now based on Eclipse 3.5.1 and CDT 6.0.1.

IDE features:

• NED editor:

  • adaptive palette: items with matching @labels properties and those already in the compound module are shown at the top
  • palette filtering: easily accessible text field to filter palette contents (case insensitive substring search)
  • when creating connections, connection chooser now offers connections with matching gates, using @labels properties of gates
  • new parameter editor dialog for channels and modules
  • completion proposals for connection parameters
  • visual feedback for multiple and conditional connections
  • better validation of NED files in the editor

• Parameter grouping in the Module Hierarchy view

• The simulation launcher now checks for errors (and warns if any) before launching simulations

• Sequence Chart: attaching vectors to axes made more intuitive

• Analysis Tool: many chart sheet and chart usability enhancements

IDE extensibility:

• Support for easy creation of templated wizards that can contribute to the New OMNeT++ Project, New OMNeT++ Simulation, New Simple Module, New NED File, etc. dialogs. Such wizards are simple text files inside the templates/ folders of OMNeT++ projects. Wizards for creating wizards have also been provided. Templated wizards is one of the killer features of OMNeT++ 4.1. Read the IDE Customization Guide for further info!

• Automatic discovery and activation of Eclipse plugins dropped into the plugins/ folders of OMNeT++ projects. This allows easy deployment of project-specific IDE extensions. Check the IDE Developers Guide for more information.

Tkenv:

• Two-way connections are now rendered as a single line (without arrows)

• Enhanced connection layouting for modules with a large width or height.

• Right-clicking on a point covered by several objects now brings up a popup menu that contains a submenu for each object under the mouse. Previously only the topmost object was accessible, making crowded areas hard to inspect.

Tooling:

• Source files are now compatible with GCC 4.4 version (fixed missing #includes)
• Updated MinGW GCC compiler to 4.4 (on Windows)
• Updated MSYS binaries (on Windows)

Bugs fixed: https://github.com/omnetpp/omnetpp/issues?q=is%3Aissue+is%3Aclosed+milestone%3A4.1b1

OMNeT++ 4.0.2 (August 2023)

This is a modernized version of omnetpp-4.0p1 that makes it possible to build and use the now 14-year-old package in today's software environments. The primary objective of this release is to facilitate the execution of old simulation models, e.g. for reproducing simulation results or as a basis of porting them to more recent versions of OMNeT++.

Changes:

• Source code updated for C++11 compatibility, and to eliminate warnings issued by modern C++ compilers. Backported several smaller fixes.

• Adjusted to make the code compatible with more recent versions of Tcl/Tk libraries. In addition to the original Tcl/Tk-8.4 and BLT-2.4z, Tkenv now works with Tcl/Tk-8.6 and BLT-2.5.3, too.

• Updated to compile with both Bison 2.3 and 3.0.

• Backported the setcontext()/switchcontext() based coroutine library from omnetpp-4.2, to make activity() modules work again. (The original "portable coroutines" library which used setjmp()/longjmp() to switch stacks no longer works with recent glibc versions.)

• Updated the setenv and configure scripts, to make them more consistent with those in more recent or modernized releases. This includes:

  1. configure now mandates having setenv sourced before it runs.
  2. setenv now sets OMNETPP_IMAGE_PATH, in order to prevent model frameworks from accidentally making omnetpp's bundled icons unaccessible from Tkenv by simply appending to OMNETPP_IMAGE_PATH.
  3. configure now creates configure.user from configure.user.dist if it does not already exist.

• Allow running tests in other than "debug" mode.

• Added missing dependency to enable parallel build.

OMNeT++ 4.0p1 (Nov 2009)

Simulation kernel:

• Fixed compilation problems on systems with GCC 4.4.x

IDE:

• Fixed compatibility problems with the xulrunner package on certain GNU/Linux systems. (Problem caused lockups on first start after installation)
• Fixed compatibility problems with newer versions of GTK. (Problem caused buttons not to respond to mouse clicks.)

OMNeT++ 4.0 (March 2009)

This is a major revision of the whole simulation platform, with fundamental changes in nearly every component. A summary of changes since version 3.4b2:

GUI:

• An Eclipse-based comprehensive simulation IDE has been introduced to replace the previous standalone GUI programs gned, scalars and plove. The IDE supports all stages of a simulation project: developing, building, configuring and running simulation models, and analyzing results. It also supports visualizing simulation execution traces as sequence charts, and generating documentation. We are also bundling version control (cvs, svn, git) Eclipse plug-ins with the IDE. The IDE is supported on the three major platforms, Linux, Mac OS X and Windows. Since Eclipse is extremely extensible, we expect that OMNeT++-based simulation frameworks will contribute their own custom wizards into the IDE.

Tooling:

• On the Windows platform, we have standardized on using the MinGW compiler. We are bundling a version of MSys and MinGW with the distribution, along with MinGW versions of several open-source programs and libraries needed or found useful with OMNeT++, such as gdb, perl, libxml, gmp, graphviz, Tcl/Tk, svn and git. MinGW was chosen over Cygwin because MinGW builds and uses libraries in the native Windows (MSVC-compatible) binary format, and builds programs that execute without a Unix emulation layer. The MSVC compiler is only supported in the commercial version of OMNeT++.

Build system:

• In order to facilitate working with large simulation models like the INET Framework, the makefile generator opp_makemake has been extended with the --deep option. With --deep, opp_makemake generates a makefile that takes care of building a whole source directory tree.

• Another big change is out-of-directory builds for both the OMNeT++ libraries and simulation models: object files and other by-products of the build process go in a separate directory tree (out/).

• Simulation models can now easily be compiled with debug/release compiler options, simply with the commands "make MODE=debug" and "make MODE=release"; there is no need to modify configure.user.

Simulation kernel:

• Simulation kernel internals have been redesigned with memory efficiency in mind, to support large-scale simulations better. Techniques include string pooling (storing freqeuently occurring strings such as module, gate and parameter names only in one copy), shared parameter value instances, gate vector descriptors (gate name, type and size are only stored once for the whole gate vector), and optimal packing of object fields (e.g. packing several boolean variables into an unsigned int).

• The simulation kernel as a library has been made significantly easier to embed in other (non-OMNeT++) programs. The way of using the OMNeT++ simulation kernel as a plain C++ library has been documented in the Manual, and two corresponding code examples have been added to the distribution.

• There have been several complaints about precision loss due to simtime_t being represented with the C type "double". In 4.0, double has been replaced with an int64-based fixed-point representation; the precision can be configured in omnetpp.ini as a power of ten, with the default being picosecond resolution (1e-12).

• Regarding the API, several functions have been given better or more consistent names, with the most visible change being that getter methods have been prefixed with the word "get". Migration of simulation models to 4.0 is assisted by scripts that perform this renaming (and several other adjustments) in the source code.

• cMessage has been split into a base cMessage plus a cPacket class. The bit length, encapsulated message and error flag fields have been moved to cPacket.

• Modules have now the possibility to receive nonzero-duration messages at the beginning of the reception; this is done by reconfiguring the gate object.

• sendDirect() calls now expect the propagation delay and transmission duration values in separate arguments; this was done to facilitate the animation of wireless transmissions later.

NED:

The NED language has been revised and significantly extended. An overview of changes follows.

• The language syntax has been changed to make it more consistent. A migration tool is provided to convert old NED files to the new syntax.

• A Java-like package system has been introduced to make the language scale to large model frameworks and to prevent name clashes; NED files files are now read from directory trees listed on the NED path.

• Channels have been made first-class citizens. They can have arbitrary parameters like modules do, and may have custom C++ implementation classes. Three predefined channel types have been created, ned.IdealChannel, ned.DelayChannel and ned.DatarateChannel.

• Inheritance is now supported for module and channel types. Derived modules and channels may add new parameters and gates, may set or modify parameter values and gate vector size, and (in the case of compound modules) may add new submodules and connections.

• Inner types are now supported. This is most useful for making channel definitions local to the network definition that uses them.

• Module and channel interfaces have been introduced, to make "like" relationships more explicit. Module and channel interfaces can be used as a placeholder where normally a module or channel type would be used, and the concrete module or channel type is determined at network setup time by a parameter. Concrete module types have to "implement" the interface they can substitute.

• Inout gates and bidirectional gates are now supported. In the C++ code, inout gates appear as (input,output) gate pairs.

• Parameters can now have default values. The default value can be overridden in the ini file. If the ini file does not assign any value to the parameter, the default values get used automatically.

• Support for arithmetic expressions has become more complete, e.g. string manipulation is also possible.

• It is possible to annotate module or channel types, parameters, gates and submodules with properties. Metadata can carry extra information for various tools, the runtime environment, or even for other modules in the model. Examples include display strings, parameter prompt string and unit of measurement.

• Default icons (in general, default display strings) are now supported. Display strings are represented as metadata annotation (@display property), which can be modified via inheritance.

Ini files:

• Instead of runs, named configuration sections were introduced in the ini file.

• The concept of "runs" have been refined to provide parameter study support; Ini files now can specify parameter ranges and the runtime is able to explore them. The notion of experiment, measurement and replication was introduced to help the general workflow of result analysis.

• Configuration options are now checked; mistyped configuration options are reported. Configuration options can be given on the command-line as well, overriding the values specified in the ini file.

• The new "fingerprint" ini file option allows for quick-and-simple regression tests. The fingerprint is basically a hash of event times and module IDs during the simulation, and it can detect if the simulation follows a different trajectory after a supposedly "harmless" code change.

Result analysis:

• The new result analysis tool in the IDE (which replaces plove and scave) supports the notion of experiments, measurements and replication. The IDE now stores all operations required to create a diagram or chart in a "recipe" file. It can recreate the charts and diagrams automatically after re-running the simulation or the whole experiment.

• The vector and scalar file format has changed to support the new features of the IDE. Vector files are now indexed for efficiency.

Bugs fixed: https://github.com/omnetpp/omnetpp/issues?q=is%3Aissue+is%3Aclosed+milestone%3A4.0

OMNeT++ 4.0rc2 (Feb 2009)

Improvements since rc1:

Documentation:

• Significant work went into updating the Manual. The following chapters are either new, or have been rewritten or significantly expanded:

  • 3 The NED Language
  • 7 Building Simulation Programs
  • 8 Configuring Simulations
  • 9 Running Simulations
  • 10 Network Graphics And Animation
  • 11 Analyzing Simulation Results
  • 15 Plug-in Extensions
  • 16 Embedding the Simulation Kernel
  • 17 Appendix: NED Reference Chapters that need further work are:
  • 4 Simple Modules
  • 6 The Simulation Library

• Revised the User Guide. Text and screenshots have been updated to the current state of the UI.

IDE:

• added the GIT plugin (now the IDE supports CVS, Subversion and GIT)

• added the NED documentation generator. The generated documentation is under the Creative Commons license.

• the IDE now generates GPL/LGPL/BSD copyright into newly created files; license may be declared by adding a @license property in package.ned

• various bugfixes

Simulation kernel: There were several changes to make it easier to use the simulation kernel as a C++ library, to embed simulations into programs:

• support for multiple instances of cSimulation. "simulation" is no longer a global variable but a macro that expands to cSimulation::getActive- Simulation(). Multiple cSimulation objects may coexist; before invoking any function in the simulation library, the correct cSimulation instance must be activated with cSimulation::setActiveSimulation().

• one environment object per cSimulation instance. "ev" now maps to cSimulation::getActiveEnvir(), which is short for cSimulation::getActive- Simulation->getEnvir().

• added cNullEnvir, a default do-nothing implementation for cEnvir, from which users can start subclassing their own custom environment objects

• created cRunnableEnvir by factoring out run() method from cEnvir; simulation user interfaces like Cmdenv or Tkenv subclass from cRunnableEnvir, but other custom environment objects do not need to.

• cConfiguration was split to a smaller cConfiguration plus a cConfigurationEx class that adds the rest of the methods. When the simulation kernel is used as library, only cConfiguration needs to be implemented. cConfigurationEx is needed only when one wants to plug in a different configuration object into the existing Envir library, replacing SectionBasedConfig.

• find more details and examples in the manual, in include/ChangeLog, in src/sim/ChangeLog, and in the new sample simulations embedding and embedding2.

Samples:

• added embedding examples

NED:

• fix: channel types could not refer to local parameters ("this.param" caused an error)

• refactored the registration of user-defined NED functions: added the possibility to register a documentation string (which gets printed in the "opp_run -h nedfunctions" output); cNEDFunction and Define_NED_Function() now expects the function signature in a C-like syntax.

Message files:

• opp_msgc: improvement related to bug #33. Type announcement now can specify the base class of the declared class: "class B extends A;". To declare that the class does not have any base class interesting to opp_msgc, one must declare it as "extends void". See src/nedxml/ChangeLog for examples and more details.

Tkenv:

• message display strings made consistent with module display strings: the "o" tag was removed, use "b=width,height,shape,color,borderwidth" instead. Also, a special color name "kind" has been introduced, which maps to a color depending on the message kind.

• fixed bug #34: in Fast mode, bubble didn't get displayed for recently created modules

Cmdenv/Tkenv:

• added -a option: lists all configurations and the number of runs in them

• bugfixes: --repeat and --constraint command-line options were ignored when using -x option

• on the command-line, accept per-object configuration options, also without object name pattern. Thus, both of the following are accepted, and are equivalent:

   opp_run --**.vector-recording=false
   opp_run --vector-recording=false
  

Tools:

• added opp_runall tool

• scavetool: renamed "summary" command to "list"; split the "filter" command into "vector" and "scalar" commands. The new "scalar" command can apply processing operations too. Currently it only supports the "scatter" operation, which creates a scatter plot dataset from the scalars.

• opp_test: added a %extraargs option (was needed for new test/envir tests)

Packaging:

• the Windows package now contains MinGW-GIT (the "git" command-line tool, and gitk). Please use the hyphen-less form of commands (e.g. git checkout instead of git-checkout).

Bugs fixed: https://github.com/omnetpp/omnetpp/issues?q=is%3Aissue+is%3Aclosed+milestone%3A4.0rc2

OMNeT++ 4.0rc1 (Dec 2008)

Improvements since beta 8:

General:

• added the "opp" prefix to library names to prevent name clashes with other programs: liboppsim.so, liboppenvir.so, libopplayout.so, liboppcommon.so; oppsim.dll, oppenvir.dll, opplayout.dll, oppcommon.dll, etc.

IDE:

• fixed the crash caused by static linking of libstdc++.so (bug #7)
• improved stability of CDT integration
• improved diagnostics: when simulation launch fails, Console View displays the command line, PATH, other environment variables, etc to help track down the problem.
• several other bugfixes (see bugtracker)

Samples:

• queueinglib changed to build a dynamic library, which is run using opp_run

• added queueinglibext, which shows how to extend an existing model with C++ code from a new project

Tkenv:

• reimplemented filtering, to fix poor performance and weird scrolling of log windows (bugs #16 and #17). The log is now stored in a memory buffer, and filtering re-fills the text widget from the buffer.

• new feature: when you open a per-module output window, it comes up containing previous messages (and not empty as it used to). This feature was made possible by storing the log.

• UI updates during Fast and Express Run changed from event-based (i.e. "every x events") to time-based ("every x milliseconds"). Time only checked every 16 and 256 events though, respectively, to save CPU cycles.

• implemented font selection for text windows and list controls

• settings are now saved to $HOME/.tkenvrc, only inspectors are saved to .tkenvrc in the current directory. (Motivation: font selection is tyically meant to be global by the user, not per-simulation)

Cmdenv:

• status updates in express mode are now time-based (every 2s by default), not event number based

• other status update improvements: always autoflush status updates; print a final status update when simulation stops

Tools:

• seedtool was renamed opp_lcg32_seedtool, and added a warning in its help that it is an obsolete tool and probably should not be used.

Bugs fixed: https://github.com/omnetpp/omnetpp/issues?q=is%3Aissue+is%3Aclosed+milestone%3A4.0rc1

OMNeT++ 4.0 beta 8 (Nov 2008)

Improvements since beta 7:

IDE:

• Makemake configuration made more flexible. Now any directory may contain a makefile, either generated or custom one. The corresponding property page was redesigned, and also moved to the OMNeT++ category (was under the C/C++ Build category). It is now also possible to export a makefile- creation script to support command-line builds. Note: syntax of the .oppbuildspec file changed (file written by 4.0b8 will not be understood by 4.0b7).
• added Parameter Editor dialog as a field editor in the Property View
• moved Cleanup NED Files command from the Navigation menu to the Source menu
• several smaller fixes and improvements

Tkenv:

• implemented module output window filtering: modules can be selected using a checkbox tree dialog. Bound to Ctrl+H.
• implemented "Run until message", available in the Run Until dialog and in the context menu of message objects
• event banner text revised, plus now includes message name and class as well; added "Short event banners" checkbox to options dialog
• fixed popup menu behaviour on Linux (use tk_popup instead of post)

Other:

• opp_makemake: generates separate target for each recursively invoked makefile. Several smaller fixes and improvements
• beginnings of a regression test suite for opp_makemake: test/makemake.

OMNeT++ 4.0 beta 7 (Oct 2008)

First public beta release of 4.0.

OMNeT++ 4.0 beta 1..6 (Mar 2008..Sep 2008)

Internal testing releases.

OMNeT++ 3.4b1/b2 (Nov 2006)

This release significantly improves Tkenv:

• until now, Tkenv has been using various form-style inspectors to display the most important data members of objects. These inspectors have now been replaced with more comprehensive and consistent treeview-based inspectors.

• broadcast animation has been implemented. When the feature is turned on, multiple send() or sendDirect() calls occurring within a handleMessage() call will be animated together, concurrently. This significantly improves the animation of wireless simulations. Note: the new animation mode implies that send/sendDirect calls are no longer animated at the place of the call as previously, but together at the end of processing the event (that is, after handleMessage() has already returned) -- that is, out-of-sequence with writing the log, for example. The broadcast animation feature can be turned off in the Simulation Options dialog.

• implemented message filtering for the timeline, and improved on object filtering (Find/Inspect Objects dialog) by extending patterns with AND, OR, NOT operations and object field matchers.

• implemented scrollback buffer limiting for event log windows (default is 100,000 lines)

Simulation library:

• several methods and classes already marked as DEPRECATED in their documentations and doc/API-Changes.txt are now marked as such, using GCC's attribute((deprecated)) facility, which results in warnings during compilation of code that uses them. Those pieces of code need to be changed in order to be compatible with future OMNeT++ versions.

• opp_msgc was improved: as an experimental feature, class fields can now be annotated with properties of the form @propertyname(value). The following properties are accepted: field-level: @enum(enumname), @editable or @editable(true), @getter(methodname), @setter(methodname), @sizeGetter(methodname), @sizeSetter(methodname), @label(some-text), @hint(some-text); class-level: @customize, @omitGetVerb (or: @customize(true), @omitGetVerb(true)).

Other:

• makefile improvements, from Laura Marie Feeney and Michael Tuexen.
• the FDDI sample simulation has retired (it used lots of deprecated APIs)

OMNeT++ 3.3.2 (August 2023)

This is a modernized version of omnetpp-3.3p1 that makes it possible to build and use the now 17-year-old package in today's software environments. The primary objective of this release is to facilitate the execution of old simulation models, e.g. for reproducing simulation results or as a basis of porting them to more recent versions of OMNeT++.

Main changes:

• Minor source code adjustments to enable compilation with modern C++ compilers and eliminate compiler warnings. Backported several bug fixes from newer versions.

• Adjusted to make the code compatible with more recent versions of Tcl/Tk libraries. In addition to the original Tcl/Tk-8.4 and BLT-2.4z, graphical parts now works with Tcl/Tk-8.6 and BLT-2.5.3, too.

• Backported the setcontext()/switchcontext() based coroutine library from omnetpp-4.2, to make activity() modules work again. (The original "portable coroutines" library which used setjmp()/longjmp() to switch stacks no longer works with recent glibc versions.)

• Updated the setenv and configure scripts, to make them more consistent with those in more recent or modernized releases.

  1. configure now mandates having setenv sourced before it runs.
  2. setenv now sets OMNETPP_IMAGE_PATH, in order to prevent model frameworks from accidentally making omnetpp's bundled icons unaccessible from Tkenv by simply appending to OMNETPP_IMAGE_PATH.
  3. configure now creates configure.user from configure.user.dist if it does not already exist.

• The Makefiles were updated with more dependencies to enable parallel build.

OMNeT++ 3.3p1 (Oct 2006)

Source code adjustments for improved compiler and library compatibility.

OMNeT++ 3.3 (Oct 2006)

This release contains several GUI enhancements in Tkenv, and several bugfixes. Tkenv:

• display string enhancement: connections with zero thickness set ("o=,0") now do not appear in the network graphics.

• added object icons to inspector listboxes

• added Run/Fast/Express buttons to every module inspector window, as well as a "Find/inspect messages, queues, etc within this module" button. These functions are all available via hotkeys too (F5,F6,F7,Ctrl+S).

• added "Copy to clipboard" and "Save window contents" toolbar icons to all text windows. (Copy has already been available with Ctrl+C.)

• main window position gets saved and restored

Bugfixes:

• fix: gamma_d() was bogus for the alpha<1 case [reported by Patrick McDonnell]

• fix: worked around a fiber-related Visual C++ problem that caused certain activity()-based modules crash when the simulation was restarted.

• fixed a bug which sometimes caused Tkenv to crash when inspecting an internally refcounted message.

• fixed a bug in Tkenv's setObjectListResult() [crash reported by Rodolfo Ribeiro Gomes and others]

• fix: on some Linux systems, Tkenv used unreadably small font size in some dialogs

• opp_msgc improvements: don't accept reserved words as identifiers; added OMNeT++ version check into generated code

• fix: the simulation can now be in a directory whose path name contains spaces (e.g. "Program Files"); opp_nmakemake also fixed to accept include paths with spaces.

• many other minor fixes and improvements; see the ChangeLogs of the corresponding source directories for more details.

OMNeT++ 3.2p1 (Jan 2006)

This is a maintenance release. Changes include:

• support for VC8.0 (Microsoft Visual C++ 2005 [Express]).
• opp_nmakemake -b failed for directory names containing ++
• fixed bug in Plove/Scalars "Save picture" function

OMNeT++ 3.2 (Oct 2005)

The following brief list wraps up the most important new features and changes since the 3.1 release. Please read on to the sections about the the prereleases (3.2pre1..4) for more details on these points, and for a more complete list. Even more details can be found in the doc/API-Changes file and the ChangeLog files of the individual source directories.

General:

• support for database (MySQL) storage of: model topology, model configuration, output vectors and scalars and model topology.

Simulation core:

• simplified the signature of simple module constructors; Module_Class_Mem- bers() is no longer required. Please check below or in doc/API-changes for backward compatibility information.

• cleanup-time garbage collection turned OFF by default. It can be turned on manually, but the preferred way is to add proper destructors to simple modules.

• implemented reference counting of encapsulated messages, primarily to increase the performance of wireless simulations.

• WATCH() revisited: now its variants support STL container classes, and basically any data type that has operator<<.

• modules can now get notified when a module parameter changes. Just redefine the new handleParameterChange(const char *parname) method of cModule.

• several other API improvements -- see doc/API-Changes.

• several opp_msgc improvements

GUI:

• added the TimeBar to Tkenv, and made the "Find/Inspect Objects" dialog nonmodal (a long-standing wish).

• several GNED refinements, the most visible one being that on opening a NED file it automatically tries to open all its imports as well (feature can be turned off).

• big usability improvements in Plove and Scalars: Chart Settings dialog has been redesigned, and your custom settings can be saved as defaults. Plove also has new filters, and some problems got fixed in existing ones.

OMNeT++ 3.2pre4 (Sep 2005)

Simulation kernel:

• cleanup-time garbage collection turned OFF by default. Simple modules have to deallocate all dynamically objects themselves, that is, proper destructors have to be added to every simple module class. Related new omnetpp.ini entries: perform-gc=<yes/no>, print-undisposed= <yes/no>.

• added method cSimpleModule::cancelAndDelete(cMessage *msg) method, to facilitate writing destructors.

• requirement for simple module constructors changed: they are invoked without args now. Module_Class_Members() is now unnecessary, but still accepted. See include/ChangeLog for details. All sample simulations have been updated accordingly.

  POTENTIAL INCOMPATIBILITY: modules with handcoded constructors need to be modified. Add default values to constructor arguments: (const char *name=NULL, cModule *parent=NULL).

• dup() method got moved to cPolymorphic, and return type changed to cPolymorphic. In the next release we'll drop MSVC 6.0 support, and move to covariant return types (which MSVC 6.0 doesn't support).

New examples:

• database integration. With the given extensions, one can transparently redirect output vectors and output scalars into a MySQL database, read module parameters from a MySQL database (all without modification of existing models), or build a network from topology stored in a database.

Other:

• NED: enabled parent module gates to get connected with ++. parentmodgate++ connects the first unconnected gate, but it doesn't create new ones -- it is an error to exceed sizeof(gate).

• Precision in output vector/scalar files, that is, the number of significant digits printed can be set from the configuration now: [General] / output-scalar-precision=<int>, output-vector-precision=<int>. The default is 12, but it might not be straightforward to decide what is the "optimal" setting -- see src/envir/ChangeLog for a discussion.

• configure script revised significantly: better detection of compiler (e.g. the Intel compiler is autodetected now); detection of linker flags needed for OMNeT++ models to be put into static/dynamic libs (-z allextract/--whole-archive, --export-dynamic); detection of "make" program (must be GNU make); improvement in detecting BLT and MPI. Now it also allows variables to be defined on the command line before running ./configure, as an alternative to configure.user.

• nedtool and the preload-ned-files= omnetpp.ini entry now distinguishes between two types of listfiles, @listfile and @@listfile; the difference is in the interpretation of relative paths contained in the list file; see src/nedc/ChangeLog for details.

• GNED: further improvements

OMNeT++ 3.2pre3 (Aug 2005)

Tkenv:

• the "Find/Inspect Objects" dialog became nonmodal, and it can be kept open while the simulation is running.

• added the "Run until next local event" command to modules' context menu (which pops up when you right-click an icon)

GNED:

• reorganized and improved connection properties dialog (knows what gates submodules have, which gates are vectors, only offers output gates as src gate and input gates as dest gate, etc.)

opp_msgc:

• "const fix": generate both const and non-const getter methods for fields of class or struct type.

• it is no longer required to write out "fields:" in an otherwise empty class definition

• added the possibility to set a base class field. E.g. kind=5 will generate the setKind(5) line into the constructor.

• generate a protected and unimplemented operator==(), to prevent accidental usage of compiler-generated one

• added the possibility (-P option) to declare generated classes to be dllexport/dllimport on Windows.

• generated C++ header now contains relevant part of the .msg files as Doxygen comment

nedtool, dynamic NED loading:

• don't look for the module type if the module vector size is zero

opp_nmakemake:

• added options (-s, -t, -d) to enable building Windows DLLs from simple modules, plus -P option to support opp_msgc's similar option

Simulation kernel:

• implemented reference counting of encapsulated messages. This should dramatically increase performance of wireless simulations, where lots of message duplication is done (AirFrames) with most copies discarded without looking into them (noisy channel or wrong L2 dest address). There' nominal (<1%) performance penalty for other simulations.

omnetpp.ini:

• one can now use parameters like $MODULE_FULLPATH in the 2nd argument of xmldoc(), i.e. the paths expression to select part of an XML file to load. This allows for assigning XML params of several modules with a single line in omnetpp.ini. Consider the following:

  **.xmlConfig=xmldoc("all-in-one.xml","config[@mod=$MODULE_FULLPATH]")
  

  where all-in-one.xml contains <config mod="net.host1.rt">...</config> elements for every module.

• also fixed some anomalies in the XML path expression interpreter.

OMNeT++ 3.2pre2

Simulation kernel:

• WATCH() overhaul: now anything can be watched that has operator<<. If it also has operator>>, you can use WATCH_RW() to make it editable on the GUI. Objects and pointers to objects can be watched with WATCH_OBJ() and WATCH_PTR(). STL container classes can be watched via WATCH_VECTOR(), WATCH_PTRVECTOR(), WATCH_MAP(), WATCH_PTRMAP(), etc.

• modules can now get notified when a module parameter changes. Just redefine the new handleParameterChange(const char *parname) method of cModule.

Tkenv:

• flush omnetpp.vec every time the simulation is stopped (to enable looking at it with Plove to decide if simulation needs to be run longer)

• added support for OPP_PLUGIN_PATH environment variable, and [Tkenv]/plugin-path= omnetpp.ini entry.

• cGate inspector: channel attributes (delay, error and datarate) can now be changed from the GUI.

• added support for custom items on the context menu (e.g. right-click on a router, "Inspect Routing Table..." Usage: place a .tcl file into the plugin path (./plugins by default) that calls the extendContextMenu Tcl procedure.

GNED: Michael Franzen contributed several improvements and fixes:

• new option: "Open imported files automatically": tries to open all the files that are imported by an opened NED file. (It takes care that every NED file is opened only once.)

• an "import path" can be specified, which is a list of directories where imported files are searched for (Andras)

• new option: "Autoextend gates using gate++ notation". When this option is enabled (Options Menu), GNED does not generate "gatesizes" sections, and automatically uses the extension operator "++" on all gates that are connected. However, you always can use indices in the property page of modules to override automatic gate extension.

• "Auto-calculate gate size": when switched on, this option generates "gatesize" entries for every gate of a module that is endpoint for indexed connections. The code searches for the maximum index of all connections ending at that port and generates the "gatesize" entry from that. If no indexed connection to the port is found, the "gatesize" entry is removed again.

• "Set 'nocheck' for new modules": generates "connections nocheck" for all newly generated modules. This feature has a counterpart in the property page of modules: an "Allow unconnected gates" checkbox to enable/disable this feature for each module individually.

• plus several smaller fixes

Heaps of small API improvements, see include/ChangeLog. A sample:

• cOutvector: added recordWithTimestamp()
• cDisplayString: setTagArg() now accepts numeric (long) arg too.
• cMessage: if "vector" is a vector gate, msg->arrivedOn("vector") now checks if msg arrived one of the vector's gates.
• cXMLElement: added getFirstChildWithTagName() and getNextSiblingBy- TagName()

Thanks to Michael Tuexen, Ignacio Arenas Jimenez and Wei Yang Ng who suggested several of the above improvements.

OMNeT++ 3.2pre1

• Plove and Scalars: improved Chart Settings dialog, and default settings can now be saved. New Plove filters, and fix in the winavg filter.
• Tkenv: added Timeline Status Bar
• Tkenv: fixed the r= display string tag (it displayed a circle half the specified size)
• Tkenv: cMessage inspector now displays message size in bytes as well (not just in bits); also, it now displays time until arrival time (a delta) in addition to the absolute arrival time.
• new cMessage member functions: byteLength(), setByteLength(), addByte- Length(). They just invoke the length(), setLength(), addLength() methods.
• new utility function simtimeToStrShort()
• fixed gcc-4 compilation errors, and removed -fwritable-strings compiler option
• fixes and improvements on opp_neddoc
• configure script now accepts NO_TCL=1 variable (for emergency use only)
• opp_nmakemake: improved output of recursive build
• Readme.MSVC updated on how to build DLLs from simple modules Plus a number of smaller fixes, see the ChangeLogs in individual directories. Documentation update is still TBD.

OMNeT++ 3.1 (Mar 2005)

This release contains several bugfixes since 3.0, as well as new features and new example simulations. To see a detailed list of problems fixed, check the ChangeLog files in the various source directories. Thanks all of you who have discovered and reported the problems.

A brief list of enhancements since version 3.0:

Real-time/hybrid simulation:

• Real-time simulation has been implemented, and it is demonstrated by the "Dyna/Real Time" sample simulation.

• An example for hybrid (hardware-in-the-loop) simulation is now provided, which is the "Sockets" sample simulation. It uses TCP sockets to communicate with the outside world -- in real-life applications this will probably need to be replaced with some other means of communication.

• In relation to the above: new methods got added to the cScheduler interface.

For Windows:

• Debug info (*.pdb) files have been included in the installer, so one can now single-step into the simulation kernel and user interface library sources while debugging.

Simulation library:

• New utility class: cStringTokenizer. It splits strings to "tokens" along given separator characters (by default spaces).

• Changed the way scheduled events or pending messages are handled when their destination module gets deleted during runtime. Before, these messages were deleted by the cSimpleModule destructor, but this made it very long to clean up large models. Now, messages are not deleted in the destructor, but left in the FES -- they will be discarded in cSimulation::selectNextModule() when they're met.

• cDisplayString's getTagArg() method was modified to never return NULL; it returns "" instead when the requested tag is not in the display string.

Configuration:

• Ini file runs can be given descriptions, and they will be displayed in the Tkenv run selection dialog. Just add the description="some text" line under the [Run x] headings.

• New omnetpp.ini entry to help debugging: [General]/debug-on-errors= true/false. If turned on, runtime errors (such as scheduling a message into the past) will cause the program to break into the C++ debugger if one is running, or just-in-time debugging is enabled. This makes it possible to investigate the context of the error (stack frames, variables etc). It works by doing INT 3 (debugger interrupt) on Windows, and raise(SIGABRT) on Linux.

• Slight change in the rules of handling included ini files, NED list files and all filenames mentioned in them. All filenames are now understood as relative to the location of the file which contains the reference, rather than relative to the current working directory of the simulation. This change is not backwards compatible, but has been found not to affect any of the simulation frameworks already ported to 3.0.

Tkenv:

• Implemented the "t=," display string tag for connections. It makes the given string to appear near the connection arrow.

• Tooltips can now be added to submodule icons, connection arrows and messages. The tooltip text has to be given in the "tt=" display string tag, and will be displayed if the mouse rests over the component for a while. Tooltips allows more info to be displayed than can be squeezed into the "t=" display string tag.

• Added support for -r command-line option, which has the same effect as (but takes priority over) the [Tkenv]/default-run ini file entry.

Misc:

• opp_makemake, opp_nmakemake: implemented -X option (ignore subdirectory during recursive build)

• The -h command-line option is now understood by both Cmdenv and Tkenv, and handled in a consistent way

• The place/ icon directory was renamed to misc/ (Please update display strings containing "i=place/..")

• nedc got removed from the distribution

Known problem: OMNeT++ windows have no Maximize button under recent KDE versions. This is a known Tk+kwin problem which was fixed in Tk early 2004.

OMNeT++ 3.0 (Dec 2004)

The following list summarizes all changes since OMNeT++ 2.3:

• The simulation kernel has received an overhaul.

• A new step-by-step tutorial, revised documentation and several new sample simulations have been included to shorten your learning curve.

• Dynamic NED loading will cut model build time and simplify your work.

• Documentation generation tool will document your own large simulation models, and help you quickly get an overview about the structure of 3rd party models.

• The new Random Number Architecture features a modern, very long cycle Random Number Generator (Mersenne Twister) for more realistic simulation results, and RNG mapping for more flexibility in simulation experiments.

• Simulation models can now conveniently access XML configuration files for complex input.

• Plove now features a powerful interactive charting component, and also an internal data-flow engine for processing output vectors before plotting.

• The new Scalars tool complements Plove, and lets you analyze and plot scalar data produced by simulations.

• Support for Parallel Distributed Simulation

• Several Simulation GUI usability enhancements will save you time, and make your work more efficient.

• New icons, and enhanced animation capabilities (icon coloring, queue length display, status text, transmission range, transient bubbles, etc.) improve the overall look and feel of your models, give you more insight, and make the models instantly presentable.

• For better visualization of model dynamics, OMNeT++ now supports animation of direct message sending and C++ method calls across modules.

• The automatic network layouting using the SpringEmbedder algorithm will let you work with large networks in the GUI, without the need for individual positioning of nodes.

• Ready to receive your extensions: plug-in interfaces for new random number generators, new configuration databases and simulation event schedulers complement existing plug-in interfaces for recording simulation data, and let you implement custom input/output, real-time simulation, hardware-in-the-loop simulation and more.

Delta from 3.0 beta 1:

• User Manual revised

• Several bugfixes and new test cases, significant performance improvements in the network setup code; more intuitive error messages at places.

• The new .use-default=true notation in omnetpp.ini makes it possible to apply the NED file defaults (specified via input()) to some or all unassigned module parameters.

• histogram classes (cLongHistogram, cDoubleHistogram) revisited

OMNeT++ 3.0 beta 1 (Nov 24 2004)

Changes:

• added new TicToc tutorial
• nedtool: implemented -h option (put output files into current dir, not source file's dir) [patch from Johnny Lai]
• Windows binary release contains 4 sets of libs now: vc6-debug, vc6-release, vc7-debug, vc7-release.
• several fixes and improvements

OMNeT++ 3.0 alpha 9 (Nov 3 2004)

Changes:

• fixed configure script problems in alpha 8

• new random number architecture: support for Mersenne Twister and Akaroa RNGs; unlimited number of RNGs; RNG mapping (module-local RNG numbers can be mapped arbitrarily to physical RNGs from omnetpp.ini. Details in src/envir/ChangeLog and on omnetpp.org.

• Tkenv fixes and usability improvements: (1) allow user interactions during message animation: animation speed can be changed with the slider, STOP button can be clicked, inspectors can be closed, etc; (2) improved "Fast Run until next local event" function: now it always animates events that occur in the local module; (3) fixed display string handling bugs: in "t=", commas and equals signs weren't handled properly.

• signatures of fullPath() and info() functions changed to use std::string. The new signatures are both safer (no danger of accidental buffer overrun or confusion caused by using static buffers) and easier to use. POTENTIAL INCOMPATIBILITY: fullPath() calls in sprintf(), ev.printf(), new cException() etc calls should be changed to fullPath().c_str(). (ev<< statements are not affected.)

• support for categorized icons (icons grouped into subdirectories with the bitmaps folder) in GNED and Tkenv

• linking problems (linker symbol conflicts) with recent Akaroa versions resolved

OMNeT++ 3.0 alpha 8 (Oct 2004)

Changes:

• in .msg files, struct fields can have initializers (a constructor gets generated)
• Tkenv: minor improvements
• configure script refinements

OMNeT++ 3.0 alpha 7 (Sept 2004)

Several improvements and bug fixes since 3.0a6. Detailed list of changes:

• loading XML config files via "xml"-type NED parameters or ev.getXMLDocument(): If the document has an attached DTD (DOCTYPE declaration), the document will be validated, and attribute default values will be completed from the DTD.

• Scalars tool: enhanced Copy to clipboard functionality: different variables can be put on different columns. This makes it easier to use Excel's PivotTable or OpenOffice's DataPilot) functionality to analyze data.

• NED: gate vectors, if there's no "gatesizes:", will be created with zero size. (Previously they were created with size one -- this is a potential incompatibility.) A zero-sized gate vector is internally represented by a single gate object whose size() method returns zero, and cannot be connected.

• Tkenv: bitmap path can now be specified in omnetpp.ini, using the [Tkenv]/bitmap-path= entry. Value should be "quoted", and directories should be separated by ";". The contents of the OMNETPP_BITMAP_PATH environment variable (or if that's not set, the compilation-time bitmap path) gets concatenated to this one.

  IMPORTANT: if you forget the quotes, ONLY THE FIRST DIRECTORY will be used with the rest ignored, because ";" is the comment mark in omnetpp.ini!

• opp_makemake, opp_nmakemake: facilitated creating makefiles which only have relative paths in them. The -b option was added. is supposed to be the toplevel directory of large multi-directory simulation model (such as IPSuite or MF). The -b option will cause all path names (passed with -I, -L, etc.) to be converted from absolute to relative. This means that makefiles will not need to be re-generated or edited when the project is compiled in a different directory.

• opp_neddoc: backslashing can be used to prevent intentional hyperlinking of a word which is also a component (e.g. module) name. That is, if you write "\IP", "IP" won't get hyper-linked in the HTML output, even if there's a module type called IP. Single backslashes will be removed from the HTML output -- double them if you want them to appear.

• opp_neddoc: on Windows, listing directories on the command line which had no .ned or .msg files in them caused opp_neddoc to stop with "file not found" error.

OMNeT++ 3.0 alpha 6 (Aug 2004)

POTENTIAL INCOMPATIBILITY: because the resolution of "*" has changed (it no longer matches "."), you may need to revise your existing omnetpp.ini files.

New features introduced in this release, in nutshell: enhanced wildcard resolution in omnetpp.ini; direct support for XML config files via the "xml" NED parameter type; Cmdenv now lets you choose which modules' ev output you want to print; plugin interface for using configuration data sources other than omnetpp.ini. Several improvements in opp_neddoc and opp_makemake, and some bugfixes.

For more details, see article http://www.omnetpp.org/article.php?story=20040722133521209

OMNeT++ 3.0 alpha 5 (June 2004)

Plove has been completely rewritten under the skin. It is no longer a wrapper around grep, awk and gnuplot -- it boasts a powerful internal extensible data-flow engine (for filtering and processing output vectors before plotting), and a BLT-based plotting window (which allows a multiple plots via tabbed window, and these plots are a bit easier to customize than gnuplot-based ones were -- oh yes and they allow arbitrary zooming on the fly). The new Plove can also do scatter plot. Calculating histograms and cumulative distribution functions and various other refinements will come soon.

What else? opp_msgc now generates the pack/unpack operations so parallel simulation has become a lot more transparent. Plus a couple of bugfixes of course. The test suite (test/core) is supposed to pass completely, except for one little known bug in ev<< w/ Cmdenv.

OMNeT++ 3.0 alpha 4 (May 2004)

This alpha release introduces a new tool, Scalars for analysing output scalar (.sca) files. Scalars requires BLT. Another novelty is the new "control info" field in cMessage which provides a better way to implement communication between protocol layers than the traditional "interface packet" approach used in older IPSuite versions. (IPSuite has also been switched over to employ the control info approach.)

OMNeT++ 3.0 alpha 3 (March 2004)

Bugfixes.

OMNeT++ 3.0 alpha 2 (March 2004)

Improvements on opp_(n)makemake, Plove, Tkenv, parallel simulation; bugfixes.

OMNeT++ 3.0 alpha 1 (Jan 2004)

Sames as 3.0 Preview

OMNeT++ 3.0 Preview, 2004 January

This is an intermediate code snapshot -- it was released to show you what features are planned for release 3.0, and possibly to get early feedback about them. It has not been fully tested.

The model documentation tool opp_neddoc has been introduced. It generates fully hyperlinked documentation with diagrams from comments in .ned and .msg files. It can also link to Doxygen-generated C++ documentation. It works both on Unix and Windows.

Several Tkenv network animation enhancements: next event marker; animation of sendDirect() and method calls between modules; message icons; auto-layouting of networks; icon coloring; module "bubbles" (callouts); display of queue length next to module icon; display of a status string above module icon; optional modifier icon on top of submodule icon; submodule icon optionally on top of a rect/oval; display of "transmission range"; color names in display strings are accepted in HSB (hue-saturation-brightness) too.

Changing display strings was made more comfortable from simple modules.

Other Tkenv enhancements: powerful object search dialog; enhanced plugin support (see test/tkenv/plugin); better tabnotebook and multi-column listbox widgets via BLT. All Tkenv settings restored from .tkenvrc now.

New sample simulations: Tictoc (a step-by-step tutorial), Aloha, CQN (Closed Queueing Network), Queueing, Routing, RoutingDB, Point-to-Point Transmitter. Other changes are that Dyna and Dyna2, Fifo and Fifo2 was merged, Topo was renamed to NEDDemo, Token renamed to TokenRing. The Nim example has finally retired. The new/revised sample simulations demonstrate new Tkenv features and also more simulation kernel features. They also mark a shift from activity() based modules towards handleMessage()-based ones.

Dynamic loading of NED files has been implemented, which means it is possible to use NED files directly, without nedc and C++ compilation. NED files containing compound modules and networks can be loaded dynamically. NED files can be loaded interactively (Tkenv "Load NED file" toolbar icon) or automatically (via omnetpp.ini, preload-ned-files= entry). (alpha!)

Simulation kernel: internal object ownership handling, has been redesigned, which both reduced memory footprint (sizeof(cObject)) and increased speed. Another efficiency improvement is that for short object name strings, the string is now stored inside cObject (and not dynamically allocated via new char[...].)

Distributed simulation support rewritten, currently experimental. (alpha!)

Several new tests in test suite, also for testing opp_neddoc and Tkenv.

TODO: The Manual is still to be updated at places. Further items are the introduction of new RNG architecture based on modern RNGs, and testing and completion of nedxml/nedtool (which will bring the retirement of nedc).

OMNeT++ 2.3 release (June 2003)

A major revision of the User Manual has taken place. In addition to documenting new features, several existing sections have been revised, updated and expanded for clarity and informativeness, based on feedback from the community.

Even if you already have a printed copy of an earlier manual, this is a good time to discard it and print a new one -- even experienced OMNeT++ users will find a wealth of new information in it. For the list of changes, see the "Document History" table at the front of the manual.

Deprecations! To ensure your simulation will be compatible with future releases, please check doc/API-Changes.txt and remove use of deprecated functions from you simulation models. Functions deprecated now are likely to be removed in next major release.

Improvements:

• message subclassing: generated message classes now accept message kind in the constructor.

Bugfixes since 2.3b2:

• fixed problem with deleting dynamically created modules
• fixed opp_msgc problem with RedHat9's broken Perl (doesn't recognize [^\s] in regexps)
• minor improvements: opp_nmakemake now autodetects C++ file extension (.cc or .cpp); opp_msgc doesn't choke on -I flag

OMNeT++ 2.3b2 release (March 2003)

This is a bugfix release. Resolved issues include:

• wrong handling of channels (bug was introduced in 2.3b1)
• opp_test failed on Unix if "." was not in the PATH
• various smaller bugs in GNED, Tkenv, Envir, and opp_nmakemake
• added several test cases (e.g. for channel testing) in test/

See doc/API-Changes.txt for the list of changes since 2.2, including those that affect compatibility. ChangeLogs in respective source directories contain even more details.

OMNeT++ 2.3b1 release (February 2003)

Licensing change: The license used in previous versions has been replaced with a new "Academic Public License" (doc/License). This license gives noncommercial users rights to use, modify and distribute copies of OMNeT++. The possibility of using OMNeT++ under the GPL has been removed. Commercial users of OMNeT++ should obtain a commercial license.

Major changes of this release in nutshell:

• The simulation kernel has been ported to use C++ exceptions and RTTI (Run-time Type Information) and on Windows, the Fiber API. Also, there has been extensive internal refactoring and refinement of the APIs.

• The "message subclassing" feature has been officially introduced. It is now documented in the manual, and used by several sample simulations.

• Added the implementation of several distributions: continuous distributions gamma, beta, Erlang, chi^2, student-t, Cauchy, triangular, lognormal, Weibull and Pareto; discrete distributions Bernoulli, binomial, geometric, negbino- mial and Poisson [contributed by Werner Sandmann and Kay Michael Masslow].

• Contains an alpha version of the new NED compiler architecture, built upon XML foundations. This includes a tool for generating documentation from NED files.

• Akaroa support. Akaroa does MRIP (multiple replications in parallel).

• Tkenv GUI has been polished -- both functionality and usability has been greatly improved. Plove GUI was also redesigned.

For the list of changes that affect portability of simulation models, see the new doc/API-Changes.txt file. You can find even more detailed information in the ChangeLogs of the respective source directories.

A more detailed list of changes follows:

Simulation kernel refactoring:

• On Windows, now Win32 native coroutines are used (Fibers API). This change made it possible to introduce the use of C++ exceptions.

• Error handling in simulation kernel (and in other libs too) has been ported to C++ exceptions. This not only resulted in cleaner kernel code, but also has benefits for you:

  • you can now use try-catch for better error handling. The API documentation describes which methods throw exceptions. The common exception class is cException.
  • methods like end(), endSimulation(), deleteModule() terminate the module immediately even when called from handleMessage(). In earlier versions, handleMessage() had to go through in any case.
  • you can now safely use C++ libraries that throw exceptions, e.g. STL. Methods like cSimpleModule::error() and opp_error() are remained for backward compatibility, but they simply throw cException. opp_warning() remained but its use is discouraged.

• Use of C++ RTTI (Run-time Type Information). From now on, you can use dynamic_cast<> in your code, and you don't need to provide a className() method in your classes (because the kernel can figure it out using typeid in the base class, cObject).

• Eliminated gcc 3.0.x warnings, and changed to the I/O headers , etc.

• Several smaller auxiliary classes have been turned into inner classes of their respective 'main' classes. (For example, cQueueIterator became cQueue::Iterator, sTopoNode became cTopology::Node, etc; full list in include/ChangeLog.) Compatibility typedefs exist for the old names.

• Cleanup in cObject and cSimulation: several internally used methods have been eliminated or moved to better places. (For example, inspector-related methods cObject::inspector() and cObject::inspectorFactoryName() have been removed, and inspectors are now fully internal matter of Tkenv.)

• Refactoring on dynamic module creation: instead of modtype->buildInside(mod), one should now write mod->buildInside(), which is more natural. (The former syntax still works -- a cModuleType::buildInside() is still provided for backward compatibility). buildInside() delegates task to doBuildInside() (a new method), so it's doBuildInside() which should be redefined in subclasses, and also nedc generates now doBuildInside() code.

• Container classes are now more consistent in what they do when the requested object doesn't exist:

  • Convention 1: methods returning an object reference (e.g. cPar&) now always throw an exception if the object is not found. (Until now, some methods issued a warning and returned null reference, i.e. (cPar)NULL).
  • Convention 2: methods returning a pointer (e.g. cGate*) return NULL pointer if the object is not found. (Until now, some methods issued a warning and returned NULL pointer.) These conventions necessitated the following changes:
  • par() of cModule and cMessage now throws an exception if parameter was not found. (In simple module code, check for existence of a parameter before accessing it can now be replaced with try-catch.)
  • cModule: cGate *gate() methods no longer issue a warning if the gate is not found, just return NULL.
  • cArray::remove(cObject *) and cQueue::remove(cObject *) methods now return NULL instead of the original pointer if the object was not found.

• cPar can now use compiled expressions subclassed from cDoubleExpression (a new class). This is needed for code generated by the new nedtool.

• cSimulation changes:

  • lastModuleIndex() renamed to lastModuleId();
  • operator[] deprecated (use module(int) method instead)
  • del() renamed to deleteModule(); add() renamed to addModule()

• Channels are now represented by real objects (subclassed from cChannel) rather than parameters in cGate. Channels can be assigned to connections via cGate's setChannel() method; at the same time, DEPRECATED cGate's setDelay(), setError(), setDatarate(), setLink() methods (these attributes should be set on the channel object).

• cSubModIterator: operator[] deprecated (use operator()(int) method instead)

• For further, more internal changes and for more details on the above changes see include/ChangeLog and src/sim/ChangeLog.

Simulation kernel new features:

• Added convenience functions to cGate, cMessage, and cArray (see API-Changes.txt for details).

• A new utility class cDisplayStringParser lets you easily manipulate display strings.

Message subclassing, new NED compiler architecture:

• The Perl-based message compiler opp_msgc is now available in bin/. Message subclassing is documented in the manual, and it is demonstrated by several sample simulations. 40+ test cases deal with testing the generated code.

• Added nedtool, the new NED and message compiler (alpha). nedtool converts NED from/to XML, providing much better integration possibilities (for example it is now possible to use XML/XSLT to generate NED topologies from external data sources -- or to extract NED info to arbitrary XML format.)

• Added nedxml library (the library under nedtool) to src/, and its API-doc to doc/nedxml-api.

Manual:

• Manual source has been converted from Word to Latex [thanks to Ulrich Kaage for this non-trivial and time consuming task!]. He also added an Index. HTML conversion (using L2H, by myself) is not 100% yet, you should regard the PDF as the authoritative form.

• New chapter about message subclassing, plus various updates, fixes and clarifications [thanks to Phillip Feldman for his comments]

Build:

• In addition to Cygwin, the MinGW compiler is now also supported in Windows. Older Cygwin versions with the 2.95.x compiler cannot be used any more.

• Improved MSVC support: opp_nmakemake creates MSVC makefiles; running the test suite now works smoothly with MSVC; opp_stacktool displays reserved stack size for executables.

• MSVC projects now need different compiler flags. Every source should be compiled with exceptions enabled and using /GR, otherwise there will be RTTI exceptions. Because of the Fiber API, reserved stack size should be set to a low value, 64K.

• New utilities (Unix, MSVC): opp_neddoc creates HTML documentation for NED files; opp_neddocall creates HTML documentation for all nedfiles in a directory tree; splitvec to split output vector files.

• There are new targets in Makefiles that are generated by opp_makemake: Target neddoc.html generates a file named neddoc.html by using the opp_neddoc tool on all NED files. Target htmldocs generates HTML documentation of all source files (*.h and *.cc) using Doxygen. The HTML files are placed into the sub-directory ./htmldoc. Also, Makefile now generates ../doc/api/tags. This tag file can be included when generating model documentation.

• Improved configure script. Now we support Tk8.4, and also optional packages like Akaroa.

• Test suite: the number of test cases has grown from 19 to about 120 since omnetpp-2.2; now it covers a bigger part of the core functionality (modules, messages, queues, parameter) as well as message subclassing and some aspects of NED and Cmdenv. Tests for the distributions are in test/distr.

GNED, Plove:

• The Plove GUI has been redesigned, with focus on intuitiveness and usability. It also features icon toolbars, tooltips and more self-explanatory dialogs.

• The number of module icons available for simulations has grown from 41 to ~90 since the 2.2 release. GNED also has an improved icon selector dialog now.

• There have been other small fixes and improvements in GNED, e.g. fixed the bug which caused display strings always being added to connections.

• All Tk GUIs now make use of the combobox widget from Bryan Oakley.

Envir changes (apply both to Cmdenv and Tkenv):

• Integrated Steffen Sroka's Akaroa extension that supports multiple independent replicated simulation runs. Akaroa can be activated by specifying [General] outputvectormanager-class=AkOutputVectorManager in the ini file. By default, all output vectors are under Akaroa control; the ..akaroa=false setting can be used to make Akaroa ignore specific vectors. For more info see the Akaroa home page and the OMNeT++ documentation.

• Added fname-append-host=yes/no ini file setting. When turned on, appends the host name to the names of the output files (output vector, output scalar, snapshot files). This is useful when the simulation is run on multiple machines concurrently (parallel independent runs (Akaroa) or parallel/distributed simulation), and all running instances write to the same directory (e.g. shared via NFS mount). [Idea from Steffen Sroka's Akaroa extension]

• 2 bugfixes: (1) output scalar file did not get opened sometimes; (2) output scalar file got removed between runs

Cmdenv:

• Cmdenv can now display various performance measures like event/sec, event/simsec, simsec/sev, number of message objects, etc. during execution, so you can compare Tkenv and Cmdenv performances.

• The omnetpp.ini entries that control Cmdenv execution mode and amount of printed info have been changed. An express-mode=yes/no (default: no) switch has been introduced, with a meaning similar to Tkenv. Normal mode (express-mode=no) can be controlled with the module-messages=yes/no, event-banners=yes/no, and message-trace=yes/no entries (the third adds new functionality), while express mode is affected by the status-frequency= , performance-display=yes/no entries. autoflush=yes/no has also been added. The display-update=, verbose-simulation= entries are now obsolete.

• The -h command-line switch now lists all networks and modules linked into the executable.

Tkenv:

• Inspector windows are now restored from a ./.tkenvrc file if you restart the simulation. More precisely: as soon as an inspected object (identified by fullpath and classname) gets created in the simulation, its window pops up. Objects must have unique names for this to work properly! [Thanks to Nicky Van Foreest for the idea]

• For better navigation of simulation objects, an object tree view has been added to the left side of the main window. It can be turned off from the toolbar for performance.

• Inspector windows have been re-though to make them more intuitive, consistent and informative. All inspector windows now feature an inspector bar with object fullpath, classname and pointer value (useful for debugging), and a color code to make it easier to match different inspectors of the same object. Axis labelling have been added to output vector inspectors. Added tooltips to graphical module inspectors, speeded up animation of on very long connection arrows, and refined functionality of the Step icon into 3 distinct icons ("Run until next local event", "Fast", "Stop").

• Improved File|New run and New network dialogs (now also available from the toolbar) offer choice from a combobox. Other improvements: main text window is now cleared when simulation is restarted; more tooltips & toolbar icons; better output in Message Trace window; increased event number status bar field width by 3 digits (it was limited in size to 1.000.000 events);

• With "ring" layout, changed display order of modules from clockwise to the more natural counter-clockwise.

• Extensive internal refactoring mostly because of the introduction exception handling and reorganization of inspector registration and creation.

Sample simulations:

• HCube, Token Ring and Dyna2 now use message subclassing. Token Ring has also been significantly revised. The PVMEx example has been removed.

• A new example simulation Topo has been created to demonstrate NED features. Currently it shows how to build various parametric topologies (chain, mesh, ring, star, random graph, binary tree, hexagonal grid) using NED.

OMNeT++ 2.2p1,p2,p3

Only exist in source patch form.

In the OMNeT++ 2.2 release (May 2002)

It's almost a year since the last, 2.1 release, and that's why this change list tends to be a bit lengthy. Sorry about that.

For this release I got many more bugfixes, bug reports and suggestions than for any previous one. Thanks to everybody who helped! Huge credit goes to Ulrich Kaage in Karlsruhe who built up a server infrastructure (CVS, bugtracker, Wiki, etc.) and was restless in testing and improving OMNeT++. Thanks Uli! This is the first release since the CVS went online last year.

This release contains experimental support for the long-demanded feature known as 'message subclassing'. This means that C++ message classes can be generated from NED code, replacing the practice of dynamically adding cPar objects to messages. Data fields added via the subclassing mechanism are inspectable in Tkenv. The new NED syntax is experimental; the compiler extensions have been temporarily implemented in Perl. The new Dyna2 sample simulation demonstrates this feature. See doc/msgsubclassing.txt for more information.

The simulation kernel now has an indexed and hyperlinked on-line API reference, generated from header file comments. (We're using Doxygen.) At the same time, the Reference chapter in the manual was deleted.

Distributed simulation can now use the MPI library which is more readily available nowadays than PVM. (Code contributed by Eric Wu).

The simulation kernel was made const-correct; because of this, older code may need changes (especially where one didn't use the Module_Class_Members() macro to define module classes.) There were other changes on the simulation kernel to make it cleaner.

cGate::setDisplayString() was fixed: changes are now immediately reflected in the Tkenv graphics as they should. cModule's display string methods were reorganized: the displayString(int type) method was split into displayString() and displayStringAsParent(), eliminating the type parameter. Similar change was made to the set...() methods. (Old methods remained but are now deprecated.) All setDisplayString() methods are now compatible with auto-layouted modules (randomly placed modules won't jump around in Tkenv after each display update).

New methods: opp_nextrand(long& seed); opp_strlen(..); opp_strprettytrunc(..); opp_mkindexedname(..) (the latter was formerly called indexedname()). fullName() no longer uses a static buffer; with fullPath(), it is possible to avoid static buffers by using the new fullPath(buffer,buflen) method.

In NED, an expression may now refer to a submodule parameter with the following syntax: submod.par or submod[index].par. A limitation is that the index might not be an expression itself.

Foundations of a simulation kernel regression test suite have been laid down. The test/ subdirectory contains a few initial test cases that rely on the new opp_test tool. The test tool can be very well used to build model tests, too. Also, as tests tend to be compact and easy to write, the test tool is also excellent for experimenting with OMNeT++ library classes. See doc/opp_test.txt for details.

The Envir library has been extended with a plugin mechanism: one can now plug in code that actually handles recording output vectors (e.g. one can write them to database instead of files, apply filtering before writing them out, or send them to a simulation controller app) without having to modify the user interface library, the simulation kernel or existing models. Similar mechanisms exist for output scalars and snapshots. The new include/envirext.h header contains the interfaces the plugins have to conform to: cOutputVectorManager, cOutputScalarManager, cSnapshotManager.

Tkenv's plugin handling was improved: plugins are searched in the directories in OMNETPP_PLUGIN_PATH (set to ./plugins by default). DLL file names that are looked for now correctly depend on the platform (.dll on windows, .so on Unix).

For the default output vector mechanism (vec files), number precision was increased to 9 digits (fprintf format changed).

The module parameter change logging feature is no longer supported.

Size limitations on omnetpp.ini were removed (only max line length=1024 chars remained).

ChangeLogs are now GNU-style, with the most recent entries at the top.

Exit codes of simulation programs were made more natural: 0 if the simulation terminated normally, 1 otherwise. Also, SIGTERM and SIGINT signals are now handled more gracefully: they call finish() before terminating the simulation (Unix only).

In GNED, regexp find/replace now understands the \1,\2,... notation in replace strings. Backwards search was implemented in the Find/Replace dialogs of GNED and Tkenv. Fixed Plove's problems with tabs/spaces in vector files and slashes/backslashes on Windows, and also GNED's problems with command-line arguments.

The makefiles now use a new Perl-based dependency generator which works on all platforms. opp_makemake: added -L option, and removed Makefile.in from the 'depend' target.

In the OMNeT++ 2.1 release (May 2001)

This release is devoted to making OMNeT++ easier to install, easier to use and easier to learn. Most important, there is now a binary package for Windows. The install package comes with Tcl/Tk, Gnuplot and some Unix utilities (grep, awk) bundled, and in addition to the OMNeT++ programs and libraries compiled with MSVC, it also contains prebuilt executables of the sample simulations. To shorten the learning curve, the package contains Nick van Foreest's Queueing Tutorial. Some MSVC integration stuff (AppWizard, macro to add a NED file to the project) was also added.

Changes in the source distribution: it now includes the Tutorial and the sources of the MSVC integration components. To facilitate creating binary distributions, omnetpp.h and the other simulation kernel headers have been moved out of src/sim/, to a new include/ directory. There was no change on the simulation kernel itself.

Further enhancements: Plove can now be built as a single executable with compiled-in Tcl code; on Windows, Plove and GNED can now be compiled as GUI apps (using WinMain() instead of main()). I added makefiles for Win95/98/ME (although I couldn't test them). Borland C++ is no longer supported: I removed the old project files (*.ide), but added back (unsupported) Makefile.bc's.

In the OMNeT++ 2.0 patch 1 (March 2001)

Fixes build issues with Cygwin, PVM, and static libs under Unix.

In the OMNeT++ 2.0 final version (February 2001)

There are a number of enhancements mainly on the GUI parts, GNED and Tkenv, but the simulation API remains fully compatible. Bugs that were reported since the 2.0b5 release have largely been fixed. All those who cared to report bugs and suggested features -- thanks!

In cQueue, a number of methods were made virtual to enable customizing the class (e.g. adding statistics for maintaining average queue length, etc.). Some bugfixes on cQueue, cArray and cBag. I also added the OMNETPP_VERSION symbol to the sim header files (currently #defined as 0x0200).

Tkenv was enhanced quite a bit. Now you can now open module output windows for all modules (not only for simple modules), and the window will accumulate ev<< output from that module and all submodules. (This feature is especially useful for tracing dynamically created modules). Now you can search for text in all module windows (^F Find, F3/^N Find next). Hotkeys were assigned to the run commands too (F4 Step, F5 Run, F6 Fast, F7 Express, F8 Stop), and the behaviour of the "step within module" command (^F4) was refined. I added a Performance status bar (it displays events/sec, simulated sec/sec, events/simulated sec readings). Another toolbar shows (among others) the number of message objects currently in existence -- this feature may help you discover the most common kind of memory leaks: forgetting to delete messages. Display string handling was improved: modules in a module vector may now be positioned individually, and submodule display strings may use the parent module's parameters, too. See src/tkenv/ChangeLog for details.

The most important addition to GNED is its new, experimental XML support (needs the TclXML-1.2 package). XML will play a much more significant role in future releases of OMNeT++, as a universal data exchange format. Many smaller enhancements: GNED now accepts NED file names as command line arguments; .gnedrc was introduced; more & better Properties dialogs (Channel, Connection, Module, etc. Properties); GNED is more careful now when you want to exit the program; the File menu now has a Save all item. Plus a number of other fixes to improve the robustness and reliability of the code.

A short section was added to the manual about parallel simulation in general.

In the OMNeT++ 2.0 beta 5 version (June 2000)

Fixed the errors/warnings that occurred when compiling 2.0b4 with gcc 2.95.2.

In the OMNeT++ 2.0 beta 4 version (May 2000)

This is release is a preparation to the 2.0 final release: most of the changes improve on the ISO compliance, cleanliness, portability or quality of the code and fix bugs, but there are a number of new features too.

Steps toward better ISO compliance: the source was made 'const char *'-correct, and the TRUE/FALSE #defines were replaced by the true/false C++ keywords. Also, nearly all '-Wall' gcc warnings were eliminated from the source.

Now it is possible to create DLLs from the libraries on Windows. This wasn't as easy as I thought, because there are fundamental conceptual differences between Windows DLLs and Unix shared objects. (For me it seems like the Unix approach is a lot more flexible.) The MSVC makefiles were further refined using a contribution from Balazs Kelemen.

Improvements on the simulation library: Multi-stage module initialization support via cModule's initialize(int stage) and int numInitStages() functions. The send...() functions now have versions which take cGate* pointers. sum() and sqrSum() members added to the statistics classes (cStdDev and subclasses); isNumeric() member added to cPar; remove(cObject *) added to cArray. Also, three functions were added to cModule to facilitate navigating the module hierarchy: int findSubmodule(...), cModule *submodule(...) and cModule *moduleByRelativePath(...).

New Cmdenv/Tkenv features: you may link more than one user interfaces into the simulation executable, and you can select one at runtime with the [General]/user-interface=Tkenv (or =Cmdenv) ini file option or the -u Tkenv (or -u Cmdenv) command-line argument to the simulation executable. The per-module extra stack size needed by the user interface libraries can now be configured from the ini file: [Cmdenv]/extra-stack= and [Tkenv]/extra-stack= options.

The setDisplayString() sim.library functions are now properly handled by Tkenv, so you can change the network graphics at runtime. Module parameters in display strings (e.g. in "p=$xpos,$ypos;i=router") are also implemented finally. However, implementing the message appearance customization feature (message display strings) was left for next releases.

In NEDC (and GNED), fixed the ?: operator and changed its precedence to bind looser than || and &&. Changed nedc-generated code to suppress warnings about unused variables (which are normal anyway in machine-generated code); this could only be done for MSVC and Borland C++ because gcc seems to lack such a pragma.

Unfortunately I didn't get a chance to further refine GNED. It would really help to have contributors to GNED development, so if you're interested, please write! (Basically only Tcl/Tk programming is required [no need to touch the C++ part], and I could give any support needed.)

Makefiles change: the 'install-local' target was eliminated: the new-built libraries and programs are immediately copied to the lib/ and bin/ subdirs.

Several other smaller changes like fixed PVM execution; improved error handling, bugfix related to wrong transmissionFinishes() behavior, etc; see the sim/ChangeLog file.

In the OMNeT++ 2.0 beta 3 version (Jan 2000)

License change: you can now elect to use GPL for the whole OMNeT++ package.

Compiling with MSVC is now supported. Makefile.vc files have been added for system components, and project files for sample simulatons. No DLL support yet. MSVC support required a number or small changes in the sources too.

The documentation was significantly expanded and reorganized. RefMan got merged into the User Manual, and the new User Manual now contains a lot of background information, new hints and techniques, references to other simulation packages, etc. New sections include in-depth analyis of handleMessage() and activity(), and a comparison with Parsec.

GNED has been further enhanced: you can create submodules by dragging a module type from the tree view to the canvas; submodule names can be edited in-place; there are dialogs to edit submodule, connection, channel, etc. specifications directly.

A new sample called Demo was added which works as a GUI shell to the other sample simulations, and also demonstrates how you can link several simulation models into a single executable. The other samples were cleaned up a bit too (e.g. indentation & commenting made more consistent).

Some API changes were made to improve the clarity of the code. See API_CHANGES in the doc/ directory.

TVEnv was removed from the distribution.

In the OMNeT++ 2.0 beta 1 and 2 versions (Sep,Nov 1999)

License conditions have been alleviated: from this release on, one can elect to use GPL for the base components of OMNeT++.

The configure script has been replaced by GNU Autoconf. The makefiles have been brushed up (more standard symbol names, autodepend, version number in lib names, etc). Cygwin is now fully supported. DOS+BC3.1 support has been removed for lack of interest. File names longer than 8+3 are now used within the package.

Most of the effort since the last release was put into GNED. As a result, GNED can now directly read/write NED files, so you can use it to work on your existing NED sources. Moreover, GNED is now a fully two-way tool: you can edit compound modules in graphic or in NED source form, and switch to the other view any time. The GUI has been improved too: toolbar icons, tooltips, NED syntax highlight. GNED is still in beta and there's some missing functionality.

Tkenv's user interface has also undergone some beautifying and bugfixing: now it has toolbar icons, tooltips, etc.

OMNETPP_BITMAP_PATH can now contain a list of directories; it includes "." and "./bitmaps" by default, so individual simulation models can have their own icons in their own directories.

Smaller enhancements were made to the simulation library. Some of them are: dynamic simple modules can now be created and booted in one step by using cModuleType's createScheduleInit() function; callInitialize() and callFinish() was added to the module classes (for compound modules they work recursively); behavior of cancelEvent() slightly changed. cMessage now has isScheduled() and isSelfMessage() member functions; a "context pointer" was also added to cMessage to facilitate writing modules which use a large number of self messages concurrently.

See the ChangeLog in the directory of the individual components for details on what has been changed/fixed/improved.

Contributions have been added. They include NED syntax highlight for Emacs, and recipes and sample code to use Octave with OMNeT++.

Which is less visible to you, the development has moved to use CVS.

In version of Feb, 1999 (OMNeT++ 1.1)

handleMessage() support added as alternative to activity(). Finite State Machines (FSMs) are now also supported. They are demonstrated in the fifo2 sample simulation.

The cPacket class and the protocol.h header was added; its aim is to standardize on protocol models. Negative message kind values are now reserved.

Added contributed howto about using OMNeT++ on NT with CYGWIN. Also added contributed report on using message subclassing.

The way of writing custom inspectors has been redesigned to make it more flexible. Also, Tkenv now has a plugin interface.

Several bugfixes and smaller improvements: Tkenv message inspector redesigned; bugs in the ini file reader and the statistics classes were fixed; vsscanf() was eliminated; the makefiles are now created from makefile.in files; wait(), receive() and surroundings were optimized; bug in GNED bug fixed etc.

In version of Aug, 1998 (OMNeT++ 1.0)

Data collection by output vectors can be configured in the ini file (ie. OPNET 'probes'). Display strings can now be specified in the ini file as an alternative to embedding them in ned files.

GNED has been totally rewritten. Now it supports colors, icon selection etc. and correctly generates display strings. Cut/copy/paste capability.

A models/support library added with several base/utility classes and modules.

Ported to Windows 95/NT. Borland C++ 5.0 project files are included.

Numerous smaller improvements on Plove and Tkenv. Possibility to make standalone simulation executables with Tkenv's TCL script parts compiled into the executable.

To-do list and coding conventions (style guide) has been added to the docs; please stick to it. Tkenv is now better documented; and so is the cKSplit class.

As usually, additions and changes in the User Manual are marked with (new) in the text. It does not necessarily mean the feature documented there is new; most probably only the documentation is.

As usually, you're welcome to hack on the code and send in patches! GNED is a very good target to start at. If you plan to do development, you can sign up on the OMNeT++ mailing list and exchange ideas with others.

In version of July, 1998

Documentation now includes quickstart reference for OPNET users. Additions to the User Manual are marked with (new!) in the text.

Tkenv has been improved significantly. Better animation: message names are displayed and message kind is color-coded. New connection inspector shows a connection path graphically. Module inspector has been redesigned in notepad-style. Right-click popup menus in inspector windows. Variables can be changed at run-time by cWatch inspectors. You can now use the menu and play with the inspectors while simulation is running. Several smaller improvements.

Routing support through the cTopology class. Other new classes are cWeightedStdDev, cLinkedList. Direct message encapsulation support. cPar can now store void* pointers. Output scalar file added which accumulates results from several simulation runs. Several refinements on the class library, more informative error messages.

Improved makemake script supports large models which span across multiple directories. Plove made more intuitive with mc-like key bindings and right-click popup menus.

In version of June 5, 1998

Documentation now comes also in HTML. We now have an LSM entry.

Tkenv made the default user interface.

Network graphics (module icons, connection arrows etc) and message flow animation has been added to Tkenv. Usefulness of Tkenv dramatically improved. Default graphics for models originally written without graphics (no modifications needed).

By default, libraries are now dynamically linked which drastically reduces executable sizes. You can revert to static linking by editing in `configure'. You can load shared objects (e.g simple module code) at run-time (-l command-line option).

Source directory tree changed to be more 'unix-like'.

New histogram class with user-defined and equal-frequency cells added (thanks to Gabor Lencse), existing ones cleaned up and significantly enhanced.

Wildcards (*,?) can be used in omnetpp.ini to supply values to several model parameters at a time. Ini file inclusion and multiple ini files support (via multiple -f command-line options) added. Total stack size for the coroutines can now be given in the omnetpp.ini file.

Several bug fixes and minor improvements on Plove, GNED etc.

Version of May, 1998

Wasn't publicly announced.

In version of March, 1998

An new interactive tool, Plove has been added. Plove is for analyzing and plotting output vector files. Plove uses gnuplot to do the actual work. In addition to viewing, you can save the gnuplot graphs to files (postscript, latex, pbm etc) with a click. Filtering the results before plotting (averaging, truncation, smoothing, etc) is possible. Some filters are built in, and you can easily create new filters or modify the existing ones.

Portability: Unix and (with some limitations) Win95/NT

In version of February, 1998

Type checking has been added to the NED language and the compiler. New operators have also been added (like binary and/or/xor, shifting etc).

Now it is not necessary to declare module parameters and gates in .cc files (Module..End stuff can be left out).

A new example program, HCube was added. It simulates an arbitrary-size hypercube network with a simple deflection routing.

A configur script was added that -- on Unix platforms -- finds the installation directories of Tcl/Tk, X, PVM and Turbo Vision, and customizes the makefiles accordingly.

The Jar compiler has been renamed to NEDC because the name 'Jar' was used by other software (a DOS archiver; Java tar on Solaris etc.)

Some scripts in util/ have also been renamed.

Now it is possible to specify values with time units (s,ms,us,m,h,d etc.) in omnetpp.ini.

Misc improvements: some bugs fixed; some error messages in the sim. kernel made more informative etc.

In version of December, 1997

A graphical model editor (GNED) is here. It's written entirely in Tcl/Tk. Try it. It is the first, simple version; there's more to come.

The way of defining simple modules has been simplified a lot. Check out the manual or see the example programs!

A new example program (fifo) was added that models a single-server queue and also demonstrates how to derive a simple module from another one.

Important: the [All runs] ini file section has been renamed to [Parameters] to reduce misunderstandings.

In version of October 15, 1997

Several member functions (and even classes) have been renamed for the sake of a more readable code as well as consistency in naming and style. The utils directory contains a Unix script (convert) to upgrade your files.

The cKSplit class was added -- another, experimental on-line distribution approximation method.

Several bugfixes and improvements, updated manual.

The arg.list to the constructor of the histogram classes has changed -- beware, the compiler might not warn you!

In version of September 15, 1997

Tkenv has been developed upon a lot -- try it with the improved Token Ring example!

Parallel execution via PVM has been tested and significantly improved. Syncpoints (a tool for synchronization) were added. See the user manual for details. Go ahead and do Parallel Discrete Event Simulation (PDES) with OMNeT++!

The implementation of the message queue (Future Event Set) has become more efficient: the underlying data structure has been changed to heap.

Most important change in the simulation class library: cQueue's interface has changed. See the manual or the source code.

Most important change in the ini file: The [General]/number-of-runs option has been replaced by the [Cmdenv]/runs-to-execute option and the -r command-line switch.

Check the version.log files for the numerous other changes. Many bugfixes and code cleanups were made.