PureBasic 6.50 beta 1 est disponible sur votre compte.

comtois — Wed, 23 Sep 2026 10:19:13 GMT

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Hi Folks !

This release is a bit special, as it's the first one where we really use AI assisted coding to do it. After a long setup to explain to Claude how to work with the PureBasic source tree and VM, the result is really amazing ! just check out what was done in a few days of work:

Added: Per monitor auto DPI scaling for Windows 10+ window and gadgets !
Added: ExtractArray(), JoinArray(), ExtractList(), JoinList()
Added: WindowResolutionX(), WindowResolutionY(),WindowScaledX(), WindowScaledY(), WindowUnscaledX(), WindowUnscaledY()
Added: XmlDialogGadget() to have the XML dialog features into a container gadget.
Added: WebViewGadget() for QT subsystem (except for Raspberry ARM32)
Added: WebP image support for decoding and encoding
Added: UseOSImageDecoder() and UseOSImageEncoder() to load and save images using native plugins
Added: EncodeSound() and SaveSound() to save sounds using natives plugins
Added: UseMP3SoundDecoder() to enable MP3 loading and saving
Added: UseOpusSoundDecoder() to enable Opus loading and saving
Added: DisableGadgetRedraw() for faster insert item on ListIconGadget(), ListViewGadget(), ComboboxGadget() (mainly for Windows)
Added: Resize mode for DrawImage() to have raw or smooth resize.
Added: #PB_Window_Modal flag to OpenWindow() to disable the undelying window.
Added: #PB_Packer_Xz support to Packer library.
Added: Long filename support for Windows (using \\?\ and without explicit \\?\) for all file related commands.
Added: #PB_Editor_Centered flag to EditorGadget()
Added: #PB_All for RemoveGadgetColumns to explorerListGadget as well for consistency
Added: a special doc page which list all the PureBasic third dependencies and their versions
Updated: libjpeg is now replaced by libjpeg-turbo which is much faster.
Updated: PCRE1 library is obsolete and now replaced by PCRE2.
Updated: all static dependencies to latest version !
Fixed: a lot of library bugs, many more unit tests created to avoid regression and catch OS discrepencies.

So far, the AI was also used to check the whole commandsets for security flaws and bugs for all OS. It raised and fixed a lot of stuffs, so please be careful it could have some regressions. It was also used to update all third party libraries to lastest version which is usually a daunting work to do manually. This step will be done now before any new PureBasic releases, so all dependencies should stay up-to-date.

And as a bonus, we got even an automatic dark mode website for https://www.purebasic.com !

Which brings me to something else: if I could get one full week day fully working on PureBasic, I guess the improvement would be tenfolds, on compiler side as well as on library side. So I will try an experiment here with a new Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/PureBasicDevelopment. If we get to the milestone I will reduce my daily work from 5 to 4 days a week to get a full blown day for PureBasic ! Many of you already help with donations so this is another way to contribute but with a much more real PureBasic improvements.

Have fun,

The Fantaisie Software Team

Citation:

UseOSImageDecoder() is using the built-in OS decoder so the exe footprint is low. PNG/jpg are supported by all OS.

Source de l'information

PureBasic 6.40 alpha 1 est disponible, avec une surprise !

comtois — Fri, 23 Jan 2026 17:56:28 GMT

Hi everyone !

That's it, we finally decided to rework the internal stringmanager from the ground up ! The stringmanager hasn't changed since the PureBasic
creation almost 30 years ago, so it wasn't an easy decision to make because major modification for the compilers were needed and all the functions returning a string were impacted. But it's here with the 6.40 alpha 1, only available for the C back-end on Windows x64. The idea is to validate the new stringmanager to see if there is any showstopper before porting the modification to the x86 and x64 asm compilers which will takes time.

I will share some internal information about it:

- It should be 99% backward compatible. We will discuss edge case below.

- All strings are now prefixed by their length (except the strings in DataSection). The last bit of this prefix is used for a temporary flag.
That means than all string operation will have instant length information resulting in faster operation as iterating byte by byte on the string to find the null terminated char is no more needed.
The strings are still null terminated, so no change are needed in client code.

- Still no garbage collector

- The string manager doesn't have a per thread shared buffer anymore for temporary strings. That means there is no global variable to save the current position and the thread mode will have no performance hit. All is now done as new temporary string which will be used as final string if assigned. That removes useless string copy and is much more streamlined.

Example:

Code:

a$ = b$+c$

Old:

Code:

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SYS_PushStringBasePosition(); // current position in the shared buffer is saved (costly in threaded mode)
SYS_CopyString(v_bS); // string is copied on the per thread shared buffer 
SYS_CopyString(v_cS);
SYS_AllocateString4(&v_aS,SYS_PopStringBasePosition()); // Position is restored and string is allocated

New:

Code:

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s1=SYS_ConcatString(v_cS,v_bS); // A temporary string is created here
SYS_NewString(&v_aS,s1); // The temporary string is directly used (temporary bit removed)

It's a very basic case, but it shows the improvement by avoiding useless string copy and global variable preservation

- Optimized procedure parameters passing. If a string parameter isn't modified in the procedure, it will not be duplicated in the procedure. For example

Code:

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Procedure.s a(a$, b$)
  ProcedureReturn UCase(a$) + LCase(b$)
EndProcedure

Here the a$ and b$ are just referenced and won't be duplicated. In the older system, all the string parameters were duplicated.

Even better, the procedure 'a()' will return a temporary string which will be directly assigned to Result$ (no extra allocation/copy):

Code:

Result$ = a("Hello", "World")

Here are the case where the parameters will be duplicated

Code:

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Procedure.s a(a$, b$)
  a$ = "-"+a$ ; Here, the a$ will be duplicated at procedure start, as it's modified.
  ProcedureReturn UCase(a$) + LCase(b$)
EndProcedure
 
Procedure.s a(a$, b$)
  *Cursor = @a$ ; Will also be duplicated as getting the pointer allow modification
  ProcedureReturn UCase(a$) + LCase(b$)
EndProcedure

- The string functions don't have an hidden parameter anymore, allowing better code generation

c$ = Str(150)

Old:

Code:

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SYS_PushStringBasePosition();
SYS_PushStringBasePosition();
PB_Str(150LL,SYS_PopStringBasePosition());
SYS_AllocateString4(&v_cS,SYS_PopStringBasePosition());

New:

Code:

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void *r5=PB_Str(150LL);
SYS_NewString(&v_cS,r5);

- For PureBasic function returning a string, it's possible to tag a parameter as 'reusable' to avoid extra allocation when a temporary string is passed. For now, only LCase() and UCase() uses this, but it greatly improves their performances:

Ex:

Code:

a$ = UCase(b$ + c$)

The allocation is done when concatenating 'b$' + 'c$', then the UCase() function directly change the buffer with upper case character and returns the same buffer which is assigned to a$. So only one allocation occurred and no extra copy were performed.

- The 'mimalloc' memory manager has been integrated in PureBasic for all dynamic allocation to have a very fast and optimized memory allocator for all internal functions. More info here: https://github.com/microsoft/mimalloc

- Overall the performances should be much better, but there will be probably some case were it won't ! Feel free to test it and bench it with your own code (my speed test suite show major improvement (up to 10x) on most tests). For example this one is 9x faster:

Code:

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Start = ElapsedMilliseconds()
a$ = "World WorldWorld WorldWorld WorldWorld WorldWorld WorldWorld WorldWorld WorldWorld WorldWorld WorldWorld WorldWorld WorldWorld WorldWorld WorldWorld WorldWorld WorldWorld WorldWorld WorldWorld WorldWorld WorldWorld WorldWorld WorldWorld WorldWorld WorldWorld World"
For l = 0 To 1000
  b$ = b$ + a$ 
Next
 
PrintN("Final length = " + Str(Len(b$)))
PrintN("Large concat: "+Str(ElapsedMilliseconds() - Start) + " ms")

- Edge cases:

We tried to do the migration as painless as possible, but there is some case where code change will be required. Basically if you patch a string by putting a zero in it, the Len() function will be wrong, and the concat functions will fail. You will need to use PeekS() for this.
You can take a look to the needed modification for the IDE to work with the new stringmanager, it's very light: https://github.com/fantaisie-software/p ... /344/files

Using Win32 API with Space() for example will require an extra PeekS(). If you find other issues, don't hesitate to share it, so I can take a look if it can be addressed or not.

We hope this major rework will increase the PureBasic app efficiency. Don't hesitate to test it but don't use this build in prod, it's indeed not production ready yet !

Have fun,

The Fantaisie Software Team

Source de l'information

Forum du club des d�veloppeurs et IT Pro - PureBasic

PureBasic 6.50 beta 1 est disponible sur votre compte.

PureBasic 6.40 alpha 1 est disponible, avec une surprise !