Eclipse eCAL (enhanced Communication Abstraction Layer) v6.0.0

Core 💠

• Reworked API (#1841, #1785, #1853, #1854, #1849, #1858, #1859, #1863, #2046, #2071)
  • improved usability
  • more meaningful function naming and return values
  • diverse cleanups of unnecessary functions
• Configuration management (#1604, #1891)
  • runtime configuration easily possible with structures for Initializes process as well as for creating publisher and subscriber (#1505, #1561)
  • new config file format: yaml (#1669)
  • new config file path in userspace (appdata, ~/.ecal/) after generation or in install folder (win) (#1983)
• Monitoring support for client entities (#1493)
• Added event callbacks to publisher/subscriber for new entities (#1717, #1982)

Language Bindings 🗣️

• Feature equivalent with C++ API
  • C (#2074, #2084, #2090)
  • C# (#2056, #2075, #2186, #2188, #2204, #2214)
  • Python (#2189, #2263)

Measurement ⏺️

• New HDF5 format v6 that stores channel IDs which enables recording distinguished channels with same name (#1375)

Application 🧰

• Support of Qt6 (#1315)
• eCAL Sys now can handle hostname evaluation for target hostname (#2285)
• Config file path can be seen in eCAL Monitor (and read out via monitoring information) (#1909)

Documentation 📜

• Adaption for new API (#1690, #1985, #2137)
• Cleanup to fit the current state of the repository (#2085, #2147, #2277, #2286)
• Migration Guide to new API coming from eCAL 5 (#2104)
• Documentation switch available to choose for different eCAL versions (#1901, #2019)

Build Process ⚙️

• Support of dependency provider (#1501)
• Support of CMakePresets (#1380)
• Renamed eCAL related CMake options with prefix "ECAL_" and "HAS" replaced with "USE" (#1968)

Miscellaneous 🎲

• Runtime optimization (#1742, #1744, #1746
• Diverse internal cleanups
• Submodule updates
• Repository restructure (#1934, #1935, #2039)

Bugfixes 🐞

• Player crashes when playing empty measurements fixed (#1385)
• Service collision in eCAL Monitor fixed (#1554)
• Frequency calculation bug that resets FPS to 0.0 fixed (#1650)
• Datarace fixes (#1674, #1795, #2249
• Processes might not unregister correctly fixed (#1764)
• Topic resubscription bug fix for shm (#1943)

Thank you 🤝

We’re incredibly grateful to everyone who contributed to eCAL 6. Your time, expertise, and dedication helped shape this release into what it is today.
This milestone wouldn’t have been possible without your support—thank you for being part of the journey!

• ⭐ @DownerCase ⭐
• @LeonHosch
• @ashariff-11
• @albrechtdennis
• @KaiKosch
• @aaroon-5

Full Changelog: v5.13.3...v6.0.0