[TCLCORE] Tcl 9.0.3 RELEASED

[Jan N. <jan...@gm...>]

Tcl 9.0.3 Release Announcement
==============================

Nov 13, 2025

The Tcl Core Team is pleased to announce the release of Tcl 9.0.3.
This is the second patch of Tcl 9.0.

Tcl is the Tool Command Language originated by John Ousterhout and his
team at U.C. Berkeley in the late 1980s.  Its development is continued
by the efforts of a global network of volunteers guided by the Tcl Core Team.

We would like to express our gratitude to all those who submit bug
reports and patches.  This information is invaluable in enabling us
to identify and eliminate problems. Such reports can be submitted here.

 > [Tcl Ticket Tracker](https://core.tcl-lang.org/tcl/ticket)

We ask that you log in (anonymous if you wish) to create tickets.
This deters abuse of the ticketing system:

 > [Tcl Contributor Login](https://core.tcl-lang.org/tcl/login)

Where to get the new releases
=============================

Tcl 9.0.3 sources are freely available as open source from the Tcl
SourceForge project's file distribution area:

 > [Tcl Source Distribution](https://sourceforge.net/projects/tcl/files/)

The Tcl 9.0.3 distribution is source code only.  We keep links to some
third parties offering pre-built binaries for various systems here:

 > [Tcl Binary Distribution](https://www.tcl-lang.org/software/tcltk/bindist.html)

Tcl Summary
===========

The Tcl distribution delivers C source code that builds into a C library
providing interpreters and related support to execute programs written
in the Tcl programming language.  Source code for the application program
`tclsh` is also included.  `tclsh` provides a shell for either interactive
execution of Tcl commands, or execution of files containing Tcl programs.

Tcl is an extensible language, and the Tcl C library provides interfaces
for the creation of extension libraries adding new commands and features
to the core Tcl command set.  Tcl 9 debuts the full feature set needed to
package an application written in C and Tcl into a single file executable
exploiting virtual filesystem archives.

Tcl Improvement Proposals (TIPs)
================================

Each new user-visible feature in Tcl should find its origins in a Tcl
Improvement Proposal (TIP).  TIPs are published, edited, considered and
voted in public, and should contain valuable information about how a
feature came to be the way it is.  See the full collection here:

 > [TIP Index](https://tip.tcl-lang.org/)

Tcl 9.0.3 Changes Summary
=========================

(from changes.md in the source code distribution)

The source code for Tcl is managed by fossil.  Tcl developers coordinate all
changes to the Tcl source code at

 > [Tcl Source Code](https://core.tcl-lang.org/tcl/timeline)

Release Tcl 9.0.3 arises from the check-in with tag `core-9-0-3`.

Tcl patch releases have the primary purpose of delivering bug fixes
to the userbase.

# Bug fixes
 - [On Unix, IsTimeNative() always defined but not always
used](https://core.tcl-lang.org/tcl/tktview/6b8e39)
 - [Tweak install permissions](https://core.tcl-lang.org/tcl/tktview/31d4fa)
 - [interp creation resets encoding directory search
path](https://core.tcl-lang.org/tcl/tktview/87b697)
 - [Pointer arithmetic with NULL in
buildInfoObjCmd()](https://core.tcl-lang.org/tcl/tktview/85fc8b)
 - [TclPushVarName(): pointer
overflow](https://core.tcl-lang.org/tcl/tktview/77059c)
 - [Add IWYU export pragma
annotations](https://core.tcl-lang.org/tcl/tktview/c7dc59)
 - [Windows: Install man pages](https://core.tcl-lang.org/tcl/tktview/3161b7)
 - [Windows: Install pkgconfig](https://core.tcl-lang.org/tcl/tktview/1cf49a)
 - [Non-existent variables are ignored if re is
{}](https://core.tcl-lang.org/tcl/tktview/cb03e5)
 - [bug in single-argument 'max' with
bignums](https://core.tcl-lang.org/tcl/tktview/8dd280)

# Updated bundled packages, libraries, standards, data
 - Itcl 4.3.5
 - http 2.10.1
 - opt 0.4.10
 - platform 1.1.0
 - sqlite3 3.51.0
 - tcltest 2.5.10
 - Thread 3.0.4
 - TDBC\* 1.1.13
 - dde 1.4.6
 - Unicode 17.0.0

# Known bugs
 - [changed behaviour wrt command names, namespaces and
resolution](https://core.tcl-lang.org/tcl/tktview/f14b33)
 - [windows dos device paths inconsistencies and missing
functionality](https://core.tcl-lang.org/tcl/tktview/d8f121)
 - [load library (dll) from zipfs-library causes a leak in temporary
folder](https://core.tcl-lang.org/tcl/tktview/a8e4f7)
 - [lsearch -sorted -inline -subindices incorrect
result](https://core.tcl-lang.org/tcl/tktview/bc4ac0)
 - ["No error" when load fails due to a missing secondary
DLL](https://core.tcl-lang.org/tcl/tktview/66aa81c90a)

For additional information:
===========================

Please visit the Tcl Developer Xchange web site:

 > [Tcl Developer Xchange](https://www.tcl-lang.org/)

This site contains a variety of information about Tcl/Tk in general, the
core Tcl and Tk distributions, Tcl development tools, and much more.

--
Tcl Core Team and Maintainers
Jan Nijtmans, (replacement) Tcl Core Release Manager