+ ** PEEK-CHAR uses the current readtable when determining whether
+ or not a character is whitespace.
+ ** MERGE-PATHNAMES handles the case when the pathname does not
+ specify a name while the default-pathname specifies a version.
+ ** Pathnames now stand a better chance of respecting print/read
+ consistency.
+ ** Attempting to use standardized file system operators with a
+ pathname with invalid :DIRECTORY components signals a
+ FILE-ERROR.
+ ** OPEN :DIRECTION :IO no longer fails to work on non-existent
+ files.
+ ** DIRECTORY on logical pathnames is more correct.
+ ** CLEAR-INPUT, CLEAR-OUTPUT, FINISH-OUTPUT and FORCE-OUTPUT
+ signal a TYPE-ERROR if their argument is not a stream.
+ ** READ-BYTE and WRITE-BYTE signal a TYPE-ERROR if their stream
+ designator argument does not designate a stream.
+ ** OPEN-STREAM-P and INPUT-STREAM-P on synonym streams work by
+ examining the synonym.
+ ** STREAM-ELEMENT-TYPE and FRESH-LINE on broadcast-streams now
+ work as specified.
+ ** OPEN and WITH-OPEN-STREAM allow opening streams with
+ element-type larger than ([UN]SIGNED-BYTE 32).
+
+changes in sbcl-0.8.9 relative to sbcl-0.8.8:
+ * deprecation of old extension: *DEBUG-PRINT-LEVEL* and
+ *DEBUG-PRINT-LENGTH* are now deprecated in favor of the new, more
+ general SB-DEBUG:*DEBUG-PRINT-VARIABLE-ALIST* mechanism. (This
+ should matter to you only if you rebind the printer control
+ variables and then find you want different bindings in the
+ debugger than in the ordinary execution of your program.)
+ * The runtime build system has been tweaked to support building
+ (on SPARC/SunOS) using a C compiler which invokes Sun's own
+ assembler and linker. (thanks to Nikodemus Siivola)
+ * optimization: implemented multiplication as a modular
+ (UNSIGNED-BYTE 32) operation on the PPC backend.
+ * fixed some bugs revealed by Paul Dietz' test suite:
+ ** ADJUST-ARRAY now copies the datum in a zero rank array if
+ required.
+ ** ADJUST-ARRAY no longer adjusts non-adjustable arrays.
+ ** MAKE-STRING-INPUT-STREAM accepts NIL as a value for :END.
+ ** MAKE-STRING-INPUT-STREAM functions correctly for strings with
+ element-type NIL.
+ ** CLEAR-INPUT accepts NIL and T for its (optional) stream
+ argument.
+ ** Ratios can now be printed correctly with *PRINT-BASE* bound to
+ 2, 8 or 16.
+ ** ECHO-STREAMs no longer attempt to echo the end of file value to
+ their output stream on EOF from read.
+ ** CONCATENATED-STREAM-STREAMS discards constituent streams which
+ have been read to end-of-file.
+ ** CLOSE works as expected on the null CONCATENATED-STREAM, and on
+ STRING-STREAMS.