Geant4 6.2 Release Notes
June 25th, 2004



The code and binary libraries for the supported systems are available through our Source Code Web page.

Please refer to the Geant4 User Documentation for further information about using Geant4.

Contents

  1. Supported and Tested Platforms
  2. AIDA and CLHEP
  3. Compiler Specific Problems
  4. Known Run-Time Problems
  5. Compilation Warnings
  6. Known Run-Time Warnings
  7. Major items for migration of user code
  8. Detailed list of changes and fixes


1. Supported and Tested Platforms

Official platforms: More verified configurations: More verified configurations, which we plan to stop supporting in releases or patches after November 2004: Platforms configured but not tested and not supported:


2. AIDA and CLHEP

Geant4 6.2 requires the installation of CLHEP.
Tests have been performed with CLHEP-1.8.1.0

Geant4 6.2 examples with histogramming cowork with AIDA 3.2.1 implementations. These include: AIDA headers can be downloaded from: http://aida.freehep.org


3. Compiler Specific Problems


4. Known Run-Time Problems and Limitations

For a complete list of outstanding run-time problems and to submit any problem you may find running this version of Geant4, please refer to the Geant4 Problem Reporting System.


5. Compilation Warnings

There may be compilation warnings on some platforms. We do not believe that any will lead to incorrect run-time behaviour.


6. Known Run-Time Warnings

The following message can be written to error output while tracking. We believe it does not give rise to incorrect behaviour.
    G4PropagateInField: Warning: Particle is looping 
    -  tracking in field will be stopped. 
       It has performed 1000 steps in Field while a maximum of 1000
       are allowed. 


7. Major items for migration of user code

There're not known migrations necessary if upgrading from release 6.1, other than recompilation and/or reinstallation of libraries and user applications.

Future migration for G4VParticleChange class

For the future releases, an interface change to the class G4VParticleChange is foreseen. The required changes are already implemented in this release while still keeping valid the old interface.
The following methods will be removed in the future:
      void  SetTrueStepLength(G4double truePathLength);
      void  SetLocalEnergyDeposit(G4double anEnergyPart);
      G4TrackStatus GetStatusChange() const;
      void  SetStatusChange(G4TrackStatus status);
      void  SetSteppingControl(G4SteppingControl StepControlFlag);
      void  SetParentWeight(G4double);
They will have to be replaced by the following methods, respectively:
      void ProposeTrueStepLength(G4double truePathLength);
      void ProposeLocalEnergyDeposit(G4double anEnergyPart);
      G4TrackStatus GetTrackStatus() const;
      void ProposeTrackStatus(G4TrackStatus status);
      void ProposeSteppingControl(G4SteppingControl StepControlFlag);
      void ProposeParentWeight(G4double);

Future migration for G4GeneralParticleSource class

A 'tree-structured' command format is implemented in this release for G4GeneralParticleSource. The old UI commands have been kept for backward compatibility but will be removed in the future.
For more information, please consult: http://reat.space.qinetiq.com/gps.


8. Detailed list of changes and fixes

These are the main new features/fixes included in this release since the last patched public release (for the detailed list of fixes/additions, please refer to the related History files provided in most packages):

Configuration

Digitization & Hits

Event

Electromagnetic Processes (Low-energy)

Electromagnetic Processes (Standard)

General Processes, Parameterisation, Cuts, Decay, Optical

Geometry

Global

Graphical Representations

Materials

Hadronic Processes

Particles

Run, Intercoms and Interfaces

Track and Tracking

Visualization

Data sets

Electromagnetic physics-lists

Environments

G3toG4 Tool

Examples