Review MR 27, please

[Robert Goldman]

If anyone is still on this mailing list, would you please review this MR and either make requests for fixing it, or merge it?

Note that the regression tests are broken on the master branch. One of the reasons I would like to get this MR merged is that I would very much like to finish fixing the regression tests so that we have a secure foundation for any further bug fixes.

Thanks,
R