[m-rev.] diff: reinitialize NEWS file
Peter Ross
pro at missioncriticalit.com
Mon Dec 2 20:53:07 AEDT 2002
Hi,
===================================================================
Estimated hours taken: 0.5
Branches: main
HISTORY:
Move the news for 0.11 into the HISTORY file.
Note that the is_nan news item has been removed.
NEWS:
Initialise the NEWS file for 0.12.
Note that the is_nan news item has been retained.
Index: HISTORY
===================================================================
RCS file: /home/mercury1/repository/mercury/HISTORY,v
retrieving revision 1.20
diff -u -r1.20 HISTORY
--- HISTORY 20 Nov 2002 07:56:18 -0000 1.20
+++ HISTORY 2 Dec 2002 09:46:35 -0000
@@ -1854,3 +1854,516 @@
There are however some new packages in the mercury-extras distribution:
* lex: a lexical analyzer library for Mercury.
* curs: a simplified binding to the ncurses/panel libraries for terminal I/O.
+
+Mercury 0.11, December 2002
+---------------------------
+
+HIGHLIGHTS
+==========
+
+Changes to the Mercury language:
+* Support for constrained polymorphic modes.
+* Addition of state variable syntax.
+* Improved support for higher-order functions.
+* Predicate and function equivalence type and mode declarations.
+* Support for defining predicates or functions
+ using different clauses for different modes.
+* Support for Haskell-like "@" expressions.
+* Generalized foreign language interface.
+
+Changes to the Mercury compiler:
+* A new `--make' option, for simpler building of programs.
+* A new `--smart-recompilation' option, for fine-grained dependency tracking.
+* A new optional warning: `--warn-non-tail-recursion'.
+* A new optimization: `--constraint-propagation'.
+* A new optimization: `--loop-invariants'.
+* Support for arbitrary mappings from module name to source file name.
+
+Portability improvements:
+* Mac OS X is now supported "out-of-the-box".
+* On Windows we now support generating non-Cygwin executables.
+* Better conformance to ANSI/ISO C.
+
+Changes to the compiler back-ends:
+* The native code Linux/x86 back-end is now "release quality".
+* The .NET CLR back-end is much improved.
+
+Major improvements to the Mercury debugger, including:
+* Support for source-linked debugging using vim (rather than emacs).
+* Command-line completion.
+* Ability to display values of higher-order terms.
+* Declarative debugging.
+* Support for transparent retries across I/O.
+
+Numerous minor improvements to the Mercury standard library.
+
+A new testing tool in the extras distribution.
+
+DETAILED LISTING
+================
+
+Changes to the Mercury language:
+
+* We have added support for constrained polymorphic modes. See the section on
+ Constrained Polymorphic Modes in the Modes chapter of the Mercury Language
+ Reference Manual.
+
+* A more general alternative to DCG syntax has been added to the language
+ to simplify the manipulation of threaded state. See the section on State
+ Variables in the Syntax chapter in the Mercury Language Reference Manual.
+
+* If a higher-order function term has inst 'ground' it is now assumed to have
+ the standard higher-order function inst 'func(in, .., in) = out is det'.
+ This makes higher-order functional programming much easier, particularly when
+ passing functions to polymorphic predicates.
+
+ This change is not completely backwards compatible since, for safety,
+ we must now disallow calls that would cause a variable that has a
+ nonstandard function inst to become 'ground'.
+
+* Predicate and function type and mode declarations can now be expressed
+ in terms of higher-order predicate and function types and insts, rather
+ than explicitly listing the argument types and modes. This is useful
+ where several predicates or functions must have the the same type and
+ mode signature.
+
+ For example:
+ :- type foldl_pred(T, U) == pred(T, U, U).
+ :- inst foldl_pred == (pred(in, in, out) is det).
+ :- pred p `with_type` foldl_pred(T, U) `with_inst` foldl_pred.
+
+ For more information see the "Predicate and function type declarations"
+ section of the "Types" chapter and the "Predicate and function mode
+ declarations" section of the "Modes chapter" of the Mercury Language
+ Reference Manual.
+
+* The constructor for lists is now called '[|]' rather than '.'.
+ `./2' will eventually become the module qualification operator.
+ This change only affects programs which use `./2' explicitly.
+ Programs which only use the `[H | T]' syntax will be unaffected.
+
+* We've added a new kind of expression to the language.
+ A unification expression, written `X @ Y', unifies X and Y
+ and returns the result.
+
+ Unification expressions are most useful when writing switches:
+ p(X, X) :- X = f(_, _).
+ can now be written as
+ p(X @ f(_, _), X).
+
+ See the "Data-terms" section of the "Syntax" chapter of the
+ Mercury Language Reference Manual for more details.
+
+* We've extended the language to allow you to specify different clauses
+ for different modes of a predicate or function. This is done by
+ putting mode annotations in the head of each clause.
+ For example, you can write
+
+ :- mode p(in).
+ :- mode p(out).
+ p(X::in) :- ... /* clause for the `in' mode */
+ p(X::out) :- ... /* clause for the `out' mode */
+
+ For predicates or functions which have different clauses for different
+ modes, you need to either (1) add a `pragma promise_pure' declaration
+ for the predicate or function, and ensure that the declarative semantics
+ remains the same in each mode, or (2) declare the predicate as impure.
+
+* We now allow `:- pragma promise_semipure' declarations. For more
+ information, see the "Impurity" chapter of the Mercury Language
+ Reference Manual.
+
+* We've added `:- pragma c_import_module' declarations, which are
+ used to make the C declarations for predicates and functions with
+ `:- pragma export' declarations in the imported module visible
+ to any C code in the importing module. `mmake' uses
+ `:- pragma c_import_module' declarations to make sure that the
+ header file for the imported module is built before it is needed,
+ which it can't do if the header file is explicitly #included.
+
+* The foreign language interface has been generalized to support
+ interfacing with languages other than C.
+
+ In particular, the Mercury compiler's .NET back-end now supports
+ interfacing with C#, IL, and "Managed C++" (C++ with Microsoft's
+ extensions for the .NET CLR). Mercury procedures can be defined
+ using inline code fragments written in any of these languages.
+
+ For details, see the new "Foreign language interface" chapter of
+ the Mercury Language Reference Manual.
+
+* We've removed the undocumented operators `export_adt', `export_cons',
+ `export_module', `export_op', `export_pred', `export_sym', `export_type',
+ `import_adt', `import_cons', `import_op', `import_pred', `import_sym',
+ `import_type' `use_adt', `use_cons', `use_op', `use_pred', `use_sym'
+ and `use_type'. These operators were reserved for module system
+ extensions which are unlikely to be implemented.
+
+Changes to the Mercury standard library:
+
+* The Prolog-style term comparison operators @<, @=<, @>, @>= are now
+ builtin.
+
+* A new builtin function ordering/2 has been added.
+
+* We've added a function to io.m to construct io__error codes from error
+ messages: `io__make_io_error'.
+
+* The assumptions that we make about user supplied comparison predicates and
+ functions have been relaxed to allow more general orderings. The new
+ assumptions are documented in builtin.m.
+
+* The builtin predicates !/0 and !/2 from Mercury's Prolog heritage have been
+ removed (`!' is now a prefix operator used in the state variable syntax).
+
+* io__close_input, io__close_output, io__close_binary_input and
+ io__close_binary_output now throw an exception rather than
+ silently ignoring attempts to close the stdin, stdout or stderr
+ streams.
+
+* We have added the type class `pprint__doc/1' and a new concatenation
+ operator, `++/2', which should make it easier to construct doc values.
+* Performance bugs in `pprint__to_doc' have now been fixed. Even
+ very large terms can now be converted to docs and pretty printed without
+ causing a machine to thrash or run out of memory.
+
+* `io__read_file' and `io__read_file_as_string' now have better error
+ handling. The result types have changed, so code using these predicates
+ will need minor modifications.
+* We've added predicates `io__input_stream_foldl', `io__input_stream_foldl_io'
+ and `io__input_stream_foldl2_io', which apply a predicate to each character
+ of an input stream in turn.
+* We've added predicates `io__binary_input_stream_foldl',
+ `io__binary_input_stream_foldl_io' and `io__binary_input_stream_foldl2_io',
+ which apply a predicate to each byte of a binary input stream in turn.
+* We've added versions of `io__print', `io__write' and `io__write_univ'
+ that allow the caller to specify how they should treat values of noncanonical
+ types, e.g. types in which a single semantic value may have more than one
+ syntactic expression.
+* We've added four new predicates to allow programs to retrieve current
+ streams: `io__current_input_stream', `io__current_output_stream',
+ `io__current_binary_input_stream', and `io__current_binary_output_stream'.
+* We've added a predicate to io.m to return the last modification time
+ of a file: `io__file_modification_time'.
+* We've added cc_multi modes to io__write_list/5 and io__write_list/6.
+
+* We've added four functions to list.m for mapping functions over
+ corresponding members of lists: list__map_corresponding/3,
+ list__map_corresponding3/4, list__filter_map_corresponding/3
+ and list__filter_map_corresponding3/4.
+* We've added some other new functions to list.m, namely
+ list__last_det/2, list__split_last/3 and list__split_last_det/3.
+* We've added cc_multi modes to list__foldl/4 and list__foldr/4.
+* We've added a predicate list__map_foldl2.
+* As mentioned above, the constructor for lists has changed from './2'
+ to `[|]/2'. This change affects the behaviour of the term manipulation
+ predicates in the standard library when dealing with values of
+ type `term__term/1' representing lists. The affected predicates are
+ parser__read_term, parser__read_term_from_string, term__type_to_term,
+ term__term_to_type, term_io__read_term and term_io__write_term.
+ Also beware that std_util__functor and std_util__deconstruct now
+ return `[|]' rather than `.' for lists, and calls to std_util__construct
+ which construct lists may need to be updated.
+* We've added the predicate list__is_empty/1 and list__is_not_empty/1.
+* We've added the predicate list__remove_adjacent_dups/3.
+
+* We've added a function version of error/1, called func_error/1, to require.m.
+
+* ops.m now defines a typeclass which can be used to define operator
+ precedence tables for use by parser.m and term_io.m. See
+ samples/calculator2.m for an example program.
+
+ The `ops__table' type has been renamed `ops__mercury_op_table'.
+ `ops__init_op_table' has been renamed `ops__init_mercury_op_table'.
+ `ops__max_priority' is now a function taking an operator table argument.
+
+* The predicates and functions in int.m, float.m, math.m and array.m now
+ generate exceptions rather than program aborts on domain errors and
+ out-of-bounds array accesses. There are new functions
+ `float__unchecked_quotient/2', `int__unchecked_quotient/2' and
+ `int__unchecked_rem/2' for which no checking is performed and the
+ behaviour if the right operand is zero is undefined.
+
+* We've removed the reverse modes of the arithmetic functions in
+ float.m and extras/complex_numbers. (Because of rounding errors,
+ the functions aren't actually reversible.)
+
+* float__pow now works for negative exponents, and runs much faster
+ for large exponents.
+
+* We've removed the destructive update modes of string__set_char,
+ string__set_char_det and string__unsafe_set_char. The compiler
+ currently always stores constant strings in static data, even
+ if they are passed to procedures with mode `di', so any attempt
+ to update a constant string will cause a crash. Fixing this properly
+ will be a lot of work, so for now we have just removed the modes.
+
+* We've added string__suffix, string__words/1, string__foldr,
+ string__foldl_substring and string__foldr_substring.
+
+* The exception module has a new predicate `try_store', which is
+ like `try_io', but which works with stores rather than io__states.
+
+* We've fixed a bug in time.m. Type `tm' didn't store the day of the month,
+ which meant that the functions which required that field (e.g. time__asctime,
+ time__mktime) did not work.
+
+ The order of the fields of type `time__tm' has been changed so that
+ comparison of values of type `tm' whose `tm_dst' fields are identical
+ is equivalent to comparison of the times those values represent.
+
+* std_util.m now contains predicates and functions `map_maybe',
+ `fold_maybe', `map_fold_maybe' and `map_fold2_maybe', which are
+ analogues of `list__map', `list__foldl', `list__map_foldl' and
+ `list__map_foldl2' operating on values of type `maybe' instead
+ of `list'.
+
+* We've added a predicate to io.m to return the last modification time
+ of a file (io__file_modification_time).
+
+* There is a variant of io__call_system, io__call_system_return_signal
+ which on interrupt returns the number of the signal which interrupted
+ the command rather than just an error message.
+
+* We've added added several new predicates for deconstructing terms to
+ std_util.m. `named_argument' and `det_named_argument' are analogous
+ to `argument' and `det_argument' respectively, but specify the desired
+ argument by its name, not its position. We have also added committed choice
+ version of all the predicates that deconstruct terms. These differ from the
+ existing versions in that they do not abort when called upon to deconstruct
+ non-canonical terms, such as values of types with user-defined equality.
+
+* We've added a new predicate `intersect_list' in each of the modules
+ implementing sets in the Mercury standard library.
+
+* We've added a predicate version of `set__fold'.
+
+* We've added function versions of `builtin__unsafe_promise_unique',
+ `ops__init_op_table' and `ops__max_priority'.
+
+* We've added a version of `getopt__process_options' which returns
+ the option arguments.
+
+* `getopt__process_options' has been modified to allow negation of
+ accumulating options. Negating an accumulating option empties
+ the accumulated list of strings.
+
+* We've added some functions to the term_io module to return printable
+ representations of term components as strings.
+
+* We've made the outputs of the string concatenation primitives unique.
+
+* New convenience/readability predicates `int__even/1' and `int__odd/1'.
+
+* New predicate benchmark_det_io for benchmarking code that performs I/O.
+
+* We've removed the long obsolete `int__builtin_*' and
+ `float__builtin_float_*' predicates, which were synonyms
+ for the arithmetic functions dating from when Mercury didn't
+ have functions.
+
+* We've added int:'/'/2 as a synonym for int:'//'/2 and false/0 as a
+ built-in synonym for fail/0 (both left-overs from Mercury's Prolog
+ heritage.)
+
+* dir:'/'/2 is now a synonym for `dir__make_path_name'.
+
+* We've removed the long obsolete predicates `io__read_anything',
+ `io__write_anything', and `io__print_anything', which were long ago
+ renamed as `io__read', `io__write', and `io__print' respectively.
+
+* We've added random__random/5, which produces a random integer in a
+ given range, and random__randcount/3, which returns the number of
+ distinct random numbers that can be generated.
+
+Changes to the extras distribution:
+
+* There's a new testing tool called "quickcheck", which is similar to
+ Haskell's "QuickCheck". See quickcheck/tutes/index.html.
+
+* The interface to Moose has been changed in a non-backwards compatible
+ way to support user-defined modes for the parser state and integrate
+ better with lex.
+
+Changes to the Mercury compiler:
+
+* There is a new `--make' option which performs most of the functions
+ of Mmake. The advantages of `mmc --make' are that no `mmake depend'
+ step is necessary and the dependencies are more accurate. Parallel
+ builds are not yet supported. See the "Using Mmake" chapter of the
+ "Mercury User's Guide" for details.
+
+* The Mercury compiler can now perform smart recompilation, enabled by the
+ `--smart-recompilation' option. With smart recompilation, when the
+ interface of a module changes, only modules which use the changed
+ declarations are recompiled. Smart recompilation does not yet work
+ with `--intermodule-optimization'.
+
+* The Mercury compiler can now handle arbitrary mappings from source files
+ to module names. If the program contains modules for which the source
+ file name does not match the module name, before generating the
+ dependencies the command `mmc -f SOURCES' must be run, where `SOURCES'
+ is a list of the names of all of the source files. If the names of the
+ source files all match the contained module names, `mmc -f' need not be run.
+
+* There is a new `--use-grade-subdirs' option which is similar to
+ `--use-subdirs', but allows multiple grades to be built in a
+ directory at the same time. `--use-grade-subdirs' does not
+ work with Mmake (it does work with `mmc --make').
+
+* The compiler and scripts accept a `--mercury-stdlib-dir' option,
+ which overrides the configured location of the Mercury standard
+ library. There is also an environment variable MERCURY_STDLIB_DIR
+ which has the same effect. The environment variables which were
+ previously used to override the location of the standard library
+ (MERCURY_ALL_C_INCL_DIRS, MERCURY_ALL_MC_C_INCL_DIRS, MERCURY_INT_DIR,
+ MERCURY_C_LIB_DIR, MERCURY_MOD_LIB_MODS, MERCURY_TRACE_LIB_MODS) are
+ now deprecated, and will be removed in a future release.
+ MERCURY_C_INCL_DIR has already been removed.
+
+* We've added a new compiler option `--warn-non-tail-recursion', which
+ causes the compiler to issue a warning about any directly recursive
+ call that is not a tail call.
+
+* The automatically generated header files for modules containing
+ `pragma export' declarations are now named `<module>.mh', not
+ `<module>.h'. This avoids conflicts with system header files.
+
+* We've fixed a long-standing bug in the handling of module imports.
+ Previously, if `module1' imported `module2' which imported `module3' in
+ its interface section, then any types, insts, modes and typeclasses defined
+ in the interface of `module3' could be used in `module1' even
+ if `module1' did not import `module3' directly.
+
+ This change will break some existing programs, but that is easily fixed
+ by adding any necessary `:- import_module' or `:- use_module' declarations.
+
+* Options for the Mercury runtime can now be set at compile time using
+ the new `--runtime-flags' option of ml and c2init.
+
+* We've added a new optimization pass -- constraint propagation.
+
+ Constraint propagation attempts to transform the code so
+ that goals which can fail are executed as early as possible.
+ It is enabled with the `--constraint-propagation' option
+ (or `--local-constraint-propagation' for a more restricted
+ version of the transformation).
+
+* The Mercury compiler can now perform inter-module optimization using
+ information from transitively imported modules. This is especially
+ useful for back-ends which do not support abstract equivalence types
+ properly (for example the .NET backend). To disable this behaviour and
+ only optimize using information from directly imported modules, use the
+ option `--no-read-opt-files-transitively'.
+
+* For each `--Xflags' option there is now a `--Xflag' option which allows a
+ single quoted argument to be passed to the invoked program. This is useful
+ where the argument is a directory name containing spaces.
+
+* The `--convert-to-goedel' option has been removed.
+ It never really worked anyway.
+
+Portability improvements:
+
+* Mac OS X is now supported "out-of-the-box".
+
+ See README.MacOSX for details.
+
+* On Windows we now support generating non-Cygwin executables.
+
+ The Mercury compiler source distribution can be configured using
+ `configure --with-cc="gcc -mno-cygwin"'. This option ensures
+ that the Mercury libraries are only linked with the standard
+ Windows libraries, not the Cygwin Unix emulation library,
+ so Mercury programs don't need Cygwin, and use DOS/Windows-style
+ path names rather than Cygwin's Unix-style path names.
+
+ Note that you still need Cygwin to install and use Mercury.
+ The change is that the programs which you build using Mercury
+ don't need Cygwin anymore.
+
+* Better conformance to ANSI/ISO C.
+
+ We now pass all the tests in the Mercury test suite
+ when the compiler is built with the "lcc" C compiler,
+ which is more strict about ANSI/ISO C conformance than GNU C.
+ This should also make it easier to port to other C compilers.
+
+Changes to the Mercury debugger:
+
+* The debugger can now print goals just as Prolog debuggers do. At an exit
+ port of e.g. append, the command "print goal" will print the current goal
+ in a form such as "append([1], [2], [1, 2])".
+
+* You can now navigate terms in the debugger by argument name as well as by
+ argument number.
+
+* The debugger can now print higher order values.
+
+* The debugger can now print type_info structures. However, since such
+ structures are normally of interest to implementors only, the debugger
+ will print such values only if the user gives the command "print_optionals
+ on".
+
+* The debugger can now perform command line completion when compiled
+ with GNU Readline support enabled.
+
+* We've added a 'view' command to `mdb', which opens a `vim' window and
+ in it displays the current source location, updated at each event. This
+ requires X11 and a version of `vim' with the `clientserver' feature
+ enabled.
+
+* The `--window' mdb option now creates a window for mdb, not
+ the program. The main advantage of the new behaviour is that
+ redirection of the program's input and output works. The old
+ behaviour is still available with `mdb --program-in-window'.
+
+* The debugger now includes support for declarative debugging. The `dd'
+ command starts diagnosis at any exit, fail or exception port in mdb. See
+ the Mercury User's Guide for more details.
+
+* When a program is compiled in a debugging grade, the debugger can be
+ asked, via the command `table_io start', to make I/O primitives (such as
+ io__open_file, io__write_string etc) idempotent. This means that a given
+ call to e.g. io__open_file will open the specified file only once,
+ even if retry commands cause the call to be executed more than once.
+
+Changes to the compiler back-ends:
+
+* The native code Linux/x86 back-end is now "release quality".
+
+ The native code back-end, which was first released in Mercury 0.10,
+ compiles directly to assembler, rather than than going via C.
+ This back-end is enabled using the `--target asm' option. It is
+ implemented by linking the Mercury compiler with the (relatively)
+ language independent GNU Compiler Collection back-end. In other words,
+ it is a Mercury front-end for GCC.
+
+ This release is the first to be based on an officially released
+ version of GCC (it is based on GCC 3.2). In this release, the native
+ code back-end now passes all of the applicable tests in the Mercury test
+ suite, including bootstraping the Mercury compiler. Currently it is only
+ supported on i*86-pc-linux-gnu (Intel x86-based PCs running Linux).
+
+ For details see <http://www.cs.mu.oz.au/mercury/download/gcc-backend.html>.
+
+* .NET CLR back-end much improved.
+
+ The .NET CLR back-end, which generates MSIL code for Microsoft's new
+ .NET Common Language Runtime, has been substantially improved.
+ Mercury data structures are mapped to .NET CLR data types in a more
+ natural and more efficient manner. A lot more of the standard library
+ is now supported. Text files on Windows are now output with proper
+ Windows CR-LF line endings. Many bugs have been fixed.
+
+ This back-end supports the whole of the Mercury language, but the
+ Mercury standard library implementation for the .NET CLR is still
+ not yet complete. The .NET CLR back-end now passes about half of
+ the tests in the Mercury test suite.
+
+ This back-end is selected when you use the `--grade il' option.
+
+ See <http://www.cs.mu.oz.au/mercury/dotnet.html> and/or
+ <http://www.cs.mu.oz.au/mercury/information/dotnet/mercury_and_dotnet.html>.
+
+For news about earlier versions, see the HISTORY file.
Index: NEWS
===================================================================
RCS file: /home/mercury1/repository/mercury/NEWS,v
retrieving revision 1.282
diff -u -r1.282 NEWS
--- NEWS 25 Nov 2002 11:53:15 -0000 1.282
+++ NEWS 2 Dec 2002 09:46:35 -0000
@@ -1,516 +1,57 @@
-NEWS for Mercury release 0.11:
+NEWS for Mercury release 0.12:
------------------------------
HIGHLIGHTS
==========
Changes to the Mercury language:
-* Support for constrained polymorphic modes.
-* Addition of state variable syntax.
-* Improved support for higher-order functions.
-* Predicate and function equivalence type and mode declarations.
-* Support for defining predicates or functions
- using different clauses for different modes.
-* Support for Haskell-like "@" expressions.
-* Generalized foreign language interface.
+* Nothing yet.
Changes to the Mercury compiler:
-* A new `--make' option, for simpler building of programs.
-* A new `--smart-recompilation' option, for fine-grained dependency tracking.
-* A new optional warning: `--warn-non-tail-recursion'.
-* A new optimization: `--constraint-propagation'.
-* A new optimization: `--loop-invariants'.
-* Support for arbitrary mappings from module name to source file name.
+* Nothing yet.
Portability improvements:
-* Mac OS X is now supported "out-of-the-box".
-* On Windows we now support generating non-Cygwin executables.
-* Better conformance to ANSI/ISO C.
+* Nothing yet.
-Changes to the compiler back-ends:
-* The native code Linux/x86 back-end is now "release quality".
-* The .NET CLR back-end is much improved.
+Changes to the Mercury debugger:
+* Nothing yet.
-Major improvements to the Mercury debugger, including:
-* Support for source-linked debugging using vim (rather than emacs).
-* Command-line completion.
-* Ability to display values of higher-order terms.
-* Declarative debugging.
-* Support for transparent retries across I/O.
+Changes to the compiler back-ends:
+* Nothing yet.
Numerous minor improvements to the Mercury standard library.
-A new testing tool in the extras distribution.
-
DETAILED LISTING
================
Changes to the Mercury language:
-* We have added support for constrained polymorphic modes. See the section on
- Constrained Polymorphic Modes in the Modes chapter of the Mercury Language
- Reference Manual.
-
-* A more general alternative to DCG syntax has been added to the language
- to simplify the manipulation of threaded state. See the section on State
- Variables in the Syntax chapter in the Mercury Language Reference Manual.
-
-* If a higher-order function term has inst 'ground' it is now assumed to have
- the standard higher-order function inst 'func(in, .., in) = out is det'.
- This makes higher-order functional programming much easier, particularly when
- passing functions to polymorphic predicates.
-
- This change is not completely backwards compatible since, for safety,
- we must now disallow calls that would cause a variable that has a
- nonstandard function inst to become 'ground'.
-
-* Predicate and function type and mode declarations can now be expressed
- in terms of higher-order predicate and function types and insts, rather
- than explicitly listing the argument types and modes. This is useful
- where several predicates or functions must have the the same type and
- mode signature.
-
- For example:
- :- type foldl_pred(T, U) == pred(T, U, U).
- :- inst foldl_pred == (pred(in, in, out) is det).
- :- pred p `with_type` foldl_pred(T, U) `with_inst` foldl_pred.
-
- For more information see the "Predicate and function type declarations"
- section of the "Types" chapter and the "Predicate and function mode
- declarations" section of the "Modes chapter" of the Mercury Language
- Reference Manual.
-
-* The constructor for lists is now called '[|]' rather than '.'.
- `./2' will eventually become the module qualification operator.
- This change only affects programs which use `./2' explicitly.
- Programs which only use the `[H | T]' syntax will be unaffected.
-
-* We've added a new kind of expression to the language.
- A unification expression, written `X @ Y', unifies X and Y
- and returns the result.
-
- Unification expressions are most useful when writing switches:
- p(X, X) :- X = f(_, _).
- can now be written as
- p(X @ f(_, _), X).
-
- See the "Data-terms" section of the "Syntax" chapter of the
- Mercury Language Reference Manual for more details.
-
-* We've extended the language to allow you to specify different clauses
- for different modes of a predicate or function. This is done by
- putting mode annotations in the head of each clause.
- For example, you can write
-
- :- mode p(in).
- :- mode p(out).
- p(X::in) :- ... /* clause for the `in' mode */
- p(X::out) :- ... /* clause for the `out' mode */
-
- For predicates or functions which have different clauses for different
- modes, you need to either (1) add a `pragma promise_pure' declaration
- for the predicate or function, and ensure that the declarative semantics
- remains the same in each mode, or (2) declare the predicate as impure.
-
-* We now allow `:- pragma promise_semipure' declarations. For more
- information, see the "Impurity" chapter of the Mercury Language
- Reference Manual.
-
-* We've added `:- pragma c_import_module' declarations, which are
- used to make the C declarations for predicates and functions with
- `:- pragma export' declarations in the imported module visible
- to any C code in the importing module. `mmake' uses
- `:- pragma c_import_module' declarations to make sure that the
- header file for the imported module is built before it is needed,
- which it can't do if the header file is explicitly #included.
-
-* The foreign language interface has been generalized to support
- interfacing with languages other than C.
-
- In particular, the Mercury compiler's .NET back-end now supports
- interfacing with C#, IL, and "Managed C++" (C++ with Microsoft's
- extensions for the .NET CLR). Mercury procedures can be defined
- using inline code fragments written in any of these languages.
-
- For details, see the new "Foreign language interface" chapter of
- the Mercury Language Reference Manual.
-
-* We've removed the undocumented operators `export_adt', `export_cons',
- `export_module', `export_op', `export_pred', `export_sym', `export_type',
- `import_adt', `import_cons', `import_op', `import_pred', `import_sym',
- `import_type' `use_adt', `use_cons', `use_op', `use_pred', `use_sym'
- and `use_type'. These operators were reserved for module system
- extensions which are unlikely to be implemented.
+* Nothing yet.
Changes to the Mercury standard library:
-* The Prolog-style term comparison operators @<, @=<, @>, @>= are now
- builtin.
-
-* A new builtin function ordering/2 has been added.
-
-* We've added a function to io.m to construct io__error codes from error
- messages: `io__make_io_error'.
-
-* The assumptions that we make about user supplied comparison predicates and
- functions have been relaxed to allow more general orderings. The new
- assumptions are documented in builtin.m.
-
-* The builtin predicates !/0 and !/2 from Mercury's Prolog heritage have been
- removed (`!' is now a prefix operator used in the state variable syntax).
-
-* io__close_input, io__close_output, io__close_binary_input and
- io__close_binary_output now throw an exception rather than
- silently ignoring attempts to close the stdin, stdout or stderr
- streams.
-
-* We have added the type class `pprint__doc/1' and a new concatenation
- operator, `++/2', which should make it easier to construct doc values.
-* Performance bugs in `pprint__to_doc' have now been fixed. Even
- very large terms can now be converted to docs and pretty printed without
- causing a machine to thrash or run out of memory.
-
-* `io__read_file' and `io__read_file_as_string' now have better error
- handling. The result types have changed, so code using these predicates
- will need minor modifications.
-* We've added predicates `io__input_stream_foldl', `io__input_stream_foldl_io'
- and `io__input_stream_foldl2_io', which apply a predicate to each character
- of an input stream in turn.
-* We've added predicates `io__binary_input_stream_foldl',
- `io__binary_input_stream_foldl_io' and `io__binary_input_stream_foldl2_io',
- which apply a predicate to each byte of a binary input stream in turn.
-* We've added versions of `io__print', `io__write' and `io__write_univ'
- that allow the caller to specify how they should treat values of noncanonical
- types, e.g. types in which a single semantic value may have more than one
- syntactic expression.
-* We've added four new predicates to allow programs to retrieve current
- streams: `io__current_input_stream', `io__current_output_stream',
- `io__current_binary_input_stream', and `io__current_binary_output_stream'.
-* We've added a predicate to io.m to return the last modification time
- of a file: `io__file_modification_time'.
-* We've added cc_multi modes to io__write_list/5 and io__write_list/6.
-
-* We've added four functions to list.m for mapping functions over
- corresponding members of lists: list__map_corresponding/3,
- list__map_corresponding3/4, list__filter_map_corresponding/3
- and list__filter_map_corresponding3/4.
-* We've added some other new functions to list.m, namely
- list__last_det/2, list__split_last/3 and list__split_last_det/3.
-* We've added cc_multi modes to list__foldl/4 and list__foldr/4.
-* We've added a predicate list__map_foldl2.
-* As mentioned above, the constructor for lists has changed from './2'
- to `[|]/2'. This change affects the behaviour of the term manipulation
- predicates in the standard library when dealing with values of
- type `term__term/1' representing lists. The affected predicates are
- parser__read_term, parser__read_term_from_string, term__type_to_term,
- term__term_to_type, term_io__read_term and term_io__write_term.
- Also beware that std_util__functor and std_util__deconstruct now
- return `[|]' rather than `.' for lists, and calls to std_util__construct
- which construct lists may need to be updated.
-* We've added the predicate list__is_empty/1 and list__is_not_empty/1.
-* We've added the predicate list__remove_adjacent_dups/3.
-
-* We've added a function version of error/1, called func_error/1, to require.m.
-
-* ops.m now defines a typeclass which can be used to define operator
- precedence tables for use by parser.m and term_io.m. See
- samples/calculator2.m for an example program.
-
- The `ops__table' type has been renamed `ops__mercury_op_table'.
- `ops__init_op_table' has been renamed `ops__init_mercury_op_table'.
- `ops__max_priority' is now a function taking an operator table argument.
-
-* The predicates and functions in int.m, float.m, math.m and array.m now
- generate exceptions rather than program aborts on domain errors and
- out-of-bounds array accesses. There are new functions
- `float__unchecked_quotient/2', `int__unchecked_quotient/2' and
- `int__unchecked_rem/2' for which no checking is performed and the
- behaviour if the right operand is zero is undefined.
-
-* We've removed the reverse modes of the arithmetic functions in
- float.m and extras/complex_numbers. (Because of rounding errors,
- the functions aren't actually reversible.)
-
* We've added the three predicates, `is_nan/1', `is_inf/1' and
`is_nan_or_inf/1' to float.m. These predicates are for use only on
systems which support IEEE floating point arithmetic.
-* float__pow now works for negative exponents, and runs much faster
- for large exponents.
-
-* We've removed the destructive update modes of string__set_char,
- string__set_char_det and string__unsafe_set_char. The compiler
- currently always stores constant strings in static data, even
- if they are passed to procedures with mode `di', so any attempt
- to update a constant string will cause a crash. Fixing this properly
- will be a lot of work, so for now we have just removed the modes.
-
-* We've added string__suffix, string__words/1, string__foldr,
- string__foldl_substring and string__foldr_substring.
-
-* The exception module has a new predicate `try_store', which is
- like `try_io', but which works with stores rather than io__states.
-
-* We've fixed a bug in time.m. Type `tm' didn't store the day of the month,
- which meant that the functions which required that field (e.g. time__asctime,
- time__mktime) did not work.
-
- The order of the fields of type `time__tm' has been changed so that
- comparison of values of type `tm' whose `tm_dst' fields are identical
- is equivalent to comparison of the times those values represent.
-
-* std_util.m now contains predicates and functions `map_maybe',
- `fold_maybe', `map_fold_maybe' and `map_fold2_maybe', which are
- analogues of `list__map', `list__foldl', `list__map_foldl' and
- `list__map_foldl2' operating on values of type `maybe' instead
- of `list'.
-
-* We've added a predicate to io.m to return the last modification time
- of a file (io__file_modification_time).
-
-* There is a variant of io__call_system, io__call_system_return_signal
- which on interrupt returns the number of the signal which interrupted
- the command rather than just an error message.
-
-* We've added added several new predicates for deconstructing terms to
- std_util.m. `named_argument' and `det_named_argument' are analogous
- to `argument' and `det_argument' respectively, but specify the desired
- argument by its name, not its position. We have also added committed choice
- version of all the predicates that deconstruct terms. These differ from the
- existing versions in that they do not abort when called upon to deconstruct
- non-canonical terms, such as values of types with user-defined equality.
-
-* We've added a new predicate `intersect_list' in each of the modules
- implementing sets in the Mercury standard library.
-
-* We've added a predicate version of `set__fold'.
-
-* We've added function versions of `builtin__unsafe_promise_unique',
- `ops__init_op_table' and `ops__max_priority'.
-
-* We've added a version of `getopt__process_options' which returns
- the option arguments.
-
-* `getopt__process_options' has been modified to allow negation of
- accumulating options. Negating an accumulating option empties
- the accumulated list of strings.
-
-* We've added some functions to the term_io module to return printable
- representations of term components as strings.
-
-* We've made the outputs of the string concatenation primitives unique.
-
-* New convenience/readability predicates `int__even/1' and `int__odd/1'.
-
-* New predicate benchmark_det_io for benchmarking code that performs I/O.
-
-* We've removed the long obsolete `int__builtin_*' and
- `float__builtin_float_*' predicates, which were synonyms
- for the arithmetic functions dating from when Mercury didn't
- have functions.
-
-* We've added int:'/'/2 as a synonym for int:'//'/2 and false/0 as a
- built-in synonym for fail/0 (both left-overs from Mercury's Prolog
- heritage.)
-
-* dir:'/'/2 is now a synonym for `dir__make_path_name'.
-
-* We've removed the long obsolete predicates `io__read_anything',
- `io__write_anything', and `io__print_anything', which were long ago
- renamed as `io__read', `io__write', and `io__print' respectively.
-
-* We've added random__random/5, which produces a random integer in a
- given range, and random__randcount/3, which returns the number of
- distinct random numbers that can be generated.
-
Changes to the extras distribution:
-* There's a new testing tool called "quickcheck", which is similar to
- Haskell's "QuickCheck". See quickcheck/tutes/index.html.
-
-* The interface to Moose has been changed in a non-backwards compatible
- way to support user-defined modes for the parser state and integrate
- better with lex.
+* Nothing yet.
Changes to the Mercury compiler:
-* There is a new `--make' option which performs most of the functions
- of Mmake. The advantages of `mmc --make' are that no `mmake depend'
- step is necessary and the dependencies are more accurate. Parallel
- builds are not yet supported. See the "Using Mmake" chapter of the
- "Mercury User's Guide" for details.
-
-* The Mercury compiler can now perform smart recompilation, enabled by the
- `--smart-recompilation' option. With smart recompilation, when the
- interface of a module changes, only modules which use the changed
- declarations are recompiled. Smart recompilation does not yet work
- with `--intermodule-optimization'.
-
-* The Mercury compiler can now handle arbitrary mappings from source files
- to module names. If the program contains modules for which the source
- file name does not match the module name, before generating the
- dependencies the command `mmc -f SOURCES' must be run, where `SOURCES'
- is a list of the names of all of the source files. If the names of the
- source files all match the contained module names, `mmc -f' need not be run.
-
-* There is a new `--use-grade-subdirs' option which is similar to
- `--use-subdirs', but allows multiple grades to be built in a
- directory at the same time. `--use-grade-subdirs' does not
- work with Mmake (it does work with `mmc --make').
-
-* The compiler and scripts accept a `--mercury-stdlib-dir' option,
- which overrides the configured location of the Mercury standard
- library. There is also an environment variable MERCURY_STDLIB_DIR
- which has the same effect. The environment variables which were
- previously used to override the location of the standard library
- (MERCURY_ALL_C_INCL_DIRS, MERCURY_ALL_MC_C_INCL_DIRS, MERCURY_INT_DIR,
- MERCURY_C_LIB_DIR, MERCURY_MOD_LIB_MODS, MERCURY_TRACE_LIB_MODS) are
- now deprecated, and will be removed in a future release.
- MERCURY_C_INCL_DIR has already been removed.
-
-* We've added a new compiler option `--warn-non-tail-recursion', which
- causes the compiler to issue a warning about any directly recursive
- call that is not a tail call.
-
-* The automatically generated header files for modules containing
- `pragma export' declarations are now named `<module>.mh', not
- `<module>.h'. This avoids conflicts with system header files.
-
-* We've fixed a long-standing bug in the handling of module imports.
- Previously, if `module1' imported `module2' which imported `module3' in
- its interface section, then any types, insts, modes and typeclasses defined
- in the interface of `module3' could be used in `module1' even
- if `module1' did not import `module3' directly.
-
- This change will break some existing programs, but that is easily fixed
- by adding any necessary `:- import_module' or `:- use_module' declarations.
-
-* Options for the Mercury runtime can now be set at compile time using
- the new `--runtime-flags' option of ml and c2init.
-
-* We've added a new optimization pass -- constraint propagation.
-
- Constraint propagation attempts to transform the code so
- that goals which can fail are executed as early as possible.
- It is enabled with the `--constraint-propagation' option
- (or `--local-constraint-propagation' for a more restricted
- version of the transformation).
-
-* The Mercury compiler can now perform inter-module optimization using
- information from transitively imported modules. This is especially
- useful for back-ends which do not support abstract equivalence types
- properly (for example the .NET backend). To disable this behaviour and
- only optimize using information from directly imported modules, use the
- option `--no-read-opt-files-transitively'.
-
-* For each `--Xflags' option there is now a `--Xflag' option which allows a
- single quoted argument to be passed to the invoked program. This is useful
- where the argument is a directory name containing spaces.
-
-* The `--convert-to-goedel' option has been removed.
- It never really worked anyway.
+* Nothing yet.
Portability improvements:
-* Mac OS X is now supported "out-of-the-box".
-
- See README.MacOSX for details.
-
-* On Windows we now support generating non-Cygwin executables.
-
- The Mercury compiler source distribution can be configured using
- `configure --with-cc="gcc -mno-cygwin"'. This option ensures
- that the Mercury libraries are only linked with the standard
- Windows libraries, not the Cygwin Unix emulation library,
- so Mercury programs don't need Cygwin, and use DOS/Windows-style
- path names rather than Cygwin's Unix-style path names.
-
- Note that you still need Cygwin to install and use Mercury.
- The change is that the programs which you build using Mercury
- don't need Cygwin anymore.
-
-* Better conformance to ANSI/ISO C.
-
- We now pass all the tests in the Mercury test suite
- when the compiler is built with the "lcc" C compiler,
- which is more strict about ANSI/ISO C conformance than GNU C.
- This should also make it easier to port to other C compilers.
+* Nothing yet.
Changes to the Mercury debugger:
-* The debugger can now print goals just as Prolog debuggers do. At an exit
- port of e.g. append, the command "print goal" will print the current goal
- in a form such as "append([1], [2], [1, 2])".
-
-* You can now navigate terms in the debugger by argument name as well as by
- argument number.
-
-* The debugger can now print higher order values.
-
-* The debugger can now print type_info structures. However, since such
- structures are normally of interest to implementors only, the debugger
- will print such values only if the user gives the command "print_optionals
- on".
-
-* The debugger can now perform command line completion when compiled
- with GNU Readline support enabled.
-
-* We've added a 'view' command to `mdb', which opens a `vim' window and
- in it displays the current source location, updated at each event. This
- requires X11 and a version of `vim' with the `clientserver' feature
- enabled.
-
-* The `--window' mdb option now creates a window for mdb, not
- the program. The main advantage of the new behaviour is that
- redirection of the program's input and output works. The old
- behaviour is still available with `mdb --program-in-window'.
-
-* The debugger now includes support for declarative debugging. The `dd'
- command starts diagnosis at any exit, fail or exception port in mdb. See
- the Mercury User's Guide for more details.
-
-* When a program is compiled in a debugging grade, the debugger can be
- asked, via the command `table_io start', to make I/O primitives (such as
- io__open_file, io__write_string etc) idempotent. This means that a given
- call to e.g. io__open_file will open the specified file only once,
- even if retry commands cause the call to be executed more than once.
+* Nothing yet.
Changes to the compiler back-ends:
-* The native code Linux/x86 back-end is now "release quality".
-
- The native code back-end, which was first released in Mercury 0.10,
- compiles directly to assembler, rather than than going via C.
- This back-end is enabled using the `--target asm' option. It is
- implemented by linking the Mercury compiler with the (relatively)
- language independent GNU Compiler Collection back-end. In other words,
- it is a Mercury front-end for GCC.
-
- This release is the first to be based on an officially released
- version of GCC (it is based on GCC 3.2). In this release, the native
- code back-end now passes all of the applicable tests in the Mercury test
- suite, including bootstraping the Mercury compiler. Currently it is only
- supported on i*86-pc-linux-gnu (Intel x86-based PCs running Linux).
-
- For details see <http://www.cs.mu.oz.au/mercury/download/gcc-backend.html>.
-
-* .NET CLR back-end much improved.
-
- The .NET CLR back-end, which generates MSIL code for Microsoft's new
- .NET Common Language Runtime, has been substantially improved.
- Mercury data structures are mapped to .NET CLR data types in a more
- natural and more efficient manner. A lot more of the standard library
- is now supported. Text files on Windows are now output with proper
- Windows CR-LF line endings. Many bugs have been fixed.
-
- This back-end supports the whole of the Mercury language, but the
- Mercury standard library implementation for the .NET CLR is still
- not yet complete. The .NET CLR back-end now passes about half of
- the tests in the Mercury test suite.
-
- This back-end is selected when you use the `--grade il' option.
-
- See <http://www.cs.mu.oz.au/mercury/dotnet.html> and/or
- <http://www.cs.mu.oz.au/mercury/information/dotnet/mercury_and_dotnet.html>.
+* Nothing yet.
For news about earlier versions, see the HISTORY file.
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