[m-rev.] for review: announce the addition of uint to the language

[Julien Fischer]

For review by anyone.

-------------------

Announce the addition of uint to the language.

NEWS:
     List uint as one of the reserved type names.

     Announce the addition of the uint/0 type, the 'uint' standard library
     module and various other standard library predicates using the new type.

     Announce the changes to the term and lexer module needed for supporting
     the (upcoming) new integer types.  Mention the existence of the
     'old_term_parser' library in the extras for cases where backwards
     compatibility is required.

Julien.

diff --git a/NEWS b/NEWS
index 4bfcbac8d..994e6bcdc 100644
--- a/NEWS
+++ b/NEWS
@@ -40,6 +40,7 @@ Changes that may break compatibility:
    type names are:

        int
+      uint
        float
        character
        string
@@ -91,8 +92,29 @@ Changes that may break compatibility:
  * The minimum version of the Java platform required by Mercury's Java
    backend is now Java SE 6.

+* The representation of integer constants in the standard library's term and
+  lexer modules has been generalised.  The base, signedness and size of each
+  integer constant is now recorded.  Furthermore, these modules now use
+  arbitrary-precision integers to represent the values of integer constants.
+
+  Code that relies on the old representation of integer constants used by
+  the term or lexer modules may use the `old_term_parser' library in the
+  extras instead.
+
  Changes to the Mercury language:

+* We have added a new primitive type, uint, which is an unsigned integer type
+  of the same size as Mercury's int type.  Literals of this type must have the
+  suffix `u', for example:
+
+       999u
+       0b1111100111u
+       0o1747u
+       0x3e7u
+
+  Basic operations on uint values are provided by the new standard library
+  module `uint'.  (See below for details.)
+
  * We have added a new kind of scope to the language: determinism checks
    for switch arms. These scopes are introduced by any of the new keywords

@@ -146,6 +168,19 @@ Changes to the Mercury language:

  Changes to the Mercury standard library:

+* We have added a new module, uint, that exports basic operations on the new
+  uint type.
+
+  The following predicates and functions have been made to other standard
+  library modules in order support the uint type:
+
+  - integer.to_uint/2
+  - integer.det_to_uint/1
+  - integer.from_uint/1
+  - string.uint_to_string/1
+  - io.write_uint/4, io.write_uint/5
+  - stream.string_writer.put_int/4
+
  * We have added variants of the process_options predicates to the getopt
    and getopt_io modules that represent errors using a type instead of strings.
    A new function, option_error_to_string/1, can be used to convert values
@@ -340,13 +375,7 @@ Changes to the Mercury standard library:

    - all_true_in_range/3

-* The lexer module now returns integer literals that are too large for ints
-  as arbitrary-precision integers, and the base of that literal.
-
-* We have added parameters to the term.integer constructor
-  in the term.const type.
-
-  We have added a predicate named is_dummy_context to the term module.
+* We have added a predicate named is_dummy_context to the term module.

  * The following predicates and functions have been added to the list module: