Objective Caml 2.02

From: Xavier Leroy (Xavier.Leroy@inria.fr)
Date: Fri Mar 05 1999 - 11:41:12 MET


Date: Fri, 5 Mar 1999 11:41:12 +0100
From: Xavier Leroy <Xavier.Leroy@inria.fr>
To: caml-list@inria.fr
Subject: Objective Caml 2.02

Version 2.02 of Objective Caml is now available. In addition to minor
bug fixes, this release adds some new library functions and a number
of simple optimizations in the native-code compiler that reduce both
execution time and code size.

Sources, documentation and binaries for Linux/RedHat and Windows are
available from:

        http://caml.inria.fr/pub/old_caml_site/ocaml/distrib.html
        ftp://ftp.inria.fr/lang/caml-light/

For general info on Objective Caml, see http://caml.inria.fr/pub/old_caml_site/ocaml/

Please direct queries and bug reports to caml-light@inria.fr
and general discussions to the mailing-list caml-list@inria.fr or the
comp.lang.ml newsgroup.

- Xavier Leroy, for the Objective Caml team.

Objective Caml 2.02:
--------------------

* Type system:
  - Check that all components of a signature have unique names.
  - Fixed bug in signature matching involving a type component and
    a module component, both sharing an abstract type.
  - Bug involving recursive classes constrained by a class type fixed.
  - Fixed bugs in printing class types and in printing unification errors.

* Compilation:
  - Changed compilation scheme for "{r with lbl = e}" when r has many fields
    so as to avoid code size explosion.

* Native-code compiler:
  - Better constant propagation in boolean expressions and in conditionals.
  - Removal of unused arguments during function inlining.
  - Eliminated redundant tagging/untagging in bit shifts.
  - Static allocation of closures for functions without free variables,
    reduces the size of initialization code.
  - Revised compilation scheme for definitions at top level of compilation
    units, so that top level functions have no free variables.
  - Coalesced multiple allocations of heap blocks inside one expression
    (e.g. x :: y :: z allocates the two conses in one step).
  - Ix86: better handling of large integer constants in instruction selection.
  - MIPS: fixed wrong asm generated for String.length "literal".

* Standard library:
  - Added the "ignore" primitive function, which just throws away its
    argument and returns "()". It allows to write
    "ignore(f x); y" if "f x" doesn't have type unit and you don't
    want the warning caused by "f x; y".
  - Added the "Buffer" module (extensible string buffers).
  - Module Format: added formatting to buffers and to strings.
  - Added "mem" functions (membership test) to Hashtbl and Map.
  - Module List: added find, filter, partition.
    Renamed remove and removeq to remove_assoc and remove_assq.
  - Module Marshal: fixed bug in marshaling functions when passed functional
    values defined by mutual recursion with other functions.
  - Module Printf: added Printf.bprintf (print to extensible buffer);
    added %i format as synonymous for %d (as per the docs).
  - Module Sort: added Sort.array (Quicksort).

* Runtime system:
  - New callback functions for callbacks with arbitrary many arguments
    and for catching Caml exceptions escaping from a callback.

* The ocamldep dependency generator: now performs full parsing of the
    sources, taking into account the scope of module bindings.

* The ocamlyacc parser generator: fixed sentinel error causing wrong
    tables to be generated in some cases.

* The str library:
  - Added split_delim, full_split as variants of split that control
    more precisely what happens to delimiters.
  - Added replace_matched for separate matching and replacement operations.

* The graphics library:
  - Bypass color lookup for 16 bpp and 32 bpp direct-color displays.
  - Larger color cache.

* The thread library:
  - Bytecode threads: more clever use of non-blocking I/O, makes I/O
    operations faster.
  - POSIX threads: gcc-ism removed, should now compile on any ANSI C compiler.
  - Both: avoid memory leak in the Event module when a communication
    offer is never selected.

* The Unix library:
  - Fixed inversion of ctime and mtime in Unix.stat, Unix.fstat, Unix.lstat.
  - Unix.establish_connection: properly reclaim socket if connect fails.

* The DBM library: no longer crashes when calling Dbm.close twice.

* Emacs mode:
  - Updated with Garrigue and Zimmerman's latest version.
  - Now include an "ocamltags" script for using etags on OCaml sources.

* Win32 port:
  - Fixed end-of-line bug in ocamlcp causing problems with generated sources.



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