Objective Caml 2.03 released

From: Xavier Leroy (Xavier.Leroy@inria.fr)
Date: Fri Nov 19 1999 - 18:30:57 MET


Date: Fri, 19 Nov 1999 18:30:57 +0100
From: Xavier Leroy <Xavier.Leroy@inria.fr>
To: caml-list@inria.fr
Subject: Objective Caml 2.03 released

I'm happy to announce the release of Objective Caml version 2.03.
The main purpose of this release is to collect all bug fixes done
since 2.02. It also adds some convenience features (e.g. the "partial
match" warning now shows an example of value that is not matched), and
some new ports (e.g. to BeOS). A detailed list of changes is appended
below.

Perhaps the main novelty in this release is the change of license.
Objective Caml is now distributed under the LGPL for the the runtime
system and the libraries, and the QPL for the remainder of the system.

While Objective Caml has always been distributed at no charge and with
full source code, it wasn't technically "open source" due to some
restrictions in the original INRIA license. The new licensing
conditions make Objective Caml officially open source, and guarantee
that OCaml-generated binaries can be redistributed without any
restrictions (this wasn't stated clearly enough in the original
license).

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 2.03:
--------------------

New ports:
- Ported to BeOS / Intel x86 (bytecode and native-code).
- BSD / Intel x86 port now supports both a.out and ELF binary formats.
- Added support for {Net,Open}BSD / Alpha.
- Revamped Rhapsody port, now works on MacOS X server.

Syntax:
- Warning for "(*)" and "*)" outside comment.
- Removed "#line LINENO", too ambiguous with a method invocation;
  the equivalent "# LINENO" is still supported.

Typing:
- When an incomplete pattern-matching is detected, report also a
  value or value template that is not covered by the cases of
  the pattern-matching.
- Several bugs in class type matching and in type error reporting fixed.
- Added an option -rectypes to support general recursive types,
  not just those involving object types.

Bytecode compiler:
- Minor cleanups in the bytecode emitter.
- Do not remove "let x = y" bindings in -g mode; makes it easier to
  debug the code.

Native-code compiler:
- Fixed bug in grouping of allocations performed in the same basic block.
- Fixed bug in constant propagation involving expressions containing
  side-effects.
- Fixed incorrect code generation for "for" loops whose upper bound is
  a reference assigned inside the loop.
- MIPS code generator: work around a bug in the IRIX 6 assembler.

Toplevel:
- Fixed incorrect redirection of standard formatter to stderr
  while executing toplevel scripts.

Standard library:
- Added List.rev_map, List.rev_map2.
- Documentation of List functions now says which functions are
  tail-rec, and how much stack space is needed for non-tailrec functions.
- Wrong type for Printf.bprintf fixed.
- Fixed weird behavior of Printf.sprintf and Printf.bprintf in case of
  partial applications.
- Added Random.self_init, which initializes the PRNG from the system date.
- Sort.array: serious bugs fixed.
- Stream.count: fixed incorrect behavior with ocamlopt.
- Added Sys.date.

Run-time system and external interface:
- Fixed weird behavior of signal handlers w.r.t. signal masks and exceptions
  raised from the signal handler.
- Fixed bug in the callback*_exn() functions.

Debugger:
- Fixed wrong printing of float record fields and elements of float arrays.
- Supports identifiers starting with '_'.

Profiler:
- Handles .mli files, so ocamlcp can be used to replace ocamlc (e.g. in a
  makefile).
- Now works on programs that use stream expressions and stream parsers.

Other libraries:
- Graphics: under X11, treat all mouse buttons equally; fixed problem
  with current font reverting to the default font when the graphics
  window is resized.
- Str: fixed reentrancy bugs in Str.replace and Str.full_split.
- Bytecode threads: set standard I/O descriptors to non-blocking mode.
- OS threads: revised implementation of Thread.wait_signal.
- All threads: added Event.wrap_abort, Event.choose [].
- Unix.localtime, Unix.gmtime: check for errors.
- Unix.create_process: now supports arbitrary redirections of std descriptors.
- Added Unix.open_process_full.
- Implemented Unix.chmod under Windows.
- Big_int.square_big_int now gives the proper sign to its result.

Others:
- ocamldep: don't stop at first error, skip to next file.
- Emacs mode: updated with Garrigue and Zimmerman's snapshot of 1999/10/18.
- configure script: added -prefix option.
- Windows toplevel application: fixed problem with graphics library
  not loading properly.



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