pkgsrc changes:
- Remove clx option. Bundled clx is no longer provided by ecl
Changes:
16.1.3
------
** Announcement
Dear Community,
After almost a year of development we are proud to present a new release of
ECL tagged with version =16.1.3=. All changes are backward compatible
fixing bugs and other issues, implementing new interfaces and cleaning up
the code base.
ECL manual has been updated in a few places. Work on a new documentation is
still pending. It is still incomplete, but you may check see it here:
https://common-lisp.net/project/ecl/static/ecldoc/.
Before this release we have performed extensive tests on various platforms
(Linux, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, OSX, Windows MSVC, Windows MinGW, Windows
Cygwin, Android and Haiku). For details please consult
https://gitlab.com/embeddable-common-lisp/ecl/issues/307. Extra attention
has been paid to Windows testing to improve that platform support.
Best regards,
ECL Development Team
** API changes
- Added better interface for package-locks.
Introduced functions:
=ext:package-locked-p package=
=ext:lock-package package=
=ext:unlock-package package=
=ext:without-package-locks=
=ext:with-unlocked-package=
To use these functions user has to require the module
#+BEGIN_SRC lisp
(require '#:package-locks)
#+END_SRC
=defpackage= accepts new option =lock= to allow locking package on
creation:
#+BEGIN_SRC lisp
(defpackage foo (:lock t))
#+END_SRC
- =mp:holding-lock-p=: introduce new function for multiprocessing. Function
verifies if lock is hold by the thread which calls the function. Usage:
=(mp:holding-lock-p my-lock)=.
- =make-random-state=: fix problem with simple-vectors. The correct
initialization types for =make-random-state= are: =(OR RANDOM-STATE
FIXNUM (MEMBER T NIL))=.
Initializing a random state with an appropriate array (element type and
arity dependent on platform) is also possible.
- =ext:random-state-array=: new extension for random-states. Usage:
=(ext:random-state-array random-state)=.
- =ext:terminate-process=: new extension for external processes. Usage:
=(ext:terminate-process process)= with a second, optional boolean
argument whenever termination should be forced or not.
** Enhancements
- Implemented =CDR-7=.
https://common-lisp.net/project/cdr/document/7/index.html
- implemented CDRs: =CDR-1=, =CDR-5=, =CDR-14=. Both =CDR-1= and =CDR-5=
were already implemented, CDR-14 made us to list them in =*features*=
(https://common-lisp.net/project/cdr/document/14/index.html).
- if ECL is build with =--with-cxx= option, =:CXX-CORE= is present in
=*features*=.
- deprecated configure option =--with-local-gmp= has been removed - use
=--enable-gmp= (defaults to auto).
- configure options has been revised.
- ASDF has been upgraded to version 3.1.7.26 (with a few patches scheduled
for 3.2.0).
- bundled CLX has been purged. Lately I've fixed ECL support on portable
CLX maintained by sharplispers on https://github.com/sharplispers/clx
(available via QuickLisp).
- initial port for the Haiku platform. The port is done by Kacper Kasper's
work, one of Haiku developers. Threads are not supported yet.
- refactored ECL internal tests framework. Tests in =src/tests= are now
asdf-loadable (with =load-source-op=) and divided into test suites. =make
check= target runs all regression and feature tests which aren't supposed
to fail.
- removed 15000 lines of obsolete code. Files not included in the
buildsystem but lingering in the codebase or options failing to
build. All info is added in the new documentation in the section "Removed
interfaces".
- improved man page and help output. Man page now contains up-to-date list
of flags, as well as explanation of flag's behavior.
- deprecated long flags with one dash, added two-dash version. Flags that
aren't one-character, but start with one dash (e.g. =-eval=) are now
deprecated; long version =--eval= was added instead.
- indented C/C++ code to follow emacs's gnu C style. This is a first step
towards coding standards in the documentation. Additionally all in the
src/c/ directory are listed in the appropraite documentation section
(new-doc).
- refactored =list_current_directory in unixfsys.d=. Function was
obfuscated with ifdefs with non-even pairs of =#\{= and =#\}=.
** Issues fixed
- ECL signals floating point exceptions in top-level console.
- =mp:rwlock= is treated as built-in class (previously process crashed if
=class-of= was called on such object).
- ECL builds now succesfully with =--with-ieee-fp=no= option.
- =ext:file-stream-fd=: doesn't cause an internal-error if called with
something not being a =file-stream= (signals a =SIMPLE-TYPE-ERROR=
condtition).
- =stable-sort=: bugfix and improvement in speed. Adapted from SBCL by
Diogo Franco.
- typep: accept =*= type specifier as abbreviation of =T= as described in
=2.4.3 Type Specifiers= of the specification.
- MOP: fix problemes when redefining non-standard and anonymous
classes. Bugs identified and fixed by Pascal Costanza.
- =getcwd=: fix issue with too long pathname. This fixes the regression,
which crashed ECL at start when pathname exceeded 128 characters limit.
- =make-random-state=: fix a problem with simple-vectors. Until now =#$=
reader macro accepted simple vectors as an argument, what lead to bugs if
vector didn't match specific requirements like the element type or the
arity. Now we sanitize this.
- =make-load-form=: provide implementation for random-state objects.
- thread fix on msvc: on windows importing thread was closing the thread
handler so the thread wakeup wasn't working because the handler is not
more valid.
- import thread wasn't set upping a proper environment: on some case the
thread was mistakenly thinking that the thread was already registered.
- =ECL_HANDLER_CASE= and =ECL_RESTART_CASE= didn't work as expected. Bug
identified and fixed by Vadim Penzin.
Based on changes from Matthew Mondor as forwarded by Kamil Rytarowski.
Changes since 15.3.7:
API changes
- There is no UFFI nickname for FFI package - we piggyback on
cffi-uffi-compat for UFFI dependent systems (our UFFI wasn't version 2.0
compatible and there were problems with ADSF dependencies on UFFI - it
wasn't a system)
- CLOS has the new nickname "MOP"
- The new ext:run-program :error argument can automatically create a
separate stream if provided with the :stream keyword.
The external-process structure also has a new field to hold that stream.
- ext:run-program accepts new arguments - :if-input-does-not-exist,
:if-error-exists and :external-format
- ext:system no longer binds *standard-input* and *standard-output* and
now ignores input and output (use ext:run-program for more control)
- methods can be specialized on both single-float and double-float
(built-in classes were added for them)
- LET/FLET/LABELS will signal error if parameter of the same name will
appear multiple times
- lambda lists with repeated required parameter name are considered invalid
- deprecated configure options "--with-system-boehm=x" and
"--enable-slow-config" removed
Enhancements:
- Verification if manual is up-to-date, providing corrections for
outdated parts
- Documentation is now included in the main repository under the
toplevel directory `doc'
- Update libffi to version 3.2.1
- Update asdf to version 3.1.5.4
- Update Boehm-Demers-Weiser garbage collector to version 7.4.2
- Pathname string-parts internal representation is now character,
not base-char
- Dead code removal, tabulators were replaced by spaces
- Better quality of generated code (explicit casting when necessary)
Issues fixed:
- Various fixes of bogus declarations
- Remove deprecated GC calls
- ROTATEF, SHIFTF, PSETF reworked to conform to the ANSI standard.
Places were handled improperly in regard of multiple values.
- Improved unicode support in character handling
- Format handles floats and exponentials correctly (major format rework)
- Stack limits refinements and cleanup, inconsistency and bug fixes
- Duplicate large block deallocation with GMP 6.0.0a fixed
- ECL builds on OpenBSD with threads enabled
- Closures put in mapcar work as expected in both compiled and
interpreted code
- Improved readtable-case handling (:invert and character literals now
conform)
- Library initialization functions have unique names - no risk of
clashing symbol names in object files
- Format float bug fixed, when width and fdigits were not set, but k was
- `logical-pathname-translations' now throws an error if logical
pathname wasn't defined yet, to conform with ANSI (it used to return NIL)
- Wildcards in logical pathname translations are replaced correctly
- Regression testing framework and unit tests cleanup
- deftype ANSI conformity fix (deftype accepts macro labda-lists)
- ECL built with MSVC doesn't crash when Control-C is pressed
- Other minor tweaks
Changes in 15.3.7 since 15.2.21:
Issues fixed:
- DEFUN functions not defined as toplevel forms were also directly
referenced by other code in the same file.
- STABLE-SORT works as desired (bogus optimization for strings fixed).
- broken --with-sse=yes configure flag works once again.
Enhancements:
- autoconf scripts are rewritten to support version 2.69 stack.
- stack direction is now correctly determined, fixing gcc 5.x builds.
- compilation of ECL under MSVC (2008/2010/2012) even with custom
code pages.
- In compiled code it is possible to declare variables to have a C
type such as in (declare (:double a)) and then the variable is
enforced to be unboxed to such type.
- New form FFI:C-PROGN used to interleave C statements with lisp
code, where the lisp code may refer to any number of variables.
Example:
(lambda (i)
(let* ((limit i)
(iterator 0))
(declare (:int limit iterator))
(ffi:c-progn (limit iterator)
"for (#1 = 0; #1 < #0; #1++) {"
(print iterator)
"}")))
Changes in 15.2.21 since 13.5.1:
- Features coverity scan model, ffi-unload-module implementation,
probably more.
- Build system enhancements, parallel builds, fixes, simplifications,
cleanups, maintenance. minor cleanup, maintenance.
- Numerous fixes.
ECL 12.7.1:
===========
* Bugs fixed:
- The implementation of locks and condition variables based on POSIX threads
was not safe under interrupts. It has all been reimplemented using atomic
userspace operations plus a new wait queue.
- :CDECL was not accepted as an FFI declaration due to a typo.
- REMOVE-METHOD and FIND-METHOD were not generic functions.
- MAKE-LOAD-FORM's methods for standard-object, structure-object and
condition did not signal an error).
* Visible changes:
- ECL builds with support for threads by default (where available).
- DIRECTORY no longer complains when it finds an inexistent directory
component: it simply returns NIL as the list of pathnames.
- CASE now complains when the OTHERWISE/T clause is not the last one.
- Instead of issuing an error, LOOP now only produces a STYLE-WARNING
when iteration forms appear at the wrong place, as in (LOOP WHILE ...)
followed by some assignment.
- EXT:MKDIR no longer accepts pathnames as inputs to avoid problems with
pathnames that contain name or type components.
- ENSURE-DIRECTORIES-EXIST accepts the keyword argument :MODE which is
passed to MKDIR.
- In EXT:RUN-PROGRAM the child process is delayed until the parent has created
the process structure and stored the process id in it. Formerly we had race
conditions due to the child exiting before the parent was able to call
sigwait().
- Where available, ECL now defines the constants EXT:+SIGRTMIN+ and
EXT:+SIGRTMAX+, as well as EXT:+SIGRT0+ through EXT:+RTMINn+ where n =
SIGRTMAX - SIGRTMIN Those signals can be then trapped.
- The interrupt handler for floating point exceptions does not care about
the value of EXT:*INTERRUPTS-ENABLED* or similar mechanisms because such
interrupt has to be treated as an error, not as something optional. The
same applies to other evil signals, such as SIGSEGV or SIGBUS.
- New functions (EXT:GET-INTERRUPT-HANDLER code) and
(EXT:SET-INTERRUPT-HANDLER code function-designator) allow the user to
customize how these interrupts are caught. SET-INTERRUPT-HANDLER runs an
implicit EXT:CATCH-SIGNAL.
- ECL now exports the symbols FFI:C-INT-MAX, FFI:C-INT-MIN, FFI:C-LONG-MAX,
etc, which correspond to the POSIX C constants INT_MAX, INT_MIN, LONG_MAX,
and similar ones.
- APROPOS-LIST no longer returns duplicate symbols.
- The ABORT restart is now bound on every new thread (except the main one,
where either the user or the toplevel must take care of that).
* Windows:
- ECL guesses whether the input / output / error streams are consoles. If
so, it sets up a special type of stream that copes with the deficiencies
of read()/write() and similar functions on consoles -- namely that they
may read or write a larger number of bytes than demanded because they
translate the input/output to and from the corresponding codepage.
(EXPERIMENTAL)
- ECL detects the codepage that the console is using and applies it as
the appropriate external format (with :CRLF convention).
- ECL's console stream signals EOF when Ctrl-Z is detected.
* Metaobject protocol:
- Implemented CLOS:COMPUTE-APPLICABLE-METHODS-USING-CLASSES.
- COMPUTE-APPLICABLE-METHODS and CLOS:COMPUTE-EFFECTIVE-METHOD are now
generic functions.
- Implemented and used in the core: VALIDATE-SUPERCLASSES
- UPDATE-DEPENDENT, MAP-DEPENDENTS and related functions have been fixed. They
are now invoked by REMOVE-METHOD and REINITIALIZE-INSTANCE, when acting on
generic functions, standard classes, etc.
- (SETF CLASS-NAME) is now implemented using REINITIALIZE-INSTANCE.
- ENSURE-CLASS-USING-CLASS now registers the class with
FIND-CLASS. ENSURE-CLASS relies on E-C-U-C doing that.
- EXTRACT-LAMBDA-LIST and EXTRACT-SPECIALIZER-NAMES implemented.
- CLOS:GENERIC-FUNCTION-DECLARATIONS and slot CLOS:DECLARATIONS are now
implemented (even if not used by ECL itself).
- Implemented the class CLOS:METAOBJECT
- Implemented SPECIALIZER and EQL-SPECIALIZER, together with
ADD-DIRECT-METHOD, REMOVE-DIRECT-METHOD, SPECIALIZER-DIRECT-METHODS,
SPECIALIZER-DIRECT-GENERIC-FUNCTIONS and EQL-SPECIALIZER-OBJECT. ECL now
uses these objects internally for method dispatch.
- DEFMETHOD now relies on MAKE-METHOD-LAMBDA to create the appropriate
function.
- Implemented COMPUTE-DISCRIMINATING-FUNCTION.
- ECL's discriminating functions use COMPUTE-APPLICABLE-METHODS-USING-CLASSES
on those classes in which the user may redefine or extend the
method. Elsewhere, ECL relies on the internal equivalent of
COMPUTE-APPLICABLE-METHODS, which _always_ memoizes results.
- When reinitializing a class instance, ECL would not remove the class from
its former superclasses.
- The method combination slot of a generic function is now precomputed by
using FIND-METHOD-COMBINATION in SHARED-INITIALIZE.
- METHOD-COMBINATION is now a class with slots and it is used by ECL for
computing effective methods.
- The MOP and CL classes and metaclasses do not contain any slot whose name
is exported by any of the CL or CL-USER packages.
ECL 12.2.1:
===========
* Bugs fixed:
- Fixed several dozens of typos.
- ENSURE-DIRECTORIES-EXIST did not work properly with logical pathnames.
- EXT:SET-LIMIT with option EXT:FRAME-STACK corrupted the frame stack.
- The array of boot-time symbols is fixed and independent of the features
that are compiled in. This is essential for cross-compilation and also
for sharing C code among different builds.
- Fixed externalization of bytecodes with literals that need MAKE-LOAD-FORM.
- When parsing a floating point number at least one digit should be
present. ECL parsed +.e0 as +0.0e0, instead of as a symbol.
- For OS X Lion we need a newer version of the garbage collector. Since the
maintainers' advise is that we use the unstable tree, we have made a copy
and use it _only_ for this port (src/gc-unstable).
* Visible changes:
- When printing error messages, the condition type is shown (M. Mondor)
- SI:TOP-LEVEL, when invoked without arguments, does not process the
command line.
- The command line used by EXT:PROCESS-COMMAND-ARGS is now by default
the one stored in *COMMAND-ARGS*, and this may be "cleared" by the
user.
- SOCKET-MAKE-STREAM now accepts an :ELEMENT-TYPE argument.
- When --enable-rpath is used in combination with --with-gmp-prefix, then the
path of the GMP library is hardcoded into ECL. If the remaining libraries
(GC, libffi) are in a similar location this will make ECL work without
further flags, and without modifying LD_LIBRARY_PATH or DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH.
- All arguments after the '--' command line option are stored in a global
variable, ext:*unprocessed-ecl-command-args*.
- In the rules passed to ext:process-command-args, :stop now implies that all
remaining arguments including the current one are collected and passed to
the rule code. An example of use of this option
;; Collect all arguments _after_ the command line option --
("--" 1 (setf ext:*unprocessed-ecl-command-args* (rest 1)) :stop)
;; Collect all arguments including the first unknown one
("*DEFAULTS*" 1 (setf ext:*unprocessed-ecl-command-args* 1) :stop)
- ECL will always build, by default, with support for Unicode strings.
- EXT:GETENV coerces its input argument to type BASE-STRING.
- The garbage collector would reset the counters on every call to
SI:GC-STATS. This made nested TIME calls not to work, as the statistics of
the inner call would spoil those of the outer one. This has been fixed.
- ECL implements CDR 6 (ext:*inspector-hook*) as described in
http://cdr.eurolisp.org/document/6/index.html
- ECL implements CDR 5 (Sub-interval Numerical Types) as described in
http://cdr.eurolisp.org/document/5/index.html
- ECL ships libffi together with its source tree, much like GMP and GC.
- On POSIX platforms ECL traps SIGCHLD and uses it to update the status of
external processes.
- DIRECTORY accepts the keyword argument :RESOLVE-SYMLINKS.
- Compiling files now generates C headers with the extension "eclh". This
is done to avoid accidentally generating header files with the same name
as those in the C library. Take for instance, float.lsp -> float.h.
- ECL no longer relies on "git" being installed to gather the git commit id
and setting (ext:lisp-implementation-vcs-id).
- When building shared and statically linked libraries, ECL creates an
extra function that performs two tasks: initializing ECL if it wasn't done
before, and initializing the library. This can be used to create standalone
libraries to be linked with other programs. The name of the function typically
begins with main_dll or main_lib but it is output by ECL on screen.
- Hash tables do no longer have implicit locking. All complex structures in
ECL (arrays, hash tables, objects) should be dealt with sufficient care on
the user side, just as in other programming languages, making use of
WITH-LOCK and similar facilities.
- In OPEN the default format is :UTF-8 for Unicode builds and :LATIN-1 for
others, and the stream element type is always CHARACTER by default.
- Function read_VV is renamed to ecl_init_module()
- Initialization of random number generator is done using only 16 bytes from
/dev/urandom (Phillip Marek).
- Each thread keeps a copy of the process sigmask (POSIX) and it is inherited
by children thread. The sigmask can be manipulated by the function
EXT:CATCH-SIGNAL which has the signature
(ext:catch-signal signal-code action &key process)
The ACTION is one of :IGNORE, :DEFAULT, :CATCH, determining what ECL does
when it receives the signal, or it can be :MASK/:UNMASK to determine whether
the process is blocking the signal or not. The optional argument :PROCESS
only applies to :MASK/:UNMASK and it can be the current process, some
process that has not been activated or any other value (indicating that
the function has a global effect, as sigprocmask).
- Allocate executable memory using libffi instead of using just the
Boehm-Weiser garbage collector.
- In bytecodes.h, deactivate the threaded interpreter when using the LLVM
compiler. The problem is that llvm-gcc disguises itself as GCC but it is
not capable of properly compiling the jump table.
- Implemented SEQUENCE-STREAMs, which are input/output streams defined on some
specialized array type. The functions to create them are
(ext:make-sequence-input-stream vector &key :start :end :external-format)
(ext:make-sequence-output-stream vector &key :external-format)
* If the array is a string, it is a character stream.
- When no external format is supplied, it defaults to the usual encoding
and the stream behaves like a string stream.
- When an external format is supplied, each character in the string
is interpreted as a single byte and used for that external format.
* If the array is specialized over integers and EXTERNAL-FORMAT is NIL
the stream is a binary stream.
* Otherwise, it is a binary string but READ/WRITE-CHAR may be used on it.
Reading and writing does not preserve the original word size of the array
but rather threads the array as a collection of bytes (octets), writing
sequentially over it. Thus, if you use encodings such as UCS2 and UCS4, make
sure that you choose the right endianness to match the shape of the array.
- DELETE-FILE works on empty directories.
- In DIRECTORY, :RESOLVE-SYMLINKS defaults to T.
- Added POSIX function (EXT:CHMOD filename mode)
- ECL's compiler is now less verbose and hides performance notes, as well as
invocations of the C compiler. This can be modfied by changing the type
specifier in c:*suppress-compiler-messages*.
- Hash tables can now be printed readably when *READ-EVAL* is true. This is
done using two new functions, EXT:HASH-TABLE-CONTENT and
EXT:HASH-TABLE-FILL.
- When a compiler macro fails, ECL simply ignores the errors and
continues. This is more to the spirit of the compiler macros, as explained
here http://lists.common-lisp.net/pipermail/pro/2011-December/000675.html
- INLINE declarations now actually cause the function to be inlined. If
the function is also proclaimed as INLINE, ECL will store a copy of its
definition for later use _in other files_. Otherwise INLINE declarations
remain local to the file being processed.
- ECL now implements weak hash tables. They are built as ordinary hash tables
with an extra argument, :WEAKNESS, which may be :KEY, :VALUE,
:KEY-AND-VALUE, or NIL, for the default behavior. The status of the hash
table is returned by EXT:HASH-TABLE-WEAKNESS. Note that these associations
are no substitute for proper management of resources, as the time of
collection can not be guaranteed.
- In pathnames, ".." is translated to :UP, not :BACK.
- ECL introduces two special forms, EXT:CHECKED-VALUE and EXT:TRULY-THE, which
have the same syntax as THE, but in the first case lead to a type assertion
at low safety levels and in the second case lead to an unchecked
declaration. By default THE maps to EXT:CHECKED-VALUE (as in SBCL), but this
may be controlled globally using the declaration/proclamation
EXT:THE-IS-CHECKED.
- Unicode strings were not properly saved in C compiled code.
Requested by Matthew Mondor, who contributed description of changes.
Since 10.4.1, changes were made in the following areas:
- Better cross-compile support, including with C++ compilers
- FFI from interpreted code now requires libffi
- Compiler now shipped as a single FASL file, cmp.fas
- Various fixes, notably in handling of:
LIST/LIST*, foreign arrays and structures, optimization annotations,
pathnames (logical pathnames and case), RENAME-FILE, READ,
the debugger, ANSI CL function declarations, DECLAIM, DEFMACRO,
EXPT, ASDF, rational math
- Performance optimizations in the following areas:
SETF expansions, AREF/ASET, unboxing, sequence functions, LOOP,
ASSERT, use of long-long and long-double where possible,
reworked compilation policies, EXT:MAKE-FOREIGN-DATA-FROM-ARRAY
- Other new features:
EXT:WITH-BACKEND
See http://ecls.cvs.sourceforge.net/viewvc/ecls/ecl/src/CHANGELOG?revision=1.793
for more details, or src/CHANGELOG in the source.
ECL 10.3.1:
===========
This release has three important focuses: performance improvements in various
fronts (garbage collection and hash tables), extending the run-process function
and important fixes to let ECL work better with Slime. To quote one lisper
ECL "this feels like a real Lisp implementation now"
* Bugs fixed:
- DIRECTORY used stat() also on files that did not match the directory masks.
- The syntax for matching strings in DIRECTORY is now the same as in
PATHNAME-MATCH-P. Formerly there were small differences, such as DIRECTORY
understanding characters #\? and #\\ and PATHNAME-MATCH-P not.
- Standalone executables do not require the existence of the ECLDIR directory
to start up -- it may be required, though, for working Unicode because the
encodings are stored there.
- PROCESS-JOIN was exported from the wrong package.
- PROCESS-JOIN failed when invoked with a thread that was in the process of
being set up.
- The output values of a process or thread are now collected in the process
object and returned by PROCESS-JOIN.
- ECL's interrupt servicing thread could not be shut down.
- When compiling LET forms, ECL emitted warnings about removal of variables
even when they were declared IGNORABLE.
- An internal variable MP:*ALLOW-WITH-INTERRUPTS* was not declared special.
- The compiler now understands function type proclamations with &OPTIONAL
values.
- The compiler now accepts THE special forms with a VALUES type.
- If file A.lsp explicitely loads B.lsp to use a package that is only defined
in B, then ECL signaled an error in the compiled version of A even after
this one had required B.lsp.
- ECL accepts FTYPE proclamations for SETF-functions.
- On platforms where a stack overflow does not trigger a SIGSEGV, ECL was
unable to recover from the overflow. Now it jumps to the outermost
protection frame (typically the toplevel).
- Socket streams are now two-way streams. This solves a problem with certain
platforms (OS X) where a C stream can not be used to read and write
simultaneously by two different threads.
- TRUENAME and PROBE-FILE were not thread safe.
* Visible changes:
- Hash tables now use hand-coded specialized loops for EQ, EQL, EQUAL, EQUALP
and package types, achieving a reduction of about 30% time in lookups.
- A new function EXT:ENVIRON returns the list of strings that makes up the
process environment. This is the equivalent of POSIX (char **environ)
and Windows' GetEnvironmentStrings.
- EXT:RUN-PROGRAM now accepts a keyword argument, :ENVIRON, with a list of
strings used to configure the environment of the child process. For instance
'("PWD=/home" "PATH=/usr/bin")
- EXT:RUN-PROGRAM returns as third value an EXT:EXTERNAL-PROCESS structure,
which supports the queries EXT:EXTERNAL-PROCESS-{PID,INPUT,OUTPUT,STATUS},
following CCL's conventions.
- The new function EXT:EXTERNAL-PROCESS-WAIT can be used to wait indefinitely
for termination of a process or simply to query its status.
- ECL implements a new garbage collector marking mode which at the overhead of
one word per object achieves precise marking of heap objects, reducing
accidental data retention and improving the time spent in garbage
collection. This mode is only available when using --enable-boehm=system at
configuration time.
- ECL now ships with ASDF version 1.604
- The variables C:*USER-CC-FLAGS* and C:*USER-LD-FLAGS* are lists of strings
which can used to change the behavior of the C compiler and the
linker. Note, however, that the flags that ECL uses may take priority.
- In the C code we are beginning to use GCC's attributes (__attribute__) and
branch annotation (__builtin_expect). This decreases the size of code that
checks for errors and improves performance.
- When printing compiler notes, instead of printing the macroexpanded form,
ECL now prints the toplevel form, as follows
;;; Warning: in file src:lsp;autoload.lsp.NEWEST, position 1178 and top form
;;; (DEFMACRO WITH-COMPILATION-UNIT (OPTIONS &REST BODY) ...)
;;; The variable OPTIONS is not used.
- ECL now implements EXT:*INVOKE-DEBUGGER-HOOK*, which works like *DEBUGGER-HOOK*
but is also observed by BREAK. (SBCL extension adopted by ECL)
- The UFFI interface now supports C99 types, such as :int8-t, :uint32-t, etc,
but only when the corresponding types do exist in the underlying C environment.
- SOCKET-MAKE-STREAM defaults :BUFFERING to :FULL and allows three new keyword
arguments, :INPUT, :OUTPUT and :EXTERNAL-FORMAT, as in SBCL.
- COMPILE-FILE admits the keyword argument :EXTERNAL-FORMAT.
- A new function EXT:ALL-ENCODINGS lists all encondings known to ECL.
- Improved readability of compiler messages.
- SERVE-EVENT now allows time resolution of less than one second.
- The PROFILE package now has an alias, SB-PROFILE.
- ECL now stores the location of its source files in a logical hostname,
"SRC:", which points to the directory where Announcement is located.
- When building ECL, if "etags" is installed, a file TAGS is created which
contains references to the location of all C functions. This file can be
used to locate functions from the core library in Slime, using M-.
- Documentation files now allow for annotation of arbitrary symbols,
based on a key and a sub-key which are both symbols.
- New function EXT:FUNCTION-LAMBDA-LIST which currently only works with
functions from the core ECL library, generic functions and interpreted
functions.
- The debugger now is capable of showing the special variable bindings
from a function, as well as the restarts newly bound by that function.
- When using git, a new function EXT:LISP-IMPLEMENTATION-VCS-ID returns a
unique identifier denoting the last commit. This can be used to discriminate
between unstable releases and remove stale FASL files.
- COMPILE-FILE admits two new keyword arguments, :SOURCE-TRUENAME and
:SOURCE-OFFSET which can be used to change the value returned by
EXT:COMPILED-FUNCTION-FILE when acting on compiled functions.
Changes since previous packaged version (8.12.0) include half year
of very active development:
- The dynamic FFI is now implemented using libffi.
- Support of UNICODE.
- Multithreading (provided Boehm-GC built with threads support).
- Command line flags to control the different memory limits:
--heap-size, --lisp-stack, --frame-stack and --c-stack.
- The stack size is now measured in bytes, not in lisp words.
- The out of memory error (ext:storage-exhausted) can now be recovered.
By default a correctable error is signaled and the user is given the
chance to increase the heap size.
- Better compiler, optimizer, debugger.
- Improved handling of compiler errors.
- New and more easily extensible implementation of streams.
- *STANDARD-INPUT*, *{STANDARD,ERROR,TRACE}-OUTPUT* are no longer synonyms to
*TERMINAL-IO* but directly the input or output streams associated to stdin,
stdout and stderr.
- Improved numerics.
- Read-only readtables.
- Numerous bug fixes.
rillig
leot
dholland
asau
wiz