also upstream changelog):
Language features:
- Attributes and extension nodes
- Generative functors
- Module aliases
* Alternative syntax for string literals {id|...|id} (can break comments)
- Separation between read-only strings (type string) and read-write byte
sequences (type bytes). Activated by command-line option -safe-string.
Build system for the OCaml distribution:
- Use -bin-annot when building.
- Use GNU make instead of portable makefiles.
- Updated build instructions for 32-bit Mac OS X on Intel hardware.
Shedding weight:
* Removed Camlp4 from the distribution, now available as third-party software.
* Removed Labltk from the distribution, now available as a third-party library.
Type system:
* Keep typing of pattern cases independent in principal mode
- Allow opening a first-class module or applying a generative functor
in the body of a generative functor. Allow it also in the body of
an applicative functor if no types are created
* Module aliases are now typed in a specific way, which remembers their
identity. In particular this changes the signature inferred by
"module type of"
- Slight change in the criterion to distinguish private
abbreviations and private row types: create a private abbreviation for
closed objects and fixed polymorphic variants.
* Compare first class module types structurally rather than
nominally. Value subtyping allows module subtyping as long as the internal
representation is unchanged.
Compilers:
- More aggressive constant propagation, including float and
int32/int64/nativeint arithmetic. Constant propagation for floats
can be turned off with option -no-float-const-prop, for codes that
change FP rounding modes at run-time.
- New back-end optimization pass: common subexpression elimination (CSE).
(Reuses results of previous computations instead of recomputing them.)
- New back-end optimization pass: dead code elimination.
(Removes arithmetic and load instructions whose results are unused.)
- Optimization of sequences of string patterns
- Experimental native code generator for AArch64 (ARM 64 bits)
- Optimization of integer division and modulus by constant divisors
- Add "-open" command line flag for opening a single module before typing
* "-o" now sets module name to the output file name up to the first "."
(it also applies when "-o" is not given, i.e. the module name is then
the input file name up to the first ".")
* better sharing of structured constants
- new flag to keep locations in cmi files
- issue warning 3 when referring to a value marked with
the [@@ocaml.deprecated] attribute
- a new format implementation based on GADTs
* Constant exception constructors no longer allocate
- avoid unnecessary boxing in let
- Better compilation of optional arguments with default values
- ocamlopt -opaque option for incremental native compilation
Toplevel interactive system:
- New "#show_*" directives
Runtime system:
- New configure option "-no-naked-pointers" to improve performance by
avoiding page table tests during block darkening and the marking phase
of the major GC. In this mode, all out-of-heap pointers must point at
things that look like OCaml values: in particular they must have a valid
header. The colour of said headers should be black.
- Fixed bug in native code version of [caml_raise_with_string] that could
potentially lead to heap corruption.
- Blocks initialized by [CAMLlocal*] and [caml_alloc] are now filled with
[Val_unit] rather than zero.
- Fixed a major performance problem on large heaps (~1GB) by making heap
increments proportional to heap size by default
- Structural equality treats exception specifically
- efficient comparison/indexing of exceptions
- avoid using unsafe C library functions (strcpy, strcat, sprintf)
- An ISO C99-compliant C compiler and standard library is now assumed.
(Plus special exceptions for MSVC.) In particular, emulation code for
64-bit integer arithmetic was removed, the C compiler must support a
64-bit integer type.
Standard library:
* Add new modules Bytes and BytesLabels for mutable byte sequences.
- add List.sort_uniq and Set.of_list
- a faster version of "raise" which does not maintain the backtrace
- support "Unix.kill pid Sys.sigkill" under Windows
- speed improvement for Buffer
- efficient creation of uninitialized float arrays
- Improve documentation regarding finalisers and multithreading
- Trigger warning 3 for all values marked as deprecated in the documentation.
bugfixes, include:
- Labltk: updated to Tcl/Tk 8.6.
Type system:
- use well-disciplined type information propagation to
disambiguate label and constructor names
* Propagate type information towards pattern-matching, even in the presence of
polymorphic variants (discarding only information about possibly-present
constructors). As a result, matching against absent constructors is no longer
allowed for exact and fixed polymorphic variant types.
* Reject multiple declarations of the same method or instance variable
in an object
- raise an error when multiple private keywords are used in type
declarations
- parsetree rewriter (-ppx flag)
- ocamldep now supports -absname
- On "unbound identifier" errors, use spell-checking to suggest names
present in the environment
- ocamlc has a new option -dsource to visualize the parsetree
- tools/eqparsetree compares two parsetree ignoring location
- ocamlopt now uses clang as assembler on OS X if available, which enables
CFI support for OS X.
- Added a new -short-paths option, which attempts to use the shortest
representation for type constructors inside types, taking open modules
into account. This can make types much more readable if your code
uses lots of functors.
- added flag -compat-32 to ocamlc, ensuring that the generated
bytecode executable can be loaded on 32-bit hosts.
- warning on open statements which shadow an existing
identifier (if it is actually used in the scope of the open); new
open! syntax to silence it locally
* warning 3 is extended to warn about other deprecated features:
- ISO-latin1 characters in identifiers
- uses of the (&) and (or) operators instead of (&&) and (||)
- Experimental OCAMLPARAM for ocamlc and ocamlopt
- incorrect ordinal number in error message
- add signature to Tstr_include
- expose a way to inspect the current call stack,
Printexc.get_callstack
- new flag Marshal.Compat_32 for the serialization functions
(Marshal.to_*), forcing the output to be readable on 32-bit hosts.
- infix application operators |> and @@ in Pervasives
- add O_CLOEXEC flag to Unix.openfile, so that the returned
file descriptor is created in close-on-exec mode
* more efficient implementation of caml_modify() and caml_initialize().
The new implementations are less lenient than the old ones: now,
the destination pointer of caml_modify() must point within the minor or
major heaps, and the destination pointer of caml_initialize() must
point within the major heap.
- Moved debugger/envaux.ml to typing/envaux.ml to publish env_of_only_summary
as part of compilerlibs, to be used on bin-annot files.
- The test suite can now be run without installing OCaml first.
'/') given to -L to run-time library search path passed to the
lower linker using -Wl,-rpath=
This is a problem, because even if we add the right directory with
-Wl,-rpath= or variants thereof, the wrong path still is in the
RPATH on the resulting binary. This might lead to the wrong library
being found at run-time.
To build clean packages when using ocamlmklib, '-elfmode' will switch
this behaviour off; when using '-elfmode', all following -L parameters
won't augment the RPATH, and it has to be updated seperately with
-dllpath, -Wl,-rpath= etc.
(This is a local pkgsrc stopgap addition, needed to proceed with
fixes to xentools41. The issue has been raised with upstream;
hopefully this patch can be reverted with a future ocaml package
version.)
comments.
Updated buildlink3.mk to default to a full dependency (more pertinent in most
cases; usually the standard library needs to be installed for an ocaml
program to run)
Changes from 3.12 to 4.00.1 include:
OCaml 4.00.1:
-------------
Various bug fixes.
OCaml 4.00.0:
-------------
(Changes that can break existing programs are marked with a "*")
- The official name of the language is now OCaml.
Language features:
- Added Generalized Algebraic Data Types (GADTs) to the language.
See chapter "Language extensions" of the reference manual for documentation.
- It is now possible to omit type annotations when packing and unpacking
first-class modules. The type-checker attempts to infer it from the context.
Using the -principal option guarantees forward compatibility.
- New (module M) and (module M : S) syntax in patterns, for immediate
unpacking of a first-class module.
Compilers:
- Revised simplification of let-alias (PR#5205, PR#5288)
- Better reporting of compiler version mismatch in .cmi files
* Warning 28 is now enabled by default.
- New option -absname to use absolute paths in error messages
- Optimize away compile-time beta-redexes, e.g. (fun x y -> e) a b.
- Added option -bin-annot to dump the AST with type annotations.
- Added lots of new warnings about unused variables, opens, fields,
constructors, etc.
* New meaning for warning 7: it is now triggered when a method is overridden
with the "method" keyword. Use "method!" to avoid the warning.
Native-code compiler:
- Optimized handling of partially-applied functions (PR#5287)
- Small improvements in code generated for array bounds checks (PR#5345,
PR#5360).
* New ARM backend (PR#5433):
. Supports both Linux/EABI (armel) and Linux/EABI+VFPv3 (armhf).
. Added support for the Thumb-2 instruction set with average code size
savings of 28%.
. Added support for position-independent code, natdynlink, profiling and
exception backtraces.
- Generation of CFI information, and filename/line number debugging (with -g)
annotations, enabling in particular precise stack backtraces with
the gdb debugger. Currently supported for x86 32-bits and 64-bits only.
(PR#5487)
- New tool: ocamloptp, the equivalent of ocamlcp for the native-code compiler.
OCamldoc:
- PR#5645: ocamldoc doesn't handle module/type substitution in signatures
- PR#5544: improve HTML output (less formatting in html code)
- PR#5522: allow refering to record fields and variant constructors
- fix PR#5419 (error message in french)
- fix PR#5535 (no cross ref to class after dump+load)
* Use first class modules for custom generators, to be able to
load various plugins incrementally adding features to the current
generator
* PR#5507: Use Location.t structures for locations.
- fix: do not keep code when not told to keep code.
Standard library:
- Added float functions "hypot" and "copysign" (PR#3806, PR#4752, PR#5246)
* Arg: options with empty doc strings are no longer included in the usage string
(PR#5437)
- Array: faster implementations of "blit", "copy", "sub", "append" and "concat"
(PR#2395, PR#2787, PR#4591)
* Hashtbl:
. Statistically-better generic hash function based on Murmur 3 (PR#5225)
. Fixed behavior of generic hash function w.r.t. -0.0 and NaN (PR#5222)
. Added optional "random" parameter to Hashtbl.create to randomize
collision patterns and improve security (PR#5572, CVE-2012-0839)
. Added "randomize" function and "R" parameter to OCAMLRUNPARAM
to turn randomization on by default (PR#5572, CVE-2012-0839)
. Added new functorial interface "MakeSeeded" to support randomization
with user-provided seeded hash functions.
. Install new header <caml/hash.h> for C code.
- Filename: on-demand (lazy) initialization of the PRNG used by "temp_file".
- Marshal: marshalling of function values (flag Marshal.Closures) now
also works for functions that come from dynamically-loaded modules (PR#5215)
- Random:
. More random initialization (Random.self_init()), using /dev/urandom
when available (e.g. Linux, FreeBSD, MacOS X, Solaris)
* Faster implementation of Random.float (changes the generated sequences)
- Scanf: new function "unescaped" (PR#3888)
- Set and Map: more efficient implementation of "filter" and "partition"
- String: new function "map" (PR#3888)
Installation procedure:
- Compiler internals are now installed in `ocamlc -where`/compiler-libs.
The files available there include the .cmi interfaces for all compiler
modules, plus the following libraries:
ocamlcommon.cma/.cmxa modules common to ocamlc, ocamlopt, ocaml
ocamlbytecomp.cma/.cmxa modules for ocamlc and ocaml
ocamloptcomp.cma/.cmxa modules specific to ocamlopt
camltoplevel.cma modules specific to ocaml
(PR#1804, PR#4653, frequently-asked feature).
* Some .cmi for toplevel internals that used to be installed in
`ocamlc -where` are now to be found in `ocamlc -where`/compiler-libs.
Add "-I +compiler-libs" where needed.
* toplevellib.cma is no longer installed because subsumed by
ocamlcommon.cma ocamlbytecomp.cma ocamltoplevel.cma
- Added a configuration option (-with-debug-runtime) to compile and install
a debug version of the runtime system, and a compiler option
(-runtime-variant) to select the debug runtime.
and various bug fixes.
Changes in Objective Caml 3.12.1:
Features:
- added '-ml-synonym' and '-mli-synonym' options to ocamldep
- added '-ocamldoc' option to ocamlbuild
- added possibility to add options to ocamlbuild
- added access to current camlp4 parsers and printers
- improved instruction selection for float operations on amd64
- stdlib: added a 'usage_string' function to Arg
- allow with constraints to add a type equation to a datatype definition
- ocamldoc: allow to merge '@before' tags like other ones
- ocamlbuild: allow dependency on file "_oasis"
Other changes:
- Changed default minor heap size from 32k to 256k words.
- Added new operation 'compare_ext' to custom blocks, called when
comparing a custom block value with an unboxed integer.
Multiple bug fixes.
Add support for x86_64-*-DragonFly
Add support for native dynamic loading on both platforms
Add support for profiling on both platforms
Add ability to detect X11 in pkgsrc. This currently has no impact
because the makefile disables X11.
move PKGREVISION to each Makefile including the Makefile.common for
keep version number, and bump again for ocaml-graphics because the
previous bump resuited in downgrade.
Bump pkgrevision.
While I'm here: add a comment to patch-at explaining what it does.
Tested by
$ make install
$ cd work/ocaml-3.12.0/testsuite && gmake one DIR=tests/lib-dynlink-native
(Not in a build-env because that uses the wrappers, which don't let the
test suite see the installed OCaml files.)
This is only a workaround on NetBSD/{i386,amd64} for the problems of
OCaml PR#5049 <http://caml.inria.fr/mantis/view.php?id=5049>. (E.g.,
this workaround makes Coccinelle build on those platforms -- but it
still won't build on platforms with native compilation but no native
dynamic loading. Need to hack everything that uses dynlink to have
four compile-time cases -- {yes,no} {byte,nat}dynlink.)
- to do this, and make the result runnable on pre-thumb arm, change
upstreams assembler snippets and stubs to use "mov pc,reg" instead
of the return/call-to-thumb-friendly "bx reg", which is not available
in non-thumb-enabled arm CPUs. Whether this is the way to go, or a
seperate "armt" architecture for ocaml is needed, needs to be discussed
with upstream.
Resulting compiler, when running its selftest suite, has 6 errors less than
the same on i386. Unison compiled natively with this passes its self-test.
Some of the highlights in release 3.12 are:
* Polymorphic recursion is supported, using explicit type
declarations on the recursively-defined identifiers.
* First-class modules: module expressions can be embedded as
values of the core language, then manipulated like any other
first-class value, then projected back to the module level.
* New operator to modify a signature a posteriori: S with type
t := tau denotes signature S where the t type component is
removed and substituted by the type tau elsewhere.
* New notations for record expressions and record patterns:
{ lbl } as shorthand for { lbl = lbl }, and { ...; _ } marks
record patterns where some labels were intentionally omitted.
* Local open let open ... in ... now supported by popular demand.
* Type variables can be bound as type parameters to functions;
such types are treated like abstract types within the
function body, and like type variables (possibly generalized)
outside.
* The module type of construct enables to recover the module
type of a given module.
* Explicit method override using the method! keyword, with
associated warnings and errors.
* Bug fixes
* New features:
- made configure script work on PlayStation 3
- ARM port: brought up-to-date for Debian 4.0 (Etch)
- many other small changes and bugfixes in camlp4, ocamlbuild, labltk,
emacs files
By using /bin/ksh (${SH}), we get the desired value of $CWD in on of the
scripts called by the programs install procedure.
Fixes installation under solaris, other platforms unaffected.
- New language features
- New tools
- Faster type-checking of functor applications.
- Referencing an interface compiled with -rectypes from a module
not compiled with -rectypes is now an error.
- Revised the "fragile matching" warning.
- Print a stack backtrace on an uncaught exception.
- Stack overflow detection on MS Windows 32 bits.
- Stack overflow detection on MacOS X PPC and Intel.
- Intel/AMD 64 bits: generate position-independent code by default.
- Fixed bug involving -for-pack and missing .cmx files.
- Fixed bug causing duplication of literals.
- C/Caml interface functions take "char const *" arguments
instead of "char *" when appropriate.
- Faster string comparisons (fast case if strings are ==).
- Other
Bug fixes:
- ocamldoc: -using modtype constraint to filter module elements displayed in doc
- ocamldoc: error in merging of top dependencies of modules
- ocamldoc: -dot-colors has no effect
- ocamdloc: missing crossref in text from intro files
- compilers: segfault with recursive modules
- compilers: infinite loop when compiling objects
- compilers: bad error message when signature mismatch
- compilers: infinite loop with -rectypes
- compilers: contravariance bug in private rows
- compilers: unsafe cast with polymorphic exception
- native compiler: bad assembly code generated for AMD64
- native compiler: stack alignment problems on MacOSX/i386
- stdlib: crash in marshalling
- stdlib: crash when closing a channel twice
- stdlib: memory leak in Sys.readdir
- C interface: better definition of CAMLreturn
- otherlibs/unix: crash in gethostbyname
- tools: subtle problem with unset in makefile
- camlp4: install pa_o_fast.o
- camlp4: install more modules
New features:
- ocamldoc: name resolution in cross-referencing {!name}: if name is not
found, then it is searched in the parent module/class, and in the parent
of the parent, and so on until it is found.
- ocamldoc: new option -short-functors to use a short form to display
functors in html generator
- ocamlprof: added "-version" option
Changes from 3.09.1:
----
Bug fixes:
- Makefile: problem with "make world.opt"
- compilers: problem compiling several modules with one command line
- compilers,ocamldoc: error message that Emacs cannot parse
- compilers: crash when printing type error
- compilers: -dtypes wrong for monomorphic type variables
- compilers: wrong warning on optional arguments
- compilers: crash when wrong use of type constructor in let rec
- compilers: better wording of "statement never returns" warning
- runtime: inefficiency of signal handling
- runtime: crashes with I/O in multithread programs
- camlp4: empty file name in error messages
- camlp4: stack overflow
- otherlibs/labltk: ocamlbrowser ignores its command line options
- otherlibs/unix: Unix.times wrong under Mac OS X
- otherlibs/unix: wrong doc for execvp and execvpe
- otherlibs/win32unix: random crash in Unix.stat
- stdlib: update_mod not found under Windows
- stdlib: Filename.dirname/basename wrong on Win32
- stdlib: incomplete documentation of Pervasives.abs
- stdlib: Printf bugs
- tools/checkstack.c missing include
- yacc: crash when given argument "-"
New features:
- ported to MacOS X on Intel
- configure: added support for GNU Hurd
order. Remove "@unexec rmdir" lines made redundant by the reordering.
Also, use a more succinct way to match ${OPSYS} + ${MACHINE_ARCH} by
just checking ${MACHINE_PLATFORM}.
