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.
natively (that is, only to byte-code).
This consists of two parts:
a) a patch to ocamldoc/Makefile to make it create the man pages using
the interpreted ocamldoc - this exists for both types of architectures,
so is safe. (This will be sent up-stream).
b) move a common shared library file to the common PLIST, and a lot of
files (natively compiled versions of the ML modules and natively compiled
versions of a few binaries) to PLIST.opt.
This has been build-tested on i386 (cross-compiled from amd64) and on
arm. unison builds and works.
"make test" shows the same amount of passed and failed tests (mostly
non-found libraries) as before; but this needs more investigation.
An additional issue to solve (with upstream) is that there's no easy way
to run the part of the test suite that would work on byte-code-only
architectures.
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.
Changelog:
Bug fixes:
- PR#4151: better documentation for min and max w.r.t. NaN
- PR#4421: ocamlbuild uses wrong compiler for C files
- PR#4710, PR#4720: ocamlbuild does not use properly configuration information
- PR#4750: under some Windows installations, high start-up times for Unix lib
- PR#4777: problem with scanf and CRLF
- PR#4783: ocamlmklib problem under Windows
- PR#4810: BSD problem with socket addresses, e.g. in Unix.getnameinfo
- PR#4813: issue with parsing of float literals by the GNU assembler
- PR#4816: problem with modules and private types
- PR#4818: missed opportunity for type-based optimization of bigarray accesses
- PR#4821: check for duplicate method names in classes
- PR#4823: build problem on Mac OS X
- PR#4836: spurious errors raised by Unix.single_write under Windows
- PR#4841, PR#4860, PR#4930: problem with ocamlopt -output-obj under Mac OS X
- PR#4847: C compiler error with ocamlc -output-obj under Win64
- PR#4856: ocamlbuild uses ocamlrun to execute a native plugin
- PR#4867, PR#4760: ocamlopt -shared fails on Mac OS X 64bit
- PR#4873: ocamlbuild ignores "thread" tag when building a custom toplevel
- PR#4890: ocamlbuild tries to use native plugin on bytecode-only arch
- PR#4896: ocamlbuild should always pass -I to tools for external libraries
- PR#4900: small bug triggering automatic compaction even if max_overhead = 1M
- PR#4902: bug in %.0F printf format
- PR#4910: problem with format concatenation
- PR#4922: ocamlbuild recompiles too many files
- PR#4923: missing \xff for scanf %S
- PR#4933: functors not handling private types correctly
- PR#4940: problem with end-of-line in DOS text mode, tentative fix
- PR#4953: problem compiling bytecode interpreter on ARM in Thumb mode.
- PR#4955: compiler crash when typing recursive type expression with constraint
- Module Printf: the simple conversion %F (without width indication) was not
treated properly.
- Makefile: problem with cygwin, flexdll, and symbolic links
- Various build problems with ocamlbuild under Windows with msvc
Feature wishes:
- PR#9: (tentative implementation) make ocamldebug use #linenum annotations
- PR#123, PR#4477: custom exception printers
- PR#3456: Obj.double_field and Obj.set_double_field functions
- PR#4003: destination directory can be given to Filename.[open_]temp_file
- PR#4647: Buffer.blit function
- PR#4685: access to Filename.dir_sep
- PR#4703: support for debugging embedded applications
- PR#4723: "clear_rules" function to empty the set of ocamlbuild rules
- PR#4921: configure option to help cross-compilers
(Changes that can break existing programs are marked with a "*" )
Language features:
- Addition of lazy patterns: "lazy <pat>" matches suspensions whose values,
after forcing, match the pattern <pat>.
- Introduction of private abbreviation types "type t = private <type-expr>",
for abstracting the actual manifest type in type abbreviations.
- Subtyping is now allowed between a private abbreviation and its definition,
and between a polymorphic method and its monomorphic instance.
Compilers:
- The file name for a compilation unit should correspond to a valid
identifier (Otherwise dynamic linking and other things can fail, and
a warning is emitted.)
* Revised -output-obj: the output name must now be provided; its
extension must be one of .o/.obj, .so/.dll, or .c for the
bytecode compiler. The compilers can now produce a shared library
(with all the needed -ccopts/-ccobjs options) directly.
- -dtypes renamed to -annot, records (in .annot files) which function calls
are tail calls.
- All compiler error messages now include a file name and location, for
better interaction with Emacs' compilation mode.
- Optimized compilation of "lazy e" when the argument "e" is
already evaluated.
- Optimized compilation of equality tests with a variant constant constructor.
- The -dllib options recorded in libraries are no longer ignored when
-use_runtime or -use_prims is used (unless -no_auto_link is
explicitly used).
- Check that at most one of -pack, -a, -shared, -c, -output-obj is
given on the command line.
- Optimized compilation of private types as regular manifest types
(e.g. abbreviation to float, float array or record types with only
float fields).
Native-code compiler:
- New port: Mac OS X / Intel in 64-bit mode (configure with -cc "gcc -m64").
- A new option "-shared" to produce a plugin that can be dynamically
loaded with the native version of Dynlink.
- A new option "-nodynlink" to enable optimizations valid only for code
that is never dynlinked (no-op except for AMD64).
- More aggressive unboxing of floats and boxed integers.
- Can select which assembler and asm options to use at configuration time.
Run-time system:
- New implementation of the page table describing the heap (two-level
array in 32 bits, sparse hashtable in 64 bits), fixes issues with address
space randomization on 64-bit OS (PR#4448).
- New "generational" API for registering global memory roots with the GC,
enables faster scanning of global roots.
(The functions are caml_*_generational_global_root in <caml/memory.h>.)
- New function "caml_raise_with_args" to raise an exception with several
arguments from C.
- Changes in implementation of dynamic linking of C code:
under Win32, use Alain Frisch's flexdll implementation of the dlopen
API; under MacOSX, use dlopen API instead of MacOSX bundle API.
- Programs may now choose a first-fit allocation policy instead of
the default next-fit. First-fit reduces fragmentation but is
slightly slower in some cases.
Standard library:
- Parsing library: new function "set_trace" to programmatically turn
on or off the printing of a trace during parsing.
- Printexc library: new functions "print_backtrace" and "get_backtrace"
to obtain a stack backtrace of the most recently raised exception.
New function "record_backtrace" to turn the exception backtrace mechanism
on or off from within a program.
- Scanf library: fine-tuning of meta format implementation;
fscanf behaviour revisited: only one input buffer is allocated for any
given input channel;
the %n conversion does not count a lookahead character as read.
Other libraries:
- Dynlink: on some platforms, the Dynlink library is now available in
native code. The boolean Dynlink.is_native allows the program to
know whether it has been compiled in bytecode or in native code.
- Bigarrays: added "unsafe_get" and "unsafe_set"
(non-bound-checking versions of "get" and "set").
- Bigarrays: removed limitation "array dimension < 2^31".
- Labltk: added support for TK 8.5.
- Num: added conversions between big_int and int32, nativeint, int64.
More efficient implementation of Num.quo_num and Num.mod_num.
- Threads: improved efficiency of mutex and condition variable operations;
improved interaction with Unix.fork (PR#4577).
- Unix: added getsockopt_error returning type Unix.error.
Added support for TCP_NODELAY and IPV6_ONLY socket options.
- Win32 Unix: "select" now supports all kinds of file descriptors.
Improved emulation of "lockf" (PR#4609).
Tools:
- ocamldebug now supported under Windows (MSVC and Mingw ports),
but without the replay feature. (Contributed by Dmitry Bely
and Sylvain Le Gall at OCamlCore with support from Lexifi.)
- ocamldoc: new option -no-module-constraint-filter to include functions
hidden by signature constraint in documentation.
- ocamlmklib and ocamldep.opt now available under Windows ports.
- ocamlmklib no longer supports the -implib option.
- ocamlnat: an experimental native toplevel (not built by default).
Camlp4:
* programs linked with camlp4lib.cma now also need dynlink.cma.
This changes the buildlink3.mk files to use an include guard for the
recursive include. The use of BUILDLINK_DEPTH, BUILDLINK_DEPENDS,
BUILDLINK_PACKAGES and BUILDLINK_ORDER is handled by a single new
variable BUILDLINK_TREE. Each buildlink3.mk file adds a pair of
enter/exit marker, which can be used to reconstruct the tree and
to determine first level includes. Avoiding := for large variables
(BUILDLINK_ORDER) speeds up parse time as += has linear complexity.
The include guard reduces system time by avoiding reading files over and
over again. For complex packages this reduces both %user and %sys time to
half of the former time.
Objective Caml 3.10.2:
----------------------
Bug fixes:
- PR#1217 (partial) Typo in ocamldep man page
- PR#3952 (partial) ocamlopt: allocation problems on ARM
- PR#4339 (continued) ocamlopt: problems on HPPA
- PR#4455 str.mli not installed under Windows
- PR#4473 crash when accessing float array with polymorphic method
- PR#4480 runtime would not compile without gcc extensions
- PR#4481 wrong typing of exceptions with object arguments
- PR#4490 typo in error message
- Random crash on 32-bit when major_heap_increment >= 2^22
- Big performance bug in Weak hashtables
- Small bugs in the make-package-macosx script
- Bug in typing of polymorphic variants (reported on caml-list)
* 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
