NEWS for Mercury 20.01

Changes to the core libraries license

• We have modified the terms under which the Mercury core libraries are licensed by adding an exception to the requirements of clause 6 for executable files linked against the Mercury core libraries.

  See the file COPYING.LIB for the terms of the Mercury core library license.

  See the file LICENSE for licensing information in general.

  The licensing of the compiler and other parts of the system has not been changed.

Changes that may break compatibility

• When the Mercury compiler looks at code using Mercury keywords (such as "func" and "pred") and Mercury operators (such as the clause neck operator ":-") but which cannot be parsed as the Mercury constructs that those Mercury keywords and operators are part of, it now generates a specific error message for each discrepancy. In the past, when it found such code, the compiler considered such code to construct terms and/or to call functions and predicates. Usually, the terms did not belong to any declared type and the called functions and predicates did not exist, leading to confusing error messages from the compiler.

  The compiler’s new approach generates considerably better diagnostics, but it does mean that code that uses Mercury’s keywords and/or operators in ways that are inconsistent with Mercury’s own uses of those keywords and operators will not compile anymore. Such code will need to be changed, typically by changing the names of some function symbols, functions or predicates.

• Code that switches on a field of a term could previously written directly as

    (
        Term ^ field = value1,
        ...
    ;
        Term ^ field = value2,
        ...
    )

  The compiler would then internally rearrange this as

    Field = Term ^ field,
    (
        Field = value1,
        ...
    ;
        Field = value2,
        ...
    )

  and then recognize this as a switch on Field.

  However, it turns out that while this transformation is valid in the vast majority of cases (well in excess of 99%), it is not valid in some rare circumstances involving terms with unique arguments. This means that the current version of the compiler is not allowed to do the above transformation automatically, so programmers must perform it themselves if needed.

• We have enabled stricter checking of non-ground final insts to reject more mode-incorrect code. Due to compiler limitations, some code that should be accepted will now be rejected. They will require modifications to appease the compiler. [Mantis bugs #86, #117, #191].

• We have enabled stricter checking of the requirement that a type, inst or a mode that is not exported from a module may not be used in the declarations of entities (such as predicates and typeclasses) that is exported from that module. This may require the explicit export of e.g. some types that previously were not exported.

• We have enabled stricter checking of type declarations and definitions: all declarations and definitions of a type must agree on whether the type is a solver type or not, and the definitions (as opposed to the names) of solver types may not be exported from their defining module.

• We have enabled stricter checking of module accessibility rules. If a module m has an import_module or use_module declaration for module x.y.z, it must also have import_module or use_module declarations for its ancestors x and x.y. And if the import or use of x.y.z is in module m’s interface, then the import or use of x.y.z’s ancestor modules must also be in the interface.

• The compiler now requires that, in projects that do not build a Mercury.modules file using e.g. mmc -f *.m, submodules must be stored in files whose name is the fully qualified module name followed by .m. (This means that e.g. a module named a.b.c must be in a file named a.b.c.m.) The reason for this change is that without it, the compiler cannot tell whether a file named e.g. lexer.m contains the Mercury standard library module lexer, or a submodule of a user-written parent module. [Mantis bug #489].

• The :- module declaration in a separate submodule now must contain the fully qualified module name.

• References to everything imported via :- use_module declarations must now be fully module qualified.

• for is now an operator. (See the extension of the syntax of inst declarations below.)

• It is now an error for a program to redefine a builtin type. The affected type names are:

    int
    int{8,16,32,64}
    uint
    uint{8,16,32,64}
    float
    character
    string
    {}
    =
    pred
    func
    pure
    semipure
    impure
    ''

• It is now an error for a program to redefine a builtin inst. The affected inst names are:

    =<
    any
    bound
    bound_unique
    clobbered
    clobbered_any
    free
    ground
    is
    mostly_clobbered
    mostly_unique
    mostly_unique_any
    not_reached
    unique
    unique_any

• It is now an error for a program to redefine a builtin mode. The affected mode names are:

    =
    >>
    any_func
    any_pred
    func
    is
    pred

• We have deleted the builtin inst synonyms old and new: their uses should be replaced with any and free respectively.

• We have deleted the builtin modes no and oo: their uses should be replaced with oa and ia respectively.

• The minimum version of the Java platform required by Mercury’s Java backend is now Java SE 8.

• The representation of integer constants in the standard library’s term and lexer modules has been generalised. The base, signedness and size of each integer constant is now recorded. Furthermore, these modules now use arbitrary-precision integers to represent the values of integer constants.

  Code that relies on the old representation of integer constants used by the term or lexer modules may use the old_term_parser library in the extras instead.

• We have changed the semantics of int.(<<) and int.(>>) so that they throw an exception if their second operand is not in [0, bits_per_int). For now, the old behaviour of these operations is provided by the functions int.legacy_left_shift/2 and int.legacy_right_shift/2. These functions will be deleted in a future release.

• We have changed the semantics of int.abs/1 so that it throws an exception if its argument is equal to int.min_int. The old behaviour of this function is provided by the new function int.unchecked_abs/1.

• We have changed the semantics of array.map_corresponding_foldl/6 so that it throws an exception if the input arrays differ in size.

• We have changed the semantics of array.shrink/3 and array.resize/4 so that they throw an exception if their first argument is negative.

• We have changed the semantics of array.fetch_items/4 so that it always throws an exception if its second or third argument is out of bounds. Previously, it would return an empty if list if its third argument was less than the second even if one, or both, of these arguments was out of bounds.

• We have removed the io.poly_type equivalence type from the io module. string.poly_type should be used directly. This may require an explicit import of the string module.

• The predicates and functions in the term module that provide conversion from arbitrary types to terms and vice versa have been moved to their own module, term_conversion. See the changes to the term module below for a list of affected predicates and functions.

• We have removed legacy support for the following systems:

  • IRIX
  • OSF/1

• The following compilation grades are no longer supported:

  • asm_jump*
  • jump*
  • hl_nest*
  • hlc_nest*
  • il*

Changes to the Mercury language

• We have added nine new primitive types: uint, int8, int16, int32, int64, uint8, uint16, uint32 and uint64. The type uint is an unsigned integer type of the same size as Mercury’s int type; the types int8, int16, int32 and int64 are signed integer types of width 8, 16, 32 and 64 bits respectively; the types uint8, uint16, uint32 and uint64 are unsigned integer types of width 8, 16, 32 and 64 bits respectively.

  Literals of these new types must have a distinguishing suffix, for example:

    999u
    561i32
    0b1111100111i64
    0o16u8
    0x3e732i64

  Basic operations on the new primitive types are provided by the new standard library modules: uint, int8, uint8, int16, uint16, int32, uint32 int64, and uint64.

• We have added a new kind of scope to the language: determinism checks for switch arms. These scopes are introduced by any of the new keywords

    require_switch_arms_det
    require_switch_arms_semidet
    require_switch_arms_multi
    require_switch_arms_nondet
    require_switch_arms_cc_multi
    require_switch_arms_cc_nondet
    require_switch_arms_erroneous
    require_switch_arms_failure

  require_switch_arms_<determinism> [Var] Goal tells the compiler to require Goal to be a switch on Var in which all the switch arms have determinisms at least as tight as <determinism>, and to generate error messages for any violations of this requirement.

• We have changed the meaning of require_complete_switch scopes slightly: the compiler now generates an error if the goal inside the scope is not a switch on the named variable.

• We have added a new kind of scope to the language for disabling warnings within the scope. A goal such as

    disable_warnings [singleton_vars] (
       Goal
    )

  is equivalent to Goal, with the exception that the compiler will not generate warnings about singleton variables inside Goal.

• We have extended the syntax of :- inst declarations to allow programmers to specify which type constructor’s values the inst is meant for. The syntax consists of adding for, followed by the type constructor’s name and arity, between the name of the inst and its definition, like this:

    :- inst listskel(Inst) for list/1
        --->    []
        ;       [Inst | listskel(Inst)].

  For the time being, this is useful only as a documentation of the programmer’s intention; the compiler does not (yet) prevent the use of insts on values of types other than the one they were declared to be for.

• We have added an extension to include external files in pragma foreign_decl and pragma foreign_code declarations.

• We have added a foreign type assertion word_aligned_pointer that allows the Mercury implementation to avoid boxing values of the foreign type that the assertion is for when the type appears as the sole argument of a data constructor.

• We have added a new pragma named consider_used. This pragma tells the compiler to consider the predicate or function it names to be used, preventing it from generating unused procedure warnings either for any of its procedures, or for any of the procedures they call, directly or indirectly.

• We have added an optional second field to the obsolete pragma. When present, it may contain a list of the names and arities of predicates and/or functions that programmers should consider using instead of the obsolete predicate or function.

• We have added an obsolete_proc pragma. While the obsolete pragma declares all modes of a predicate or function to be obsolete, the obsolete_proc pragma declares only one mode of a predicate or function to be obsolete. Like the updated version of the obsolete pragma, the obsolete_proc pragma may have a second argument naming one or more suggested replacements.

• The Java backend now supports defining foreign types as primitive Java types.

• Digits in numeric literals may now be separated by underscores in order to improve readability.

Changes to the Mercury standard library

New Integer Modules

• We have added the new modules uint, int8, uint8, int16, uint16, int32, uint32, int64 and uint64. These modules provide the basic operations on the new integer types.

  Many other standard library modules now have additional predicates that support the new integer types; see the entries for those modules for details.

New Random Number Generator Framework

• We have added a new type class based interface to random number generators to the random module. The new interface provides predicates for:

  • generating pseudo-random integers that are uniformly distributed in a range.
  • generating pseudo-random floats that are uniformly distributed in a range.
  • generating pseudo-random floats from a normal (i.e. Gaussian) distribution.
  • generating a random permutation of an array.
  • generating a random permutation of a list.

  Three new submodules, random.sfc16, random.sfc32 and random.sfc64, provide instances of the new type classes. Further instances can be found in the extras distribution (see below).

New Module: diet

• This module provides discrete interval encoding trees, which are a highly efficient set implementation for fat sets. This module is a contribution from Yes Logic Pty. Ltd.

New Module: edit_seq

• This module provides operations for computing and manipulating edit sequences. Given two sequences of items, an edit sequence is the shortest sequence of edit operations (deletes, inserts and/or replaces) that will transform the first sequence into the second.

New Module: psqueue

• This module implements a priority search queue ADT. This is a blend between a priority queue and a map. This was contributed by Matthias Güdemann.

New Module: ranges

• This module represents sets of integers using sorted lists of ranges. This module exports operations that make it particularly suitable for representing domains in finite domain constraint solvers.

New Module: term_conversion

• This module provides generic operations for the conversion of values of arbitrary types to and from terms. These operations were previously provided by the term module.

  See the list of changes to the term module below.

New Module: thread.barrier

• This module provides the barrier/0 type. This type can be used to control progress in concurrent code. This module was contributed by Mission Critical IT.

New Module: thread.future

• This module provides the future/0 and future_io/0 types. These type can be used to compute values in parallel using other threads. This module was contributed by Mission Critical IT.

Changes to the array module

• The following functions and predicates have been added:

  • det_least_index/1
  • semidet_least_index/1
  • det_greatest_index/1
  • semidet_greatest_index/1
  • foldl_corresponding/5
  • foldl2_corresponding/7
  • fill/3
  • fill_range/5
  • swap/4
  • unsafe_swap/4

• The following functions have been deprecated and will be removed in a future release:

  • least_index/1
  • greatest_index/1

Changes to the array2d module

• The following functions and predicates have been added:

  • is_empty/1
  • fill/3
  • from_array/3

Changes to the assoc_list module

• The following predicate has been added:

  • svremove/4

• svremove/4 is like remove/4 but its arguments are in an order more conducive to the use of state variable notation.

Changes to the bag module

• The following functions and predicates have been added:

  • singleton/1
  • insert_duplicates/4
  • det_insert_duplicates/4
  • det_insert_duplicates/3

• The following predicate and function have been deprecated and will be remove in a future release.

  • to_set_without_duplicates/2
  • to_set_without_duplicates/1

Changes to the bitmap module

• The following predicates and functions have been added:

  • is_empty/1
  • det_from_string/1
  • get_uint8/1, unsafe_get_uint8/1
  • set_uint8/4, unsafe_set_uint8/4

Changes to the builtin module

• The following predicate and function have been deprecated and will be removed in a future release:

  • promise_only_solution/1
  • promise_only_solution_io/4

  Existing code that uses either of these should be replaced with code that uses a promise_equivalent_solutions goal instead.

• The following modes have been deprecated and will be removed in a future release:

  • input/0
  • output/0

  Existing code that uses these modes should replace their use with in or out respectively.

Changes to the calendar module

• The following functions and predicates have been added:

  • int_to_month/2
  • det_int_to_month/1
  • int0_to_month/2
  • det_int0_to_month/1
  • month_to_int/1
  • month_to_int0/1
  • same_date/1

Changes to the char module

• The following predicates and functions have been added:

  • is_ascii/1
  • is_decimal_digit/1
  • is_base_digit/2
  • int_to_binary_digit/2, det_int_to_binary_digit/1
  • int_to_octal_digit/2, det_int_to_octal_digit/1
  • int_to_decimal_digit/2, det_int_to_decimal_digit/1
  • int_to_hex_digit/2, det_int_to_hex_digit/1
  • base_int_to_digit/3, det_base_int_to_digit/2
  • binary_digit_to_int/2, det_binary_digit_to_int/1
  • octal_digit_to_int/2, det_octal_digit_to_int/1
  • decimal_digit_to_int/2, det_decimal_digit_to_int/1
  • hex_digit_to_int/2, det_hex_digit_to_int/1
  • base_digit_to_int/3, det_base_digit_to_int/2
  • is_leading_surrogate/1, is_trailing_surrogate/1
  • is_control/1, is_space_separator/1, is_paragraph_separator/1
  • is_line_separator/1, is_private_use/1

• The following predicates have been deprecated and will either be removed or have their semantics changed in a future release:

  • is_hex_digit/2
  • int_to_hex_char/2
  • digit_to_int/2
  • int_to_digit/2
  • det_int_to_digit/1, det_int_to_digit/2

  NOTE: existing code that calls digit_to_int/2 assuming that it will only succeed for decimal digits (0-9) may be broken.

Changes to the cord module

• The following predicates and functions have been added:

  • to_list/1 (synonym for the existing list/1 function)
  • to_rev_list/1 (synonym for the existing rev_list/1 function)
  • rev_cord_list_to_cord/1 (similar to cord_list_to_cord/1)
  • rev_cord_list_to_list/1 (similar to cord_list_to_list/1)
  • cons/3
  • snoc/3
  • find_first_match/3

Changes to the deconstruct module

• The predicate functor/4 has been modified so that for character and string data, any control characters in the functor representation are escaped.

Changes to the digraph module

• The following predicates and functions have been added:

  • return_vertices_in_from_to_order/2
  • return_vertices_in_to_from_order/2
  • return_sccs_in_from_to_order/1
  • return_sccs_in_to_from_order/1

Changes to the float module

• The following predicates and function have been added:

  • is_finite/1
  • is_zero/1
  • is_infinite/1 (synonym for the existing is_inf/1 predicate)
  • is_nan_or_infinite/1 (synonym for the existing is_nan_or_inf/1 predicate)
  • infinity/0

Changes to the getopt and getopt_io modules

• We have added variants of the process_options predicates that return errors using a type instead of strings. A new function, option_error_to_string/1, can be used to convert values of the new error type into strings.

Changes to the hash_table module

• The following predicates have been added:

  • fold2/6
  • fold3/8

Changes to the int module

• The following predicates and functions have been added:

  • all_true_in_range/3
  • unchecked_abs/1
  • nabs/1

• The following predicate has been deprecated:

  • is/2

Changes to the integer module

• The following predicates and functions have been added:

  • from_string/2
  • from_base_string/3
  • to_int/2
  • det_to_int/1
  • to_base_string/2
  • negative_one/0, two/0, ten/0
  • is_zero/1
  • to_uint/2
  • det_to_uint/1
  • from_uint/1
  • to_int{8,16,32,64}/2
  • det_to_int{8,16,32,64}/1
  • from_int{8,16,32,64}/1
  • to_uint{8,16,32,64}/2
  • det_to_uint{8,16,32,64}/1
  • from_uint{8,16,32,64}/1

• The following functions have been deprecated and will be removed in a future release:

  • from_string/1
  • from_base_string/2
  • int/1

Changes to the io module

• The following predicates have been added:

  • write_uint/3, write_uint/4
  • write_int{8,16,32,64}/3, write_int{8,16,32,64}/4
  • write_uint{8,16,32,64}/3, write_uint{8,16,32,64}/4
  • write_binary_int8/3, write_binary_int8/4
  • write_binary_uint8/3, write_binary_uint8/4
  • write_binary_int{16,32,64}/3, write_binary_int{16,32,64}/4
  • write_binary_int{16,32,64}_{le,be}/3, write_binary_int{16,32,64}_{le,be}/4
  • read_binary_int8/[34]
  • read_binary_uint8/[34]
  • putback_int8/[34]
  • putback_uint8/[34]
  • read_binary_int{16,32,64}/3, read_binary_int{16,32,64}/4
  • read_binary_int{16,32,64}_{le,be}/3, read_binary_int{16,32,64}_{le,be}/4
  • read_binary_uint{16,32,64}/3, read_binary_uint{16,32,64}/4
  • read_binary_uint{16,32,64}_{le,be}/3, read_binary_uint{16,32,64}_{le,be}/4
  • read_line_as_string_and_num_code_units/[34]
  • print_line/[34], write_line/[34]
  • write_array/[56] (similar to write_list but for arrays)
  • temp_directory/3
  • make_temp_directory/3
  • make_temp_directory/5
  • set_environment_var/5
  • have_set_environment_var/0
  • seek_binary_input64/5, seek_binary_output64/5
  • binary_input_stream_offset64/4, binary_output_stream_offset64/4

• The print_line and write_line family of predicates behave like the print and write predicates, but also write a terminating newline.

• print now outputs arbitrary precision integers in their decimal form instead of printing their underlying representation.

• The predicate set_environment_var/5 returns an io.res value rather than throwing an exception. The predicate have_set_environment_var/0 can test whether the current platform supports the ability to set environment variables.

• We have made the following predicates exception safe: the current input or output stream is restored to the original stream if an exception is thrown during their execution:

  • read/4
  • write_list/6
  • write_array/6
  • read_binary/4
  • write_binary/4

Changes to the lexer module

• We have added predicates that read from an explicitly specified input stream, not from the current input stream.

Changes to the list module

• The following predicates and functions have been added:

  • any_true/2
  • any_false/2
  • reverse_prepend/2
  • reverse_prepend/3
  • take_while/4
  • take_while/3
  • take_while/2
  • drop_while/3
  • drop_while/2
  • one_or_more_to_list/1
  • list_to_one_or_more/2
  • list_to_one_or_more_det/2

• The following predicate has been deprecated and will be remove in a future release:

  • takewhile/4 (use take_while/4 instead)

• The take/3 and drop/3 predicates have been modified so that they fail if their first argument is less than zero.

• The split_upto/4 and take_upto/3 predicates and take_upto/2 function have been modified so that they throw an exception if their first argument is negative.

Changes to the map module

• The following predicates have been added:

  • foldl5/12
  • foldr5/12
  • map_foldl4/11
  • intersect_list/4
  • union_list/4
  • select_unselect/4
  • select_unselect_sorted_list/4

Changes to the math module

• The following function and predicate have been added:

  • fma/3
  • have_fma/0

• fma/3 provides the fused multiply-add operation on platforms that support that operation. The predicate have_fma/0 may be used to check for this support.

Changes to the maybe module

• We have a added a new type, maybe_errors, to the maybe module.

• The following predicate and function have been added:

  • fold2_maybe/6
  • maybe_default/2
  • pred_to_maybe/1
  • func_to_maybe/1

Changes to the parser module

• We have added predicates that read from an explicitly specified input stream, not from the current input stream.

Changes to the pretty_printer module

• The type formatter_limit has been renamed to func_symbol_limit, since this better reflects the type’s purpose.

• We have replaced the set_formatter function with a predicate of the same name, since this allows the use of state variable notation when setting up more than one type-specific formatter,

• We have renamed the write_doc_to_stream predicate as put_doc, to better fit in with the names other predicates that operate on values of the stream.writer typeclass, and changed its interface to group the prettyprinter parameters together in a value of the type that was designed for this purpose.

Changes to the random module.

• The existing random number generator defined in this module has been deprecated in favour of the type class based random number generation framework described above.

  As such, the supply/0 type and the following predicates have been deprecated and will be deleted in a future release:

  • init/2
  • random/3
  • random/5
  • randmax/3
  • randcount/3
  • permutation/4

Changes to the rbtree module

• The following predicates have been added:

  • foldl_values/4
  • foldl2_values/6

Changes to the require module

• The following predicate and function have been added:

  • error/2
  • func_error/2

Changes to the set module

• The following predicates and/or functions have been added:

  • intersection_and_differences/5
  • det_remove/3
  • det_remove_list/3
  • rev_sorted_list_to_set/[12]

• The following predicate and/or functions have been deprecated:

  • empty/1
  • non_empty/1
  • set/1

  Similar changes have been made to the other set implementations in the library.

Changes to the std_util module

• The following functions have been deprecated:

  • maybe_pred/3
  • maybe_func/2

Changes to the stream.string_writer module

• The following predicates have been added:

  • put_uint/4
  • put_int{8,16,32,64}/4
  • put_uint{8,16,32,64}/4

• print now outputs arbitrary precision integers in their decimal form instead of printing their underlying representation.

Changes to the string module

• Predicates and functions in this module now have defined behaviours for strings containing ill-formed sequences. Also, some predicates and functions now have defined behaviour on surrogate code points (e.g. failing or throwing an exception) that was previously undefined.

• The following predicates have been added:

  • is_all_alnum/1
  • is_empty/1
  • is_well_formed/1
  • from_code_unit_list_allow_ill_formed/2
  • to_utf8_code_unit_list/2
  • to_utf16_code_unit_list/2
  • from_utf8_code_unit_list/2
  • from_utf16_code_unit_list/2
  • det_remove_prefix/3
  • compare_ignore_case_ascii/3
  • to_rev_char_list/2
  • compare_substrings/6
  • unsafe_compare_substrings/6
  • nondet_append/3
  • append_string_pieces/2
  • unsafe_append_string_pieces/2
  • unsafe_sub_string_search_start/4
  • index_next_repl/5
  • unsafe_index_next_repl/5
  • prev_index_repl/5
  • unsafe_prev_index_repl/5
  • uint_to_string/1
  • int{8,16,32,64}_to_string/1
  • uint{8,16,32,64}_to_string/1

• The following procedures have been deprecated:

  • to_char_list(uo, in)
  • to_rev_char_list(uo, in)
  • from_char_list(out, in)
  • append(out, out, in)
  • prefix(in, out)
  • suffix(in, out)

• The following obsolete predicates and functions have been removed:

  • substring/3
  • substring/4
  • unsafe_substring/3
  • unsafe_substring/4
  • foldl_substring/5
  • foldl_substring/6
  • foldl2_substring/8
  • foldl2_substring/8
  • foldr_substring/5
  • foldr_substring/6

• We have reduced the memory allocated by to_lower and to_upper.

• string_to_doc/1 now escapes characters in its input argument with backslash escapes when required.

• [Mantis bug #348]. Float special values, NaNs and Infinities, are now converted to strings in a way that is backend- and grade-independent.

• [Mantis bug #376]. base_digit_to_int/3 and det_base_digit_to_int/2 now check for overflow and underflow in all bases, not only base 10.

Changes to the store module

• Procedures in this module no longer acquire the global lock.

Changes to the term module

• The following predicates and functions have been added:

  • dummy_context_init/0
  • is_dummy_context/1
  • term_to_int/2
  • term_to_uint/2
  • term_to_int{8,16,32,64}/2
  • term_to_uint{8,16,32,64}/2
  • decimal_term_to_int/2
  • int_to_decimal_term/2
  • int{8,16,32,64}_to_decimal_term/2
  • uint_to_decimal_term/2
  • uint{8,16,32,64}_to_decimal_term/2
  • rename_var_in_term/4
  • rename_vars_in_terms/4
  • apply_renaming_in_term/3
  • apply_renaming_in_terms/3
  • apply_renaming_in_var/3
  • apply_renaming_in_vars/3
  • apply_renaming_in_term/3
  • apply_renaming_in_terms/3
  • substitute_var_in_term/4
  • substitute_var_in_terms/4
  • substitute_corresponding_in_term/4
  • substitute_corresponding_in_terms/4
  • apply_substitution_in_term/3
  • apply_substitution_in_terms/3
  • apply_rec_substitution_in_term/3
  • apply_rec_substitution_in_terms/3

• The following predicates and functions have been moved to the term_conversion module:

  • try_term_to_type/[12]
  • term_to_type/2
  • det_term_to_type/[12]
  • type_to_term/[12]
  • univ_to_term/[12]

• The following predicates and functions have been deprecated and will be removed in a future release:

  • var_id/1
  • relabel_variable/[34]
  • relabel_variables/[34]
  • rename/[34]
  • rename_list/[34]
  • apply_renaming/[23]
  • apply_renaming_to_list/[23]
  • apply_variable_renaming_to_var/[23]
  • apply_variable_renaming_to_vars/[23]
  • apply_variable_renaming/[23]
  • apply_variable_renaming_to_list/[23]
  • substitute/[34]
  • substitute_list/[34]
  • substitute_corresponding/[34]
  • substitute_corresponding_list/[34]
  • apply_substitution/[23]
  • apply_substitution_to_list/[23]
  • apply_rec_substitution/[23]
  • apply_rec_substitution_to_list/[23]

Changes to the thread module

• The following predicates have been added:

  • spawn_native/4
  • spawn/4
  • num_processors/3

• spawn_native/4 allows you to dedicate an OS thread to a Mercury thread.

• num_processors/3 returns the number of processors available for parallel work.

Changes to the thread.mvar module

• The following predicates and functions have been added:

  • impure_init/1
  • try_read/4

• The following function has been deprecated and will be removed in a future release:

  • init/1

Changes to the thread.semaphore module

• The following predicate has been deprecated and will be removed in a future release:

  • init/1

Changes to the time module

• The following predicates have been added:

  • localtime/4
  • mktime/4

• The following functions have been deprecated and will be removed in a future release:

  • localtime/1
  • mktime/1
  • ctime/1

Changes to the tree234 module

• The following predicate has been added:

  • map_foldl4/11

Changes to the version_array module

• The following function has been added:

  • from_reverse_list/1

Changes to the Mercury compiler

New warning options

• --inform-incomplete-switch, --inform-incomplete-switch-threshold N

  This option asks the compiler to generate an informational message for switches that do not cover all of the function symbols that the switched-on variable could be bound to.

  The option --inform-incomplete-switch-threshold N can be used to restrict the generation of these messages to only switches that do cover at least N percent of the function symbols that the switched-on variable could be bound to.

• --inhibit-style-warnings

  This option asks the compiler not to generate any warnings that are purely about programming style, and do not point out code that is reasonably likely to be wrong.

• --no-warn-accumulator-swaps

  We have renamed the --inhibit-accumulator-warnings option to --no-warn-accumulator-swaps.

• --warn-dead-preds

  While the existing option --warn-dead-procs asks the compiler to generate warnings for every unused procedure of the module being compiled, this new option asks the compiler to generate a warning for a predicate or function only if none of its procedures is used.

• --warn-implicit-stream-calls

  This option asks the compiler to generate a warning for every call to a predicate p/N if there is also a predicate p/(N+1) which differs from p/N only in that it has additional argument at the front of its argument list that specifies an I/O stream. This is intended to generate warnings for calls to predicates such as io.write_string/3, which writes to the current output stream, to encourage programmers to call io.write_string/4 instead. If the option is given, the compiler will also generate warnings for calls to predicates such as io.see, io.seen, io.tell and io.told, which set the current input or output streams respectively.

• --warn-inconsistent-pred-order-clauses, --warn-inconsistent-pred-order-foreign-procs

  Both of these options ask the compiler to generate a warning if, among either (a) the set of exported predicates and functions of the module, or (b) the set of nonexported predicates and functions of the module, the order of their definitions does not match the order of their declarations. The first option applies only to predicates and functions defined by Mercury clauses; the second applies to predicates and functions defined by either Mercury clauses or foreign procedures.

  The option --warn-inconsistent-pred-order is a shorter synonym for --warn-inconsistent-pred-order-clauses.

• --warn-insts-with-functors-without-type

  This option asks the compiler to generate a warning for inst definitions that specify functors but do not specify what type they are for.

• --warn-interface-imports-in-parents

  This option asks the compiler to generate a warning for modules that are imported in the interface of a parent module, but not used in the interface of that module.

• --warn-non-contiguous-decls

  This option asks the compiler to generate a warning if the mode declaration(s) of a predicate or function does not immediately follow its :- pred or :- func declaration. This is option is turned on by default.

• --warn-suspected-occurs-check-failure

  We have significantly improved the compiler’s ability to detect, and to generate warnings about, code that violates the occurs check. This option is turned on by default.

• --warn-suspicious-foreign-code

  This option asks the compiler to warn about possible errors in the bodies of foreign_code pragmas.

New verbosity options

• --limit-error-contexts

  This option asks the compiler the restrict the errors and warnings it prints to those originating from a named file or files and/or specified ranges of line numbers.

New link options

• --no-default-runtime-library-directory

  This new option prevents the compiler from adding any directories to the runtime search path automatically.

New output options

• --output-class-dir, --output-class-directory

  This option causes the compiler to print the name of the directory in which generated Java class files will be placed.

• --output-csharp-compiler

  This option causes the compiler to print the command used to invoke the C# compiler.

• --output-target-arch

  This option causes the compiler to print the target architecture.

New auxiliary output options

• --show-definitions

  This option causes the compiler to write out a list of the types, insts, modes, predicates, functions, typeclasses and instances defined in a module to a file named <module>.defns.

• --show-definition-line-counts

  This option causes the compiler to write out a list of predicates and functions defined in a module, together with the names of the files containing them and their approximate line counts, to a file named <module>.defn_line_counts.

Changes to output options

• --generate-module-order, --imports-graph

  These options no longer imply --generate-dependencies.

Changes to link options

• --mercury-linkage

  The compiler no longer sets the runtime search path when the value of --mercury-linkage is static.

Changes to optimizations

• We have extended tail call optimization from self recursive calls only to mutually recursive calls as well, when generating high level C code, C# code, or Java code. (The compiler has long been able apply tail call optimization to mutually recursive calls when generating low level C code.)

• We have disabled intermodule optimisation of any predicates or functions using try goals. This fixes a serious issue as try goals are not properly written to .opt files, so when read back would not actually catch any exceptions.

Bug fixes

• We have fixed some bugs with constrained polymorphic modes.

• The compiler now reports an error for binary/octal/hexadecimal integer literals that cannot be represented in the compiler’s native int type.

• [Mantis bug #3]. We have fixed a long-standing bug causing crashes in deep profiling grades, related to unify/compare for tuples.

• [Mantis bug #184]. We have fixed a bug that caused a compiler abort in the presence of unsatisfied type class constraints.

• [Mantis bug #196]. We have made binary compatibility checks in C grades work again; GCC and clang were optimizing them away.

• [Mantis bug #264]. Putting a function with a non-default signature into a ground term is now no longer allowed. This is because extracting the function from the term would assume the default function signature.

• [Mantis bug #278]. We have fixed a bug where erroneous state variable use in the head of a lambda expression would cause a compiler abort instead of generating an error message.

• [Mantis bug #318]. We no longer erroneously report an error if a foreign_type pragma precedes the :- type declaration to which it applies.

• [Mantis bug #388]. We have fixed a bug where JAR files were being installed with incorrect permissions.

• [Mantis bug #391]. We have fixed a bug where the conditions on trace goals were being discarded when inlined across module boundaries.

• [Mantis bug #402]. The current state of a state variable can now be used in the head of a require_complete_switch scope.

• [Mantis bug #415]. We have fixed a bug that caused the compiler to go into an infinite loop when pretty printing recursive insts for use in error messages.

• [Mantis bug #420]. We have fixed a bug where try goals that were inlined across module boundaries would ignore exceptions instead of catching them.

• [Mantis bug #436]. We have fixed a bug where the compiler would silently allow a foreign_enum pragma to contain a constructor not belonging to the type that is the subject of the pragma.

• [Mantis bug #437]. We have fixed a bug that caused the compiler to abort if an empty submodule was encountered.

Other changes

• The C# back-end now bootstraps.

• The Java back-end now bootstraps.

• The old IL back-end has been deleted.

• The Erlang backend is deprecated and will be removed in a future release.

• Class files generated for executables in the Java grade are now automatically packaged up into Java archives (JARs).

• We have upgraded the bundled Boehm GC to v7.6.10 and libatomic_ops to v7.6.2.

Portability improvements

• The asm_fast* and reg* grades now work on 64-bit Intel OS X systems when using GCC as the C compiler.

  See README.MacOS for further details.

• We have improved support for FreeBSD, specifically:

  • Allowing architectures other than i*86.
  • Allowing the use of shared libraries.
  • Enabling support for threads.
  • Enabling parallel job support with mmc --make.

  See README.FreeBSD for further details.

• We have added support for OpenBSD.

  See README.OpenBSD for further details.

• We have added support for Linux systems using musl libc.

• We have improved support for AIX.

  See README.AIX for further details.

• The NetBSD editline library may now be used in place of GNU readline to provide line editing capabilities in the debugger.

• [Mantis bug #357]. We now use the libdispatch implementation of semaphores on OS X as the POSIX one was a non-functional stub.

• [Mantis bug #463]. We now support the use of the Microsoft C# compiler (i.e. Roslyn) in POSIX environments.

Changes to the Mercury debugger

• Interactive queries are now supported on OS X.

• The break command can now auto-complete on the filename:linenumber pairs of events, provided the Mercury system can access the readline library.

• Interactive queries have been improved:

  • Queries can use variable bindings from the current environment.
  • Exceptions thrown from queries are properly handled.
  • Non-canonical output bindings are now printed in solutions.
  • Underscore variables are no longer printed in solutions.

• We have added a browse --web command to view terms in a web browser.

Editor support

• The vim syntax highlighting files have been significantly improved thanks to Sebastian Godelet.

Changes to the extras distribution

• We have added support for Unicode and other enhancements to the lex and regex libraries. Thanks to Sebastian Godelet.

• We have added some additional random number generator implementations for use with the new random number generator framework.

Known issues

• [Mantis bug #466]. The experimental support for dependent parallel conjunctions in low-level C grades is known to sometimes cause aborts in the code generator.

For news about earlier versions, see the HISTORY file.