[Caml-list] Objective Caml release 3.08

[Xavier Leroy <Xavier.Leroy@inria.fr>]

Objective Caml version 3.08 -- the "Bastille day" release -- is now
available from

        http://caml.inria.fr/ocaml/distrib.html

A detailed list of changes since 3.07 is appended below.  Some of
these changes, marked with a "*" below, can break existing programs
that relied on undefined or non-portable behaviour.  Please keep them
in mind while recompiling your programs.

Enjoy,

- Xavier Leroy, for the Objective Caml team.


Objective Caml 3.08:
--------------------

Language features:
- Support for immediate objects, i.e. objects defined without going
  through a class.  (Syntax is "object <fields and methods> end".)

Type-checking:
- When typing record construction and record patterns, can omit
  the module qualification on all labels except one.  I.e.
  { M.l1 = ...; l2 = ... } is interpreted as { M.l1 = ...; M.l2 = ... }

Both compilers:
- More compact compilation of classes.
- Much more efficient handling of class definitions inside functors
  or local modules.
- Simpler representation for method tables. Objects can now be marshaled
  between identical programs with the flag Marshal.Closures.
- Improved error messages for objects and variants.
- Improved printing of inferred module signatures (toplevel and ocamlc -i).
  Recursion between type, class, class type and module definitions is now
  correctly printed.
- The -pack option now accepts compiled interfaces (.cmi files) in addition
  to compiled implementations (.cmo or .cmx).
* A compile-time error is signaled if an integer literal exceeds the
  range of representable integers.
- Fixed code generation error for "module rec" definitions.
- The combination of options -c -o sets the name of the generated
  .cmi / .cmo / .cmx files.

Bytecode compiler:
- Option -output-obj is now compatible with Dynlink and 
  with embedded toplevels.

Native-code compiler:
- Division and modulus by zero correctly raise exception Division_by_zero
  (instead of causing a hardware trap).
- Improved compilation time for the register allocation phase.
- The float constant -0.0 was incorrectly treated as +0.0 on some processors.
- AMD64: fixed bugs in asm glue code for GC invocation and exception raising
  from C.
- IA64: fixed incorrect code generated for "expr mod 1".
- PowerPC: minor performance tweaks for the G4 and G5 processors.

Standard library:
* Revised handling of NaN floats in polymorphic comparisons.
  The polymorphic boolean-valued comparisons (=, <, >, etc) now treat
  NaN as uncomparable, as specified by the IEEE standard.
  The 3-valued comparison (compare) treats NaN as equal to itself
  and smaller than all other floats.  As a consequence, x == y
  no longer implies x = y but still implies compare x y = 0.
* String-to-integer conversions now fail if the result overflows
  the range of integers representable in the result type.
* All array and string access functions now raise
  Invalid_argument("index out of bounds") when a bounds check fails.
  In earlier releases, different exceptions were raised
  in bytecode and native-code.
- Module Buffer: new functions Buffer.sub, Buffer.nth
- Module Int32: new functions Int32.bits_of_float, Int32.float_of_bits.
- Module Map: new functions is_empty, compare, equal.
- Module Set: new function split.
* Module Gc: in-order finalisation, new function finalise_release.

Other libraries:
- The Num library: complete reimplementation of the C/asm lowest
  layer to work around potential licensing problems.
  Improved speed on the PowerPC and AMD64 architectures.
- The Graphics library: improved event handling under MS Windows.
- The Str library: fixed bug in "split" functions with nullable regexps.
- The Unix library:
   . Added Unix.single_write.
   . Added support for IPv6.
   . Bug fixes in Unix.closedir.
   . Allow thread switching on Unix.lockf.

Runtime System:
* Name space depollution: all global C identifiers are now prefixed
  with "caml" to avoid name clashes with other libraries.  This
  includes the "external" primitives of the standard runtime.

Ports:
- Windows ports: many improvements in the OCamlWin toplevel application
  (history, save inputs to file, etc).  Contributed by Christopher A. Watford.
- Native-code compilation supported for HPPA/Linux. Contributed by Guy Martin.
- Removed support for MacOS9.  Mac OS 9 is obsolete and the port was not
  updated since 3.05.
- Removed ocamlopt support for HPPA/Nextstep and Power/AIX.

Ocamllex:
- #line directives in the input file are now accepted.
- Added character set concatenation operator "cset1 # cset2".

Ocamlyacc:
- #line directives in the input file are now accepted.

Camlp4:
* Support for new-style locations (line numbers, not just character numbers).
- See camlp4/CHANGES and camlp4/ICHANGES for more info.

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