Re: [Caml-list] Beta release of OCaml 4.00.0

[Jianzhou Zhao <jianzhou@seas.upenn.edu>]

On Wed, Jun 6, 2012 at 5:50 AM, Damien Doligez <damien.doligez@inria.fr> wrote:
> Dear OCaml users,
>
> The release of OCaml version 4.00.0 is approaching.  We have
> created a beta version for your testing pleasure.  Please
> download the sources, compile, install, and test your favourite
> software with it.  Then let me know what happened, one way or
> the other.
>
> We are especially interested in testing done on exotic
> architectures (i.e. non-Linux and non-Mac, or 32-bit processors).
>
> This beta version is available as source code at this
> address: < http://caml.inria.fr/pub/distrib/ocaml-4.00/ >
>
> The version number is 4.00.0+beta2, note that beta1 was not
> released.
>
> Happy hacking,
>
> -- Damien Doligez for the OCaml team.
>
>
>
>
> 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 Abstract 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.
> - In -g mode, generation of CFI information and a few filename/line
>  number debugging 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.

Is ocamloptp exactly equivalent to ocamlcp?

>
> OCamldoc:
> - 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 OCAMLRUNPARAMS
>      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
> - 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
>      ocamltoplevel.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.
>
> Bug Fixes:
> - PR#1643: functions of the Lazy module whose named started with 'lazy_' have
>  been deprecated, and new ones without the prefix added
> - PR#3571: in Bigarrays, call msync() before unmapping to commit changes
> - PR#4292: various documentation problems
> - PR#4511, PR#4838: local modules remove polymorphism
> - PR#4549: Filename.dirname is not handling multiple / on Unix
> - PR#4688: (Windows) special floating-point values aren't converted to strings
>  correctly
> - PR#4697: Unix.putenv leaks memory on failure
> - PR#4705: camlp4 does not allow to define types with `True or `False
> - PR#4746: wrong detection of stack overflows in native code under Linux
> - PR#4869: rare collisions between assembly labels for code and data
> - PR#4880: "assert" constructs now show up in the exception stack backtrace
> - PR#4892: Array.set could raise "out of bounds" before evaluating 3rd arg
> - PR#4937: camlp4 incorrectly handles optional arguments if 'option' is
>  redefined
> - PR#5024: camlp4r now handles underscores in irrefutable patern matching of
>           records
> - PR#5064, PR#5485: try to ensure that 4K words of stack are available
>  before calling into C functions, raising a Stack_overflow exception
>  otherwise.  This reduces (but does not eliminate) the risk of
>  segmentation faults due to stack overflow in C code
> - PR#5084: sub-sub-module building fails for native code compilation
> - PR#5120: fix the output function of Camlp4.Debug.formatter
> - PR#5159: better documentation of type Lexing.position
> - PR#5171: Map.join does more comparisons than needed
> - PR#5176: emacs mode: stack overflow in regexp matcher
> - PR#5179: port OCaml to mingw-w64
> - PR#5211: updated Genlex documentation to state that camlp4 is mandatory for
>  'parser' keyword and associated notation
> - PR#5224: confusing error message in non-regular type definition
> - PR#5231: camlp4: fix parsing of <:str_item< type t = $x$ >>
> - PR#5238, PR#5277: Sys_error when getting error location
> - PR#5261, PR#5497: Ocaml source-code examples are not "copy-paste-able"
> - PR#5290: added hash functions for channels, nats, mutexes, conditions
> - PR#5295: OS threads: problem with caml_c_thread_unregister()
> - PR#5301: camlp4r and exception equal to another one with parameters
> - PR#5305: prevent ocamlbuild from complaining about links to _build/
> - PR#5306: comparing to Thread.self() raises exception at runtime
> - PR#5309: Queue.add is not thread/signal safe
> - PR#5310: Ratio.create_ratio/create_normalized_ratio have misleading names
> - PR#5311: better message for warning 23
> - PR#5313: ocamlopt -g misses optimizations
> - PR#5316: objinfo now shows ccopts/ccobjs/force_link when applicable
> - PR#5318: segfault on stack overflow when reading marshaled data
> - PR#5319: %r11 clobbered by Lswitch in Windows AMD64 native-code compilation
> - PR#5322: type abbreviations expanding to a universal type variable
> - PR#5325: (Windows) blocked Unix.recv in one thread blocks Unix.send in
>  another thread
> - PR#5328: under Windows, Unix.select leaves sockets in non-blocking mode
> - PR#5330: thread tag with '.top' and '.inferred.mli' targets
> - PR#5331: ocamlmktop is not always a shell script
> - PR#5335: Unix.environment segfaults after a call to clearenv
> - PR#5338: sanitize.sh has windows style end-of-lines (mingw)
> - PR#5343: ocaml -rectypes is unsound wrt module subtyping
> - PR#5344: some predefined exceptions need special printing
> - PR#5349: Hashtbl.replace uses new key instead of reusing old key
> - PR#5356: ocamlbuild handling of 'predicates' for ocamlfind
> - PR#5364: wrong compilation of "((val m : SIG1) : SIG2)"
> - PR#5370: ocamldep omits filename in syntax error message
> - PR#5374: camlp4 creates wrong location for type definitions
> - PR#5380: strange sscanf input segfault
> - PR#5382: EOPNOTSUPP and ENOTSUPP different on exotic platforms
> - PR#5383: build failure in Win32/MSVC
> - PR#5387: camlp4: str_item and other syntactic elements with Nils are
>  not very usable
> - PR#5389: compaction sometimes leaves a very large heap
> - PR#5393: fails to build from source on GNU/kFreeBSD because of -R link option
> - PR#5394: documentation for -dtypes is missing in manpage
> - PR#5397: Filename.temp_dir_name should be mutable
> - PR#5410: fix printing of class application with Camlp4
> - PR#5416: (Windows) Unix.(set|clear)_close_on_exec now preserves blocking mode
> - PR#5435: ocamlbuild does not find .opt executables on Windows
> - PR#5436: update object ids on unmarshaling
> - PR#5442: camlp4: quotation issue with strings
> - PR#5453: configure doesn't find X11 under Ubuntu/MultiarchSpec
> - PR#5461: Double linking of bytecode modules
> - PR#5463: Bigarray.*.map_file fail if empty array is requested
> - PR#5465: increase stack size of ocamlopt.opt for windows
> - PR#5469: private record type generated by functor loses abbreviation
> - PR#5475: Wrapper script for interpreted LablTk wrongly handles command line
>  parameters
> - PR#5476: bug in native code compilation of let rec on float arrays
> - PR#5477: use pkg-config to configure graphics on linux
> - PR#5481: update camlp4 magic numbers
> - PR#5482: remove bashism in test suite scripts
> - PR#5495: camlp4o dies on infix definition (or)
> - PR#5498: Unification with an empty object only checks the absence of
>  the first method
> - PR#5503: error when ocamlbuild is passed an absolute path as build directory
> - PR#5509: misclassification of statically-allocated empty array that
>  falls exactly at beginning of an otherwise unused data page.
> - PR#5510: ocamldep has duplicate -ml{,i}-synonym options
> - PR#5511: in Bigarray.reshape, unwarranted limitation on new array dimensions.
> - PR#5513: Int64.div causes floating point exception (ocamlopt, x86)
> - PR#5516: in Bigarray C stubs, use C99 flexible array types if possible
> - PR#5518: segfault with lazy empty array
> - PR#5531: Allow ocamlbuild to add ocamldoc flags through -docflag
>  and -docflags switches
> - PR#5543: in Bigarray.map_file, try to avoid using lseek() when growing file
> - PR#5538: combining -i and -annot in ocamlc
> - PR#5551: repeated calls to find_in_path degrade performance
> - PR#5552: Mac OS X: unrecognized gcc option "-no-cpp-precomp"
> - PR#5555: add Hashtbl.reset to resize the bucket table to its initial size
> - PR#5560: incompatible type for tuple pattern with -principal
> - PR#5575: Random states are not marshallable across architectures
> - PR#5579: camlp4: when a plugin is loaded in the toplevel,
>  Token.Filter.define_filter has no effect before the first syntax error
> - PR#5585: typo: "explicitely"
> - PR#5587: documentation: "allows to" is not correct English
> - PR#5593: remove C file when -output-obj fails
> - PR#5598: add backslash-space support in strings in ocamllex
> - PR#5603: wrong .file debug info generated by ocamlopt -g
> - PR#5604: fix permissions of files created by ocamlbuild itself
> - PR#5610: new unmarshaler (from PR#5318) fails to freshen object identifiers
> - PR#5614: add missing -linkall flag when compiling ocamldoc.opt
> - PR#5616: move ocamlbuild documentation to the reference manual
> - PR#5619: Uncaught CType.Unify exception in the compiler
> - PR#5620: invalid printing of type manifest (camlp4 revised syntax)
> - problem with printing of string literals in camlp4 (reported on caml-list)
> - emacs mode: colorization of comments and strings now works correctly
> - problem with forall and method (reported on caml-list on 2011-07-26)
>
> Feature wishes:
> - PR#352: new option "-stdin" to make ocaml read stdin as a script
> - PR#1164: better error message when mixing -a and .cmxa
> - PR#1284: documentation: remove restriction on mixed streams
> - PR#1496: allow configuring LIBDIR, BINDIR, and MANDIR relative to $(PREFIX)
> - PR#1835: add Digest.from_hex
> - PR#1898: toplevel: add option to suppress continuation prompts
> - PR#4278: configure: option to disable "graph" library
> - PR#4444: new String.trim function, removing leading and trailing whistespace
> - PR#4549: make Filename.dirname/basename POSIX compliant
> - PR#4830: add option -v to expunge.ml
> - PR#4898: new Sys.big_endian boolean for machine endianness
> - PR#4963, PR#5467: no extern "C" into ocaml C-stub headers
> - PR#5199: tests are run only for bytecode if either native support is missing,
>  or a non-empty value is set to "BYTECODE_ONLY" Makefile variable
> - PR#5215: marshalling of dynlinked closure
> - PR#5236: new '%revapply' primitive with the semantics 'revapply x f = f x',
>    and '%apply' with semantics 'apply f x = f x'.
> - PR#5295: OS threads: problem with caml_c_thread_unregister()
> - PR#5297: compiler now checks existence of builtin primitives
> - PR#5329: (Windows) more efficient Unix.select if all fd's are sockets
> - PR#5358: first class modules don't allow "with type" declarations for types
>  in sub-modules
> - PR#5385: configure: emit a warning when MACOSX_DEPLOYMENT_TARGET is set
> - PR#5396: ocamldep: add options -sort, -all, and -one-line
> - PR#5397: Filename.temp_dir_name should be mutable
> - PR#5403: give better error message when emacs is not found in PATH
> - PR#5411: new directive for the toplevel: #load_rec
> - PR#5420: Unix.openfile share mode (Windows)
> - PR#5421: Unix: do not leak fds in various open_proc* functions
> - PR#5434: implement Unix.times in win32unix (partially)
> - PR#5437: warning for useless open statements
> - PR#5438: new warnings for unused declarations
> - PR#5439: upgrade config.guess and config.sub
> - PR#5445 and others: better printing of types with user-provided names
> - PR#5454: Digest.compare is missing and md5 doc update
> - PR#5455: .emacs instructions, add lines to recognize ocaml scripts
> - PR#5456: pa_macro: replace __LOCATION__ after macro expansion; add LOCATION_OF
> - PR#5461: bytecode: emit warning when linking two modules with the same name
> - PR#5478: ocamlopt assumes ar command exists
> - PR#5479: Num.num_of_string may raise an exception, not reflected in the
>  documentation.
> - PR#5501: increase IO_BUFFER_SIZE to 64KiB
> - PR#5532: improve error message when bytecode file is wrong
> - PR#5555: add function Hashtbl.reset to resize the bucket table to
>  its initial size.
> - PR#5586: increase UNIX_BUFFER_SIZE to 64KiB
> - PR#5599: Add warn() tag in ocamlbuild to control -w compiler switch
> - ocamldebug: ability to inspect values that contain code pointers
> - ocamldebug: new 'environment' directive to set environment variables
>  for debuggee
> - configure: add -no-camlp4 option
>
> Shedding weight:
> * Removed the obsolete native-code generators for Alpha, HPPA, IA64 and MIPS.
> * The "DBM" library (interface with Unix DBM key-value stores) is no
>  longer part of this distribution.  It now lives its own life at
>  https://forge.ocamlcore.org/projects/camldbm/
> * The "OCamlWin" toplevel user interface for MS Windows is no longer
>  part of this distribution.  It now lives its own life at
>  https://forge.ocamlcore.org/projects/ocamltopwin/
>
> Other changes:
> - Copy VERSION file to library directory when installing.
>
>
> --
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> Beginner's list: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ocaml_beginners
> Bug reports: http://caml.inria.fr/bin/caml-bugs
>



-- 
Jianzhou