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<center><h1>nhc13 release history</h1></center>
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<h3>Unreleased 0.9.5 (99xxxx) features (now in <b>nhc98</b>)</h3>
<ul>
<li> Major addition: Existential types in data declarations.
<li> Addition: A fresh version of the time profiler is ready. It is now
gives accurate results, and the overhead is down to 10% of
runtime.
<li> Addition: New options <tt>-M</tt> and <tt>-Md</tt> to <em>hmake</em>.
<li> Bugfix: In the Binary library there was a very slight incompatibility
between the types described in the ISMM'98 paper and the
implementation. The implementation is now fixed to match the
paper.
<li> Bugfix: At last, the distribution tarfiles down extract into an
nhc13-x.x directory, rather than the current directory.
</ul>
<h3>Release 0.9.4 (981105) features</h3>
<ul>
<li> Addition: Various aspects of the trace browser have been updated.
<li> Bugfix: Haskell code which called C code which in turn called Haskell
code crashed with 'Unknown instruction 199'. Fixed.
<li> Bugfix: various small changes are required to enable nhc13 to compile for
mips-Ultrix-4.5.
<li> Bugfix: hmake did not collect import dependencies correctly from
literate files. Fixed.
<li> Bugfix: not just SunOS, but also FreeBSD, has a too-small limit on
the number of open files a process can hold. This can cause
problems when compiling <em>nhc13comp</em> with <em>hmake</em>.
The work-around from 0.9.3 is now applied universally, regardless
of operating system.
<li> Bugfix: At last, the nhc13 version of GreenCard has parse error messages!
Previously, it simply failed silently, with truncated output
files.
<li> Bugfix: installed version of hmake referred to temp include directory
instead of installed directory.
</ul>
<h3>Release 0.9.3 (980706) features</h3>
<ul>
<li> Bugfix: Compiling for tracing under SunOS no longer requires an explicit
<tt>-lsocket</tt>.
<li> Bugfix: SunOS has a very small limit on the number of open files a
process can hold. This caused problems when compiling
<em>nhc13comp</em> with <em>hmake</em>. It now has a work-around.
<li> Bugfix: there was a GC bug in the Binary library, rarely causing a
segmentation fault.
<li> Bugfix: the Prelude definition of <em>product</em> was wrong.
<li> Bugfix: GreenCard now permits limited use of the <em>Word</em> type.
</ul>
<h3>Release 0.9.2 (980624) features</h3>
<ul>
<li> Major addition: the tracing compiler and trace browser are now
available!
<li> Major addition: source-level time profiling is now available.
<li> Addition: a new compile-time option: <em><b>-d</b> objdir</em>
<li> Addition: the <em>nhc13make</em> and <em>hbcmake</em> tools have been
replaced by <em>hmake</em>. (New features: it generates build
scripts using any of hbc, nhc13, or ghc; it knows about cpp
directives; it knows about separate objdirs.)
<li> Bugfix: object files are now built in separate directories from the
source tree. This means you can build simultaneously on different
architectures sharing the same sources.
<li> Bugfix: the binary library is no longer tied into the Prelude.
<li> Addition: class Binary has a new operation <em>sizeOf</em>.
</ul>
<h3>Beta release 980501 features</h3>
<ul>
<li> Additions: Binary library functions <tt>endBin</tt>, <tt>skipBits</tt>,
<tt>clearBits</tt>, <tt>copyBytes</tt>, etc. + documentation updates.
<li> Bugfix: fixed (>) and (>=) for multiple precision integers
</ul>
<h3>Beta release 980327 features</h3>
<ul>
<li> Addition: a library for binary arrays, BinArray, has been revised and
added to the distribution.
<li> Addition: the efficient bulk-transfer operation <tt>copyBin</tt> has
now been added to the Binary library.
<li> Bugfix: GreenCard now treats functions of type <tt>()->IO a</tt>
correctly.
<li> Bugfix: there are some additional options to the config script.
</ul>
<h3>Beta release 980320 features</h3>
<ul>
<li> Mainly bugfixes in the new configuration/installation script,
particularly installation of <em>nhc13make</em>, and better
handling of re-compilation in the presence of errors.
<li> Some minor library bugfixes: Array is now an instance of Functor
(i.e. you can use <tt>map</tt> on an array rather than the old
<tt>amap</tt>); in GreenCard, the null string is now converted
to an empty string; the limit on ForeignObj's is now extended to
1024.
</ul>
<h3>Beta release 980304 features</h3>
<ul>
<li> A complete overhaul of the installation scripts, particularly for
the C source distribution: there is now much greater automation of
configuration, build and installation.
<li> The treatment of big- vs. little-endian architectures is now fully
automatic.
</ul>
<h3>Beta release 980212 features</h3>
<ul>
<li> The binary libraries have been completely re-implemented (again).
The new version unifies memory compression and binary I/O into
a single `<tt>Binary</tt>' class. The old interfaces are still
available, but there are many benefits to the new design.
<li> Bugfixes in the <b>nhc13</b> version of the <em>greencard</em>
tool: it now understands `<tt>%const</tt>'
directives; and user DISs with multiple parameters (e.g.
`<tt><fr/to> a b c</tt>') are now handled correctly.
<li> Bugfixes in the installation scripts for the C source distribution
(which is now beta quality):
the makefile now correctly builds the runtime and prelude
<em>before</em> the compiler which must be linked with them; and
the freshly-built compiler now uses the ANSI-C backend by default.
<li> A couple of other minor compiler bugfixes have been incorporated.
</ul>
<h3>Beta release 971219 features</h3>
<ul>
<li> I have just added an (alpha-quality) distribution package which
requires only an ANSI-C
compiler (for instance, <em>gcc</em>) to build <b>nhc13</b>. This
should make <b>nhc13</b> an extremely portable Haskell compiler. It
was made possible by a new compiler back-end (beta-quality) which
generates ANSI-C. The intention is to allow easy cross-compilation
(e.g. for embedded systems). We will be testing the cross-compiler
in early 1998.
</ul>
<h3>Alpha release 971106 features</h3>
<ul>
<li> When you use the <em>nhc13</em> or <em>nhc13make</em> commands,
<em>GreenCard</em> will be
called automatically if the file you are compiling has the extension
<tt>.gc</tt>.
<li> The <tt>Compress</tt> and <tt>BinIO</tt> libraries have been
completely re-implemented using <em>GreenCard</em>. As well as
being faster all round, it is now possible
to interleave random-access reading and writing on the same file.
</ul>
<hr>
<p>
The latest updates to these pages are available on the WWW from
<a href="http://www.haskell.org/nhc98/">
<tt>http://www.haskell.org/nhc98/</tt></a>
See also
<a href="http://www.cs.york.ac.uk/fp/nhc13/">
<tt>http://www.cs.york.ac.uk/fp/nhc13/</tt></a>
<p>
26th January 1999<br>
<a href="http://www.cs.york.ac.uk/fp/">
York Functional Programming Group</a><br>
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