From: Gregory Wright <gwright@packetstorm.com> To: lwn@lwn.net Subject: Haskell updates Date: Wed, 20 Jun 2001 14:53:53 -0400 Updates of two Haskell compilers were recently released: Version 5.00.2 of GHC, the Glasgow Haskell compiler was released on 18 June 2001. The announcement: The (Interactive) Glasgow Haskell Compiler -- version 5.00.2 ============================================================== We are pleased to announce a new patchlevel release of the Glasgow Haskell Compiler (GHC), version 5.00.2. The source distribution is freely available via the World-Wide Web and through anon. FTP, under a BSD-style license. See below for download details. Pre-built packages for Linux, FreeBSD, and Solaris(sparc) are also available. Haskell is a standard lazy functional programming language; the current language version is Haskell 98, agreed in December 1998. GHC is a state-of-the-art programming suite for Haskell. Included is an optimising compiler generating good code for a variety of platforms, together with an interactive system for convenient, quick development. The distribution includes space and time profiling facilities, a large collection of libraries, and support for various language extensions, including concurrency, exceptions, and foreign language interfaces (C, C++, whatever). A wide variety of Haskell related resources (tutorials, libraries, specifications, documentation, compilers, interpreters, references, contact information, links to research groups) are available from the Haskell home page at http://www.haskell.org/ GHC's Web page lives at http://www.haskell.org/ghc/ What's new in 5.00.2 ====================== Fixed a few more bugs which turned out to be showstoppers for various people. Symptoms of the fixed bugs are: * Panics in the bytecode (interactive) linker (two different bugs). * Compiled code dies with a segfault (two different bugs). * Interpreted code crashes or acts weird. * A panic in the CPR analyser. * An infinite loop in the strictness analyser. * Nested comments are not properly handled during module chasing. * :module command doesn't accept underscores in module names. * -L<dir> doesn't work on the ghci command line. * Posix.executeFile mistakenly propagates SIGVTALRM to children. * Exceptions during an interactive session cause the UI to forget some important state information. * (a new feature) Packages can now loaded at the ghci prompt. Do ":s -package <packagename>". The York Haskell compiler, nhc98, released version 1.06 on 8 June 2001. The announcement: nhc98 1.06 (2001-06-08) features * New: Updated the Prelude/Libraries to match the newly revised Haskell'98 Report. * Update: Default build target is now basic + tracer (was just basic). * Update: Building with gcc now builds everything with gcc, including profiling and tracing. This is much faster. * Bugfix: A bad interaction between Java and Cygwin to do with Unix vs. Windows pathnames. (Visible only in Hat-trail and Hood.) * Bugfix: An 'hi' built with just a C compiler seg-faulted, due to mismatched .c file versions in the 1.04 source package. * Bugfix: Recognise an existing ghc-5 installation. * Bugfix: Missing include for Cygwin. * Bugfix: Minor filename recognition error in hat-stack and hat-connect. * Bugfix: Filename extension for time profiling changed to .z.o to avoid Windows conflicts between .T.o and .t.o. The compiler flags -T and -t are unchanged, -z is a new synonym for -t. Best Wishes, Gregory Wright PacketStorm Communications 20 Meridian Road Eatontown, New Jersey 07724 gwright@packetstorm.com