Changelog for zeolite-lang-0.7.0.2

Revision history for zeolite-lang

[fix] Improves the likelihood of successful type inference when unions, intersections, or filters are combined with inheritance and type nesting.

[fix] Fixes an edge-case where type-inference can be influenced by a param filter for a param with the same name in the scope that is calling the function. (For example, having #x requires Foo in scope while calling a function that also happens to have a param named #x.)
[fix] Fixes an edge-case where parameter substitution at the type level can clash with a type parameter scoped to a function. (Related to the above, but actually a separate issue discovered while solving the former.)
[behavior] Shows inferred-type assignments in error messages related to expressions containing inferred types.

[new] Adds limited inference of type parameters in function calls. The new syntax is call<?,Int>(foo,bar), where ? designates that inference is requested for the first position.
[behavior] Reduces the memory cost of $TraceCreation$ by avoiding storing the entire trace text.

[behavior] Improves handling of I/O errors when calling zeolite, and allows compilation to continue in -r/-R modes if compilation of one module fails.

[behavior] Improves error messages for type mismatches and return-count mismatches.
[behavior] Improves the efficiency of loading metadata for dependencies.
[breaking] Fixes module-staleness check when running tests (-t).
[breaking] Prevents binaries from being created from main categories that are defined in $TestsOnly$ sources. (This was the original intention, but it was missed the first time around.)

[new] Allows @category members in concrete categories to refer to each other during initialization.
[new] Adds the $ExprLookup[MACRO_NAME]$ pragma, which allows the user to define expression substitutions in .zeolite-module.
[new] Adds the $NoTrace$ pragma, which skips generating stack-trace information for specific functions. This is useful for deeply-recursive functions whose full trace would not be useful.
[new] Adds the $TraceCreation$ pragma, which appends a trace for the creation of a value when there is a crash in one of its functions. This is useful when the crash stems from value initialization.
[fix] Fixes parsing of the '"' Char-literal.

[new] Adds the ErrorOr<#x> category to lib/util. This allows functions to return either the expected type or an error message.
[new] Adds the Void category to lib/util. This can be used to ignore type parameters when a value still needs to be instantiated.
[new] Adds the readAll function to TextReader (in lib/util) to support reading an entire file at once.
[breaking] Adds crashes when attempting to read RawFileReader or write RawFileWriter if there is a preexisting file error.

[new] Adds compiler support for pragmas, which will allow compiler features that aren't a part of the language:
- [new] $ModuleOnly$ pragma for .0rp files, which limits their visibility to the modules that own them.
- [new] $TestsOnly$ pragma for .0rp files, which limits their visibility to .0rt files, and .0rx files that also use $TestsOnly$ .
[new] Adds support for global seach paths for dependencies via a plain-text file at $(zeolite --get-path)/global-paths. This can be used to set up a separate directory for general-use Zeolite modules.
[breaking] Better handling of symbols from dependencies. This might break code that inavertently relied on broken visibility. In particular, .. in a dependency path precludes it from resolving to a system module.

[new] Adds a compiler mode (--show-deps) to display the symbolic dependencies of a module.
[new] Adds a compiler mode (--fast) to quickly compile a binary from a single source file without needing to create a module.
[new] Adds a compiler mode (-R) to recursively recompile modules.
[new] Improves thread-safety of internal code so that thread support can be safely added later. (Probably via a library.)
[new] Adds the Builder interface to make String concatenation more efficient.
[new] Adds support for basic mathematical Float operations, such as sin, exp, and sqrt.
[new] Adds support for bitwise Int operations.
[fix] Fixes broken --templates mode when builtin types are used.

[new] Allows modules to specify custom linker flags and private include paths in .zeolite-module. This lets categories written in C++ depend on external libraries written in other languages.
[behavior] Adds optimization of dependency inclusion for categories that are defined in C++ sources. This should eliminate linking in object files that are not needed by the binary.
[behavior] Adds checks to prevent a module from defining a category that was declared in another module.
[breaking] Updates the .zeolite-module format to require associating externally-defined categories with the source files that define them. This allows finer-grained linking of binaries and tests.

[breaking] Updates syntax for discarding all returns to use \ instead of ~. This will allow ~ to be used for bitwise-not later on. (Not to mention that ~ was kind of ugly in that context.)
[breaking] Cleans up multiple-return syntax by removing {}. This applies to both the return and the assignment.

[breaking] Requires that concrete categories defined in .cpp files be listed as external in .zeolite-module. This allows the compiler to ensure that all categories have a definition, which helps avoid linker errors.
[breaking] Gives .zeolite-module configs a proper file format.
[new] Adds version checking to cached module data.

[fix] Fixes a parser issue with empty {} blocks following scoped.
[behavior] Updates cleanup procedures to allow setting named-return values. Previously, initializing a named return in cleanup was not sufficient.
[behavior] Updates zeolite-setup to unconditionally rebuild supporting libraries. Incidentally, this causes all existing user modules to be out of date.

[behavior] Set the default output path for binaries to the module's path rather than the current directory.
[new] Allows a base path (-p) with recompile mode (-r).