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comparison doc/misc/whatsnew.html @ 0:13d2b8934445
Import AnaGram (near-)release tree into Mercurial.
| author | David A. Holland |
|---|---|
| date | Sat, 22 Dec 2007 17:52:45 -0500 |
| parents | |
| children | 1c9dac05d040 |
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| 1 <HTML> | |
| 2 <HEAD> | |
| 3 <TITLE>What's New</TITLE> | |
| 4 </HEAD> | |
| 5 <BODY | |
| 6 BGCOLOR="#ffffff" | |
| 7 TEXT="#000000" | |
| 8 LINK="#0033CC" | |
| 9 VLINK="#CC0033" | |
| 10 ALINK="#CC0099" | |
| 11 > | |
| 12 | |
| 13 <P align=right> | |
| 14 <IMG SRC=html/images/aga6d.gif ALT="AnaGram"><BR> | |
| 15 A System for Syntax Directed Programming<BR> | |
| 16 Version 2.40<BR> | |
| 17 <BR> | |
| 18 Copyright © 1993-2002 Parsifal Software<BR> | |
| 19 Copyright © 2006, 2007 David A. Holland<BR> | |
| 20 All Rights Reserved. | |
| 21 </P> | |
| 22 | |
| 23 <H1>What's New</H1> | |
| 24 <P> | |
| 25 <UL> | |
| 26 <LI><A HREF=#ag240>AnaGram 2.40</A></LI> | |
| 27 <LI><A HREF=#ag201>AnaGram 2.01</A></LI> | |
| 28 </UL> | |
| 29 </P> | |
| 30 | |
| 31 <A NAME="ag240"></A> | |
| 32 <H2>AnaGram 2.40</H2> | |
| 33 <P> | |
| 34 <UL TYPE=Disc> | |
| 35 <LI><A HREF="#240oss">Open source</A></LI> | |
| 36 <LI><A HREF="#240unix">Unix support</A></LI> | |
| 37 <LI><A HREF="#240functionality">Improved functionality</A></LI> | |
| 38 <LI><A HREF="#240convenience">Increased convenience</A></LI> | |
| 39 <LI><A HREF="#240fixes">Bug fixes</A></LI> | |
| 40 </UL> | |
| 41 </P> | |
| 42 | |
| 43 <P> | |
| 44 Most of the changes in AnaGram 2.40 are under the hood - cleanup of | |
| 45 source files, reorganization of the source tree, revision of build and | |
| 46 test procedures, and so forth, in preparation for the open source | |
| 47 release. All of this will, with luck, be invisible to the end user. | |
| 48 </P> | |
| 49 | |
| 50 <A NAME="240oss"></A> | |
| 51 <H2>Open Source</H2> | |
| 52 <P> | |
| 53 AnaGram is now <A HREF=license.html>open source</A>. AnaGram itself | |
| 54 uses the 4-clause BSD license; the parsing engine, and thus the output | |
| 55 files, are licensed with the less restrictive zlib license. Source | |
| 56 distributions are available from | |
| 57 <A HREF=http://www.parsifalsoft.com>http://www.parsifalsoft.com</A>. | |
| 58 </P> | |
| 59 | |
| 60 <P> | |
| 61 The manual has been re-typeset using LaTeX instead of WordPerfect. | |
| 62 The typographic consistency and formatting has been considerably | |
| 63 improved; unfortunately, the pagination is now completely different, | |
| 64 so page numbers are not portable to the new version. | |
| 65 </P> | |
| 66 | |
| 67 <P> | |
| 68 All the logic dealing with registration, trial copies, serial numbers, | |
| 69 and so forth has been removed. | |
| 70 </P> | |
| 71 | |
| 72 <A NAME="240unix"></A> | |
| 73 <H2>Unix Support</H2> | |
| 74 <P> | |
| 75 The Unix build of the command-line version of AnaGram (agcl) is now | |
| 76 supported and available to the public. There is at present no GUI for | |
| 77 the Unix version. The long-term goal is to migrate the AnaGram GUI | |
| 78 away from the closed (and orphaned) IBM Visual Age class library to | |
| 79 something else, probably GTK, so as to support both Windows and Unix. | |
| 80 </P> | |
| 81 | |
| 82 <A NAME="240functionality"></A> | |
| 83 <H2>Improved Functionality</H2> | |
| 84 <P> | |
| 85 <B>Examples.</B> The examples have been adjusted to the current | |
| 86 dialect of C++ and are now compilable again. The legacy "classlib" | |
| 87 code some still depend on is being phased out. | |
| 88 </P> | |
| 89 | |
| 90 <A NAME="240convenience"></A> | |
| 91 <H2>Increased Convenience</H2> | |
| 92 <P> | |
| 93 <B>File names.</B> File names in the AnaGram distribution and source | |
| 94 tree are no longer limited to 8+3 characters, and quite a few now have | |
| 95 less cryptic names. Additionally, all HTML files are now named ".html", | |
| 96 not ".htm". | |
| 97 </P> | |
| 98 | |
| 99 <P> | |
| 100 <B>Installed files.</B> The <TT>AnaGram.cgb</TT> and | |
| 101 <TT>AnaGram.hlp</TT> files found in older releases of AnaGram no | |
| 102 longer exist; their contents are compiled into the AnaGram executables | |
| 103 instead. | |
| 104 </P> | |
| 105 | |
| 106 <A NAME="240fixes"></A> | |
| 107 <H2>Bug Fixes</H2> | |
| 108 <P> | |
| 109 <B>Engine compiler error.</B> The <TT>error_message</TT> field of | |
| 110 the PCB has been changed to <TT>const char *</TT> so current C++ | |
| 111 compilers will accept the code generated when <I>diagnose errors</I> | |
| 112 is turned off. | |
| 113 </P> | |
| 114 | |
| 115 <P> | |
| 116 <B>Multiple output header files.</B> Including more than one AnaGram | |
| 117 output header file at once used to cause some compilers to issue a | |
| 118 warning, because an <TT>#ifndef</TT> directive was checking the wrong | |
| 119 symbol. This has been corrected. | |
| 120 </P> | |
| 121 | |
| 122 <P> | |
| 123 <B>Wrappers and error tokens.</B> AnaGram 2.01 generated uncompilable | |
| 124 code if you tried to use the <I>wrapper</I> feature and error token | |
| 125 resynchronization at the same time. This has been corrected. | |
| 126 </P> | |
| 127 | |
| 128 <P> | |
| 129 <B>More than 256 keywords.</B> Build 8 of AnaGram 2.01 fixed certain | |
| 130 problems with large keyword tables, but in the process introduced | |
| 131 another, which is now fixed. | |
| 132 </P> | |
| 133 | |
| 134 <HR> | |
| 135 <!-- ------------------------------------------------------------ --> | |
| 136 | |
| 137 <A NAME="ag201"></A> | |
| 138 <H2>AnaGram 2.01</H2> | |
| 139 <UL TYPE=Disc> | |
| 140 <LI><A HREF="#201functionality">Improved functionality</A></LI> | |
| 141 <LI><A HREF="#201diagnostics">Improved error diagnostics</A></LI> | |
| 142 <LI><A HREF="#201convenience">Increased convenience</A></LI> | |
| 143 <LI><A HREF="#201defaults">Changed defaults</A></LI> | |
| 144 <LI><A HREF="#201fixes">Bug fixes</A></LI> | |
| 145 </UL> | |
| 146 | |
| 147 <P> | |
| 148 | |
| 149 | |
| 150 <H2><A NAME="201functionality">Improved Functionality</A></H2> | |
| 151 <B>Improved support for building thread safe parsers.</B> All | |
| 152 nonconstant parser data previously declared as static variables has been | |
| 153 moved to the parser control block. When the <I>reentrant parser</I> switch | |
| 154 is set, all references to the parser control block are passed to functions | |
| 155 via calling sequences. The <I>extend pcb</I> switch provides a mechanism to | |
| 156 add user-defined variables to the parser control block. | |
| 157 <P> | |
| 158 <B>Improved support for C++ parsers.</B> The <I>wrapper</I> statement | |
| 159 provides C++ wrapper classes for objects to be stored on the parser value stack. | |
| 160 The <I>PCB_TYPE</I> macro allows you to derive a C++ class from the parser control | |
| 161 block and to access its members from your reduction procedures. | |
| 162 <P> | |
| 163 <B>Support for the ISO-Latin-1 character set</B>. When | |
| 164 the <I>case sensitive</I> switch is off and the <I>iso latin 1</I> switch | |
| 165 is on, case conversion is performed for all ISO Latin 1 | |
| 166 characters, not just those in the ASCII range. | |
| 167 <P> | |
| 168 <B>Improved support for error diagnostics.</B> It is now possible for users | |
| 169 to provide their own text for the error messages created by the <I>diagnose | |
| 170 errors</I> switch. In addition, the <I>token names</I> table option now | |
| 171 includes ascii representation of individual characters and keywords instead | |
| 172 of only named tokens. The <I>token names only</I> switch can be used for | |
| 173 compatibility with previous versions of AnaGram | |
| 174 | |
| 175 <P> | |
| 176 <B>More precise determination of error context.</B> The tables used by the | |
| 177 error frame option to provide the context of a syntax error have been | |
| 178 reworked and now provide a substantially more precise localization of the | |
| 179 error. | |
| 180 <P> | |
| 181 <BR> | |
| 182 | |
| 183 <H2><A NAME="201diagnostics">Improved Error Diagnostics</A></H2> | |
| 184 | |
| 185 <B>Missing reduction procedure diagnostic.</B> | |
| 186 In addition to warning that there is a parameter assignment | |
| 187 without a reduction procedure, this | |
| 188 diagnostic is now provided if the default reduction value | |
| 189 does not have the same data type as the reduction token. | |
| 190 <P> | |
| 191 <B>Command line version.</B> Diagnostics have been reformatted so | |
| 192 they can be recognized by the Microsoft Visual C++ IDE. | |
| 193 | |
| 194 <P> | |
| 195 <B>Refined keyword anomaly diagnostics.</B> There should | |
| 196 now be fewer false alarms. | |
| 197 <P> | |
| 198 <H2><A NAME="201convenience">Increased Convenience</A></H2> | |
| 199 | |
| 200 <B>File Trace.</B> If your grammar uses semantically determined productions, | |
| 201 the File Trace feature will now remember the choices you have | |
| 202 made for reduction tokens, so that you do not have to make | |
| 203 the same choices over and over again as you work with an example. | |
| 204 <P> | |
| 205 <B>File paths</B>. The file paths in the #line directives created by the line numbers | |
| 206 switch now use forward slashes instead of backslashes. | |
| 207 <P> | |
| 208 <H2><A NAME="201defaults">Changed Defaults</A></H2> | |
| 209 | |
| 210 <B>Parser stack alignment.</B> Now defaults to long instead of int. | |
| 211 <P> | |
| 212 <B>Parser stack size.</B> Now defaults to 128 instead of 32. | |
| 213 <P> | |
| 214 <H2><A NAME="201fixes">Bug Fixes</A></H2> | |
| 215 | |
| 216 <B>Interaction between context tracking and error token. </B>In previous | |
| 217 versions of AnaGram, if the first token in a rule was the error token, | |
| 218 the value of CONTEXT was the value that corresponded to the location | |
| 219 of the error. CONTEXT now correctly shows the context at which the | |
| 220 aborted rule began. For instance, in the following example, if a | |
| 221 syntax error is encountered while parsing the expression, the error | |
| 222 rule will skip over remaining characters to the terminating semicolon. | |
| 223 When invoked from handleError(), the CONTEXT macro will return the | |
| 224 context as it was at the beginning of the expression. | |
| 225 <PRE> | |
| 226 expression statement | |
| 227 -> expression, ';' | |
| 228 -> error, ~(eof + ';')?..., ';' =handleError(); | |
| 229 </PRE> | |
| 230 <B>Distinguish lexemes.</B> Several minor bugs in the implementation of <I>distinguish lexemes</I> have been | |
| 231 corrected. | |
| 232 <P> | |
| 233 <B>Set partition logic.</B> Corrected problems in the interaction between the set partition logic | |
| 234 and the implementation of the <I>disregard</I> statement. | |
| 235 <P> | |
| 236 <B>Table size.</B> Fixed a data sizing problem which occurred when one particular parse table | |
| 237 had precisely 256 entries. | |
| 238 <P> | |
| 239 <B>Keyword recognition.</B> Fixed a problem that could cause difficulties with keyword | |
| 240 recognition when the <I>case sensitive</I> switch was turned off. | |
| 241 <P> | |
| 242 <B>Default conflict resolution.</B> With unresolved shift-reduce conflicts, the shift case was | |
| 243 not always being selected. This problem has been corrected. | |
| 244 <P> | |
| 245 <B>Lockup.</B> It was possible to write an erroneous grammar that would cause | |
| 246 AnaGram to lock up. This problem has been corrected. | |
| 247 <P> | |
| 248 <B>Potential bus error.</B> The error diagnostic funtion created by the <I>diagnose errors</I> | |
| 249 switch, could, under some circumstances, access an uninitialized value | |
| 250 on the parser value stack. This problem has been corrected. | |
| 251 <P> | |
| 252 <B>Internal errors.</B> Fixed a number of minor bugs which could cause internal errors | |
| 253 while running File Trace. | |
| 254 | |
| 255 </BODY> | |
| 256 </HTML> |