Release history

Quick links

• Release 0.4.2 "Argument"
• Release 0.4.0 "Induction"
• Release 0.3.1 "Magic cookies"
• Release 0.3.0 "Struggle"
• Release 0.2.3a "Ashes"
• Release 0.2.3 "Cornwall"
• Release 0.2.2 "Gnuke"
• Release 0.2.1b "C-scape"
• Release 0.2.1 "Hack Pie"
• Release 0.2.0 "Proof of concept"

Release 0.4.2 (2006-02-28)

• Argument count mismatches are now detected (by Parrot) and an exception is thrown
• The argument-count-mismatch test case is now activated
• Fixed some argument count mismatches in the kernel library
• Unfortunately, two of the examples are broken (regexp issues some warnings, and amber-square raises an exception). I'm not sure yet if these bugs are on the Amber side or Parrot side.
• Estimated progress towards release 1.0: language constructs 47%, libraries 6%, documentation 4%, robustness 6%

Release 0.4.0 (2005-12-20)

• The "old" keyword is implemented
• Unary plus & minus now have higher precedence than dot-calls in a Call_chain
• New test to check operator precedence
• Minor change to code generation for manifest integer constants
• Square-bracket indexing of Hash and Array implemented for single dimensions
• New test for copying/reference semantics and aliasing
• Implemented outer lexicals for AGENTs (read-only)
• New test for outer variables
• Added Ackermann benchmark to examples/shootout
• Inspect_instruction now accepts multiple Expressions in When_part
• New test for the Inspect_instruction
• Various bug fixes and tweaks
• Estimated progress towards release 1.0: language constructs 46%, libraries 6%, documentation 4%, robustness 5%

Release 0.3.1 (2005-11-15)

• Parrot PMCs are now used to implement classes ARRAY, BOOLEAN, CHARACTER, INTEGER, STRING and TABLE
• A new PMC kernel class PATHNAME implements some manipulations on directory/file pathnames
• Class JSON performs simple serialization
• Replaced the test harness with a more useful, more flexible and easier-to-use November 2005 model
• Added about 40 new tests
• A new kernel class INTERNAL can be used for (limited) introspection
• Preconditions are no longer checked by default; specify "--check" to enable runtime checking of all assertions
• The AMBER_OPTIONS environment variable can be used to set some command-line options
• Directives, prefixed with a hash, may be included at the top of a script and will override the command-line options
• Implemented a simplified initial version of the 'inspect' instruction (a kind of case statement)
• A new option "--debug-info" emits file/line/column/other info into the generated .pir file
• Various bug fixes
• Estimated progress towards release 1.0: language constructs 43%, libraries 6%, documentation 4%, robustness 4%

Release 0.3.0 (2005-10-20)

• "include" directive allows functionality to be included from Parrot Intermediate Representation (*.pir) files
• "load" directive allows functionality to be loaded from Parrot Bytecode (*.pbc) files
• Iterator 'each_line' of class FILE now smoothly handles a file with no newline at the end of the last line
• The "can't find feature" error message now shows the source location of the failing call
• Added kernel class CCLASS which enumerates character classes that can be searched for within strings (uppercase, lowercase, alphabetic, hexadecimal, whitespace, punctuation, etc)
• "Slurpy arguments" implemented, which allows the caller of a routine to pass a variable number of arguments, which are collected ("slurped") into the final formal argument if it is followed by elipsis ("...")
• Routine bodies may be marked "external parrot" which means that the implementation will be dynamically loaded from some Parrot Bytecode or Parrot Dynclasses library.
• Added feature 'type_id' to class ANY
• Renamed feature 'isa' to 'is_a' in class ANY
• Added conversions between INTEGER, CHARACTER, BOOLEAN, STRING
• Added and reorganised many kernel class features as part of testing three alternative kernel class implementations.
• Capitalised 'Current', 'Result', 'Void', 'True' and 'False' to make SmartEiffel 2.2 beta 3 happy
• Various bug fixes
• Estimated progress towards release 1.0: language constructs 42%, libraries 3%, documentation 3%, robustness 3%

Release 0.2.3a (2005-09-24)

• Added an implementation of Conway's Game of Life to the examples directory
• A name clash between a local variable and a feature is now a validity error
• retry and recover instructions are now rejected if they appear outside of a rescue clause
• The generated PIR code now uses the if_null opcode instead of the deprecated isnull
• Manifest strings may now contain hex escapes, e.g. \{7F} (and \{0} obsoletes the \u escape)
• A new kernel class ARGUMENTS replaces the previous command-line-argument mechanism
• Escape codes are recognised within character constants, e.g. \n, \{1F}
• The catenation operator & now works for mixed-type expressions (CHARACTERs, INTEGERs etc) and catenates their string value
• Parrot (non-Amber) classnames now begin with @@ instead of being enclosed by {{..}}
• Parrot (non-Amber) featurenames now begin with @ instead of being enclosed by {..}
• Added the catenate.am test case
• Changed the 99 bottles of beer example to use is-functions rather than do-functions
• External 'pir' routines can now have postconditions
• External 'pir' routines can now have rescue and finally parts
• Disambiguation of left parenthesis: A left parenthesis as the first token on a new line, or as the first token after a semicolon, starts a new instruction. A left parenthesis in other positions opens the list of arguments to a call.
• Argument count mismatches are now also detected for is-body functions
• The main script no longer takes a Class_invariant (only classes do)
• result is now a keyword, and can't be a formal argument or local variable name
• Local variables can now be initialized at the point of declaration, e.g. local answer := 42
• Source location is now always shown for Creation_expression errors
• Better error message when garbage is present in the main script
• Parrot (non-Amber) identifiers may now include the colon character
• Creation parameters can now also be supplied to Parrot (non-Amber) types
• Added features load_bytecode and sleep to class ANY
• Added amber-squares.am, a GUI example that uses Parrot's SDL wrapper
• Added kernel class RULE, for regular expression matching
• Added the Exploring Regular Expressions example (regexp.am)
• Documentation: Extended the website pages that describe language interoparability and the use of Amber keywords. Added website pages to document Amber symbols, other lexical elements, and operator precedence.
• Major refactoring of the lexical analysis and parsing code
• Various bug fixes
• Estimated progress towards release 1.0: language constructs 41%, libraries 2%, documentation 2%, robustness 2%

Release 0.2.3 (2005-08-18)

• An Amber class can now wrap a Parrot PMC class using the 'external' keyword (e.g. "class RANDOM external PythonRandom")
• External classnames with a leading dot indicate built-in Parrot classes (e.g. "class STRING external .String")
• An amber class may now contain features whose names are not Amber identifiers, by surrounding the feature name with braces (e.g. "{__get_string}")
• Moved much of the kernel/runtime functionality from 'kernel.pir' to external PIR routines in the kernel classes CHARACTER, BOOLEAN, TABLE, ARRAY, STRING and INTEGER.
• Added a web page on Interoperability to document how Amber interoperates with Parrot at various levels
• An Anonymous_agent must now be parenthesized before a Call_chain
• Implemented If_expressions of the form 'if-then-elseif-else-end', and added a test case for them
• Improved the way that the '--pretty' option displays anonymous routines, inheritance, multiline strings and class invariants
• Removed the 'case_insensitive' flag from the ace-files, as this flag is no longer supported by SmartEiffel
• Various bug fixes
• Estimated progress towards release 1.0: language constructs 40%, libraries 1%, documentation 1%, robustness 1%

Release 0.2.2 (2005-07-06)

• Feature bodies may now (additionally) be of the form 'is <Expression> end'
• Implemented multiline string constants, surrounded by double-triplequotes
• Added tests for multiline string constants
• Simple uses of 'do...rescue...retry...return...finally...end' now work
• Changed 'return' keyword to 'recover' to avoid confusion with C's 'return'
• Added query is_defined(obj) to class ANY
• Direct calls can be made to Parrot vtable functions by surrounding the function name with "{}"
• Better exception message when a qualified call attempts to access a private feature
• Feature ANY.can now examines private features too
• Disabled 'inherited_attributes' test pending fix for Parrot bug #36411
• Added new test case (assertions.am) for all kinds of assertions
• Added license exception, pending resolution of SmartEiffel license issues
• Added lots of code snippet examples to the website "Keywords" page
• Assorted improvements to the generated PIR code
• Various bug fixes

Release 0.2.1b (2005-06-10)

• Generated C code is now included in the distribution, in addition to the Eiffel source files. You can now build Amber with or without a SmartEiffel compiler
• Added a CREDITS file to the distribution

Release 0.2.1 (2005-06-05)

• Added Array.each iterator
• Added ANY.argv to provide access to command-line arguments
• Added some features to support the Parrot PMC class "SArray"
• Implemented loop variants and loop invariants
• Added ANY.raise to raise a custom exception
• New kernel class PARROT_CONFIG provides access to Parrot install-time configuration data
• Added many new features to kernel class "String"
• Added a new example program: word_count.am
• Added a new example program: indiana.am
• Added ANY.classname
• Tab can now be represented within a string constant as \t
• The FILE.each_line iterator now raises an exception if the file could not be opened
• Added some more features to support the Parrot PMC class "Hash"
• Implemented infix "//" (integer division) and 'mod' (integer remainder) in class Integer
• Added a new example program: "99 bottles of beer"
• Command-line arguments can now be passed from the Amber compiler to the Parrot engine
• Implemented basic exception handling: a 'rescue' clause, and a 'return' instruction that cancels the exception and returns from the current routine
• Added lots of test cases, and some more documentation

Release 0.2.0 (2005-05-16)

• Script files.
• Classes.
• Expressions.
• Creation, public and private features.
• Instructions: If, Loop, Assignment, Call.
• Seamless access to non-Amber objects with {{...}} notation.
• Binary operators: +, -, and, or, xor, *, /, & (catenation)
• Unary operators: +, -, not.
• Local variables are initialized to .Undef.
• Procedures and functions, in Amber or in embedded PIR.
• Wrapper around Parrot's String, Random, Integer, Boolean.
• Manifest integers, characters and strings.
• Manifest tables and arrays.
• Preconditions, Postconditions, Class Invariants.
• Loop variants, Loop invariants, Check instruction.
• Creation with and without arguments.
• Simple CHARACTER class.
• Inheritance, but no feature adaptation.
• Inline agents and iterators.
• Simple FILE class.
• A few introspection features in class ANY.
• 24 test scripts plus four examples.