HELP V14.CHANGES A.Sloman Feb 1991
CONTENTS - (Use <ENTER> g to access required sections)
-- The purpose of this file
-- OVERVIEW OF THE MAIN CHANGES
-- Interface to X Windows System (Version 11 Release 4)
-- Running VED under X
-- Provisional hooks for multi-window XVed
-- Access to operating system and filestore
-- External procedures and data (using C, Fortran, etc)
-- New data types and data-structure facilities
-- New startup mechanisms. Starting Lisp, Prolog, ML in VED
-- New VED editor startup mechanisms
-- New syntax for tailoring VED: vedset ... endvedset
-- New VED terminal libraries
-- Additional major changes to VED
-- Miscellaneous changes to VED
-- Immediate mode in VED
-- LIB * SUBSYSTEM: facilities for mixed language programming
-- Ports to new machines
-- Contrib directory tree
-- Re-building POPLOG
-- Store Manager and Garbage Collector
-- Standard ML Version 2
-- Lisp Changes
-- Prolog Changes
-- Pop-11 syntax
-- New "include" library mechanism for shared declarations
-- New or changed procedures, global variables, etc
-- Words, identifiers and sections
-- Pop-11 matcher
-- New documentation and browsing mechanisms
-- New or updated documentation files
-- -- New or updated DOC files
-- -- New or updated REF files
-- -- New or updated HELP files
-- -- New or updated TEACH files
-- Errors and tracing
-- New virtual machine instructions
-- New compiler control facilities
-- VMS specific changes
-- UNIX specific changes
-- Net News tools (UNIX only)
-- SUN POPLOG only
-- LIB FLAVOURS
-- POPLOG Window Manager (PWM)
-- New expert system tool
-- Miscellaneous additional changes
-- Miscellaneous bug fixes
-- New POPLOG-based products available from ISL
-- POPLOG User Information
-- NOTE ON FILENAMES
-- Further information on previous changes-- The purpose of this file -------------------------------------------
This file lists the most important changes for POPLOG Version 14 since
Version 13.6. In most cases the changes are upward compatible extensions
that can be ignored if you are not interested in the new features. In a
few cases the changes may affect existing programs, e.g. VED start up
files.
The next section highlights a few of the most important changes. More
details are given in the following sections.
This file is organised by topic unlike HELP * NEWS, which is organised
by date (latest first) and includes most of the information presented
below, sometimes with more detail, and also lists some minor bug fixes
not included here.
The REF and HELP files referred to give more details concerning all the
facilities mentioned.
HELP * LISPNEWS, HELP * PLOGNEWS and HELP * PMLNEWS provide details of
changes in the Prolog, Common Lisp and POPLOG ML subsystems,
respectively. The PML help file HELP * VERSION2 summarises the new ML
system. Many changes to Pop-11 (e.g. the new X windows facilities, new
data-types, new external interface facilities, callbacks, etc.) are also
available to users of other POPLOG languages via calls to Pop-11.
HELP * XPOP_NEWS includes information about changes to the POPLOG X
Window System interface. This will be of interest only to users who had
pre-release test versions of POPLOG Version 14.
See the final section of this file for more information on change notes.
This file generally uses Unix-style file name formats, as these are
automatically translated by VMS POPLOG. The section "NOTE ON FILENAMES",
below, gives more information.
-- OVERVIEW OF THE MAIN CHANGES ---------------------------------------
Version 14 POPLOG adds many new features. The table of contents gives
the main headings, expanded below. Highlights include the following
(with more details below):
o The most important single addition is a rich interface to the X Window
System Version 11 release 4, considerably enhancing the potential of
POPLOG for graphics, mouse and menu driven interfaces, etc. This was
meant to be ready early in 1990, but X has several different layers, and
at higher levels it allows for a variety of standards (e.g. Motif,
OpenLook). Instead of requiring users to develop all interface software
from the bottom up, we wanted to make it easy dynamically to link in
already available packages (e.g. Athena, Motif and OpenLook widget
sets). Providing such flexibility proved very difficult, and delayed V14
by nearly a whole year.
It required several deep changes in POPLOG, including making it easier
to share data between POPLOG and external programs, support for
"callbacks" from external programs to POPLOG programs, and extensions to
the event-handling facilities in POPLOG. The internal representation of
POPLOG data was changed so that, for example, a POPLOG array of
(null-terminated) strings could look like an array of strings to a C
program. It was also necessary to allow users to create temporary POPLOG
data-structures that were guaranteed not to be re-located by a garbage
collection, so that pointers to them could safely be handed to external
procedures.
The POPLOG Widget Set, a collection of "ready made" widgets was also
developed, for graphics, text windows, menus and the like, along with
tutorial documentation and illustrative library programs and
utilities.
NOTES:
(1) The X facilities are initially available only for Unix POPLOG
systems. The VMS version should be available during 1991, perhaps
released as POPLOG Version 14.1
(2) It is intended that the new X facilities will be used to provide a
"user-friendly" interface for new users of POPLOG. A prototype should be
available for POPLOG Version 14.1
o The POPLOG compilation mechanisms have been extended with new compiler
control facilities for various kinds of optimisations. These are
described below.
o Standard ML Version 2.0 (see below) is now included with POPLOG,
unlike the earlier version which had to be ordered separately. The
Edinburgh ML library is included in the $popcontrib directory, along
with programming examples from the forthcoming book on ML by Lawrence
Paulson.
o Improved Edinburgh DEC-10 Prolog compatibility. (This syntax may be
made standard for POPLOG from Version 15). A system of "commands"
replacing the unsatisfactory use of macros for implementing commands
like "ved" in Prolog is described below. There are other Prolog bug
fixes and improvements summarised below.
o POPLOG Common Lisp has a number of extensions (e.g. debugging aids)
improvements (e.g. efficiency and bug-fixes) and CLX and PCL are
provided in the $popcontrib directory.
o The "SUBSYSTEM" mechanisms for combining different POPLOG languages
and switching between them have been improved and rationalised. More
below.
o There are many improvements to the POPLOG editor, VED, including an
improved editor startup mechanism (using termcap on Unix systems), a
filename completion facility, improved VED tailoring facilities, and
improved Emacs emulation. See below. (A multi-window facility for VED
will be available later, based on the Xpop interface.)
o Online documentation files have been much improved, with more of the
technical detail now available in REF files and easily accessible via
the "ENTER ??" mechanism, which has been improved and generalised to
work for all the POPLOG languages and for user extensions, though the
Prolog online documentation has not been revised for this mode of access
as most predicates have their own help files. It is also now easier to
get online documentation for one POPLOG language whilst working with
another language. (See section on "New Documentation and browsing
mechanisms, below".)
o Improved interface to external languages (C, Fortran, etc.) including
a "callback" facility, and new improved syntax for defining external
links. "External function closures" enable users to create procedures
that combine external functions with POPLOG data, adding to the
flexibility of the callback mechanism.
o Virtual machine support for lexical blocks, leading to improved Lisp
performance and greater modularity in Pop-11 programs.
o A "contrib" library containing public domain software and free
POPLOG-based software provided by users is included in the $popcontrib
directory. It includes the code from the widely used Gazdar and Mellish
textbook on natural language processing, all the program code from the
book "Computers and Thought" by Sharples et al., and the Edinburgh ML
library. It also contains POPLOG versions of CLX and PCL(CLOS). For more
details, see the file $popcontrib/contrib.news
o POPLOG now runs on a wider range of hosts. See below.
o New high resolution timer.
o Improved access to Unix utilities as described in HELP * PIPEUTILS.
This includes several new commands for invoking Unix utilities and
reading the results into a VED buffer. Also improved version of LIB
DIRED (directory manipulation in the editor), and a Unix net-news
interface. See HELP * VED_NET, HELP * VED_POSTNEWS
o There are many additional improvements and extensions, for example,
consdevice for creating pseudo devices, and many utilities in libraries
with source code included, E.g. a new expert system tool (LIB NEWPSYS).
o New products based on POPLOG are being offered for sale by Integral
Solutions Ltd., the main POPLOG commercial distributor. See below.
o Several new HELP files provide information about the POPLOG user
group, books relevant to POPLOG, commercial distributors, the POPLOG
User's email forum, etc. See the section on POPLOG User Information,
below.
o COMING: in version 14.1 it is planned that the X facilities will be
available for VMS. In addition there will be a multiple timed interrupt
facility, allowing different procedures to be associated with different
time intervals.
o COMING: POPC - the stand-alone compiler for producing deliverables
(initially only for Pop-11, later for other languages). REF * IDENT
describes "weak" declarations which can be used in preparation for the
new facility. Several of the autoloadable libraries have been modified
to use the facility. See, for example LIB * SYSSORT-- Interface to X Windows System (Version 11 Release 4) ---------------
(Not available for VMS until POPLOG Version 14.1)
o The X Window interface mentioned above now makes it possible for
POPLOG to support graphical and "WIMP" facilities whether POPLOG is
running on a desktop workstation or on a powerful central machine
accessed via a remote windowing "X server" i.e. an X terminal.
o Although the POPLOG Window Manager (PWM) remains available it will not
be developed further, and it is hoped that its users will eventually
port their programs to the POPLOG X interface, which is far more general
and flexible and usable on a wider range of machines.
o The X Window System provides a fairly low level standard, and there
are considerable differences between different graphical tools and
window managers based on X. In particular they have different "look and
feel" specifications. Some are based on Motif, some on Open look, some
on the MIT Athena system, and so on.
Unfortunately, just getting started with X, whether using POPLOG or not,
can be something of a hurdle for many people, and users will be
dependent on X manuals or guides, or help from local X experts, e.g. in
setting up appropriate environment variables in their login files,
creating their X initialisation files, which vary from one X system to
another (OpenWindows, Motif, MIT Athena X, etc.) HELP * VEDXTERM gives
some information on ensuring that Sun or HP keyboard function keys
transmit appropriate codes under X, likewise HELP * VEDDXTERM for DEC
POPLOG users.
o Sun workstations will generally be supplied with OpenWindows, which
provides the "OpenLook" look and feel, but it is also possible to
obtain Motif widget sets for Suns. DEC and HP machines will generally
come with Motif tools, though it appears that DEC may delay full
implementation of X11R4 client facilities. (It is claimed that their
X11R3 server will support X11R4 clients.)
For these reasons the POPLOG X interface is designed to make it possible
for users to link in whatever X widget sets they need, and some general
purpose graphical and text widgets are provided with POPLOG.
o Linking and unlinking of widgets can be done dynamically via POPLOG's
external interface, providing a very flexible development environment,
even for developing and testing C-based widget sets intended for use
without POPLOG.
o Some of the additions to POPLOG in version 14 described below were
aimed specifically at support for this kind of development, including
the call-back mechanism, new facilities for passing data between POPLOG
and external procedures, signal and event handling, and fixed address
structures.
o There is a new directory subtree ($usepop/pop/x/*) provided with
POPLOG, which contains most of the X facilities. However there are a few
"linking" documentation files and libraries in the main POPLOG sub-tree,
e.g. HELP * XPOP, and LIB * POPXLIB. The latter must be compiled in
order to access the other files. I.e. do, in your init.p file:
lib popxlib
or
uses popxlib
to gain easy access to other POPLOG X documentation and code libraries.
o Facilities are provided for asynchronous handling of toolkit events by
invoking callback procedures defined in POPLOG. See REF * xt_event and
also REF *SYSIO, REF * SIGNALS.
o The POPLOG Widget Set provides a collection of tools for developing
text-based or graphics based interactions. A brief introduction is
provided in TEACH * XpwDemo. TEACH * RC_GRAPHIC demonstrates graphical
tools based on this.
The source code for the POPLOG widget set is written in C and can be
freely used without POPLOG. See
$usepop/pop/x/Xpw/*
The main documentation is in $usepop/pop/x/pop/ref/Xpw*
o Note that many of the Xpop program and documentation file names have
mixtures of upper and lower case, following the convention for X
documentation and identifier names. The exact mixture of upper and lower
case must be typed when following up cross-references, except when using
<ESC> h. (HELP * VEDEXPAND describes a mechanism for inserting text from
a file into the VED command line.)
o See HELP * XPOP for an introduction to the Xpop facilities. A full
understanding of available facilities can be obtained only by browsing
library and documentation files in the directory tree
$usepop/pop/x/*
especially
$usepop/pop/x/Xpw
- Source files for the POPLOG Widget Set
$usepop/pop/x/pop
- The main documentation and library files for Xpop, especially
$usepop/pop/x/pop/ref
- Xpop REF files
$usepop/pop/x/pop/help
- Xpop HELP files
$usepop/pop/x/pop/teach
- Xpop TEACH files
$usepop/pop/x/src
- Low level Xpop interface code
o The REF files generally presuppose knowledge of the X Window System.
HELP * XPOP and the TEACH files (e.g. TEACH * RC_GRAPHIC, and
TEACH * XpwDemo) can be used to get started without prior knowledge of
X, though users may need help from X experts in setting up their general
X environment.
o A "relative co-ordinate" (RC_) graphical library is provided, which
makes it easy to write interactive graphical programs based on a
user-defined co-ordinate system rather than pixel-based co-ordinates.
See TEACH * RC_GRAPHIC for an introduction, HELP * RC_GRAPHIC for more
detail. An advanced graph-drawing package based on the RC_ library is
described in TEACH * RC_GRAPHPLOT, HELP * RC_GRAPHPLOT. See also
$usepop/pop/x/pop/lib/rc*
o A collection of demonstration programs is provided in the
$popcontrib/x directory including a draft package for interfacing Prolog
to the X windows facilities. (See the section on the "Contrib" directory
below.) The relevant files are:
$popcontrib/x/demos/*
$popcontrib/x/pop/*
$popcontrib/x/prolog/*
(These may later be moved into the system if found to provide
a satisfactory basis for a Prolog interface to X.)
More may be added later.
o COMING: A collaborative project to develop a collection of user
interface design tools, between Sussex University, Integral Solutions
Ltd. and BMT Ltd, began in mid 1990 and will provide a sophisticated
user interface design environment (UIDE) based on the POPLOG X
interface.
-- Running VED under X ------------------------------------------------
Users who do not need to make use of any of the Xpop facilities for
graphical interaction, but do want to use VED in an ordinary "xterm"
window on an X server (e.g. on Suns or HP workstations running X),
should look at the file HELP * VEDXTERM for information on tailoring VED
for the "xterm" terminal emulator. It explains how to set up the
environment so that function keys work, and describes a simple facility
for controlling VED with the mouse, LIB * VEDXGOTOMOUSE.
For use with DECWINDOWS, see HELP * VEDDXTERM
HELP * HPXTERMKEYS shows key mappings for an HP 9000 under Xterm.
The full XVed system will provide more sophisticated interaction, using
multiple text windows, from POPLOG Version 14.1.
-- Provisional hooks for multi-window XVed ----------------------------
The incomplete draft file HELP * WVED lists a provisional collection of
identifiers added to facilitate tailoring of VED to work with a separate
window for each file. These will eventually be used by the multi-window
XVed package. For now, users should not attempt to use them.
-- Access to operating system and filestore ---------------------------
(See also sections below on UNIX and VMS facilities.)
There have been many extensions and enhancements, summarised here.
o A new constant * sys_machine_type, whose value is a list containing
details of the host machine, now complements the existing * sys_os_type
and * sys_processor_type.
o sys_os_type- has been revised to include proprietary software names
(e.g. SunOS, HP-UX etc.) in more cases than previously. [NB: Users who
have programs which test the value of -sys_os_type- should check that
the tests are still valid.]
o This new information has been put to use in a revised LIB *SYSDEFS
which defines a more comprehensive set of flags and version numbers for
distinguishing between different host systems. In addition, * DEFV,
analogous to the existing macro * DEF, has been introduced to simplify
tests on the version numbers defined by LIB * SYSDEFS. These utilities
can be used for producing portable libraries with compile-time options
using, e.g.
#_IF DEF BERKELEY
....
#_ENDIF
See HELP *SYSDEFS, * DEF, * DEFV
o sysopen can now take an optional 4-th argument specifying whether to
return <false> or mishap when a file cannot be opened, depending on the
error. (This change means that -readable- is now just a closure of
-sysopen-.) See REF * sysopen.
o Facilities for handling signals and interrupts have been extended. See
REF * SIGNALS, which has been completely revised, partly in order to
meet the requirements for the X windows interface described above.
o Changes to sys_signal_flag: its value can now be a vector of signals
to block while running the handler, and values can be assigned for a set
of signals simultaneously. See REF * sys_signal_flag.
o A new procedure -consdevice- allows `user' devices to be constructed.
These `pseudo' devices can then be used with standard I/O procedures
such as -sysread-, -syswrite- etc to implement simulated I/O channels
(there is also an associated new procedure -device_user_data-). This is
used, for instance, to define pop_null_device, now the standard "null"
device. If read, always at EOF. If written to, output is discarded. See
REF *pop_null_device
o The new facilities are described in REF *SYSIO (which has been
overhauled, and the previously separate Unix and VMS versions
combined into one).
o If pop_exit_ok is false this now inhibits any terminal IO by the
system on exit (user -popexit- procedures should respect it also)
See REF *SYSTEM/pop_exit_ok
o New procedure -fast_sysexit- exits POPLOG without tidying. This can be
used to prevent some infinite looping errors when there are problems
writing files on exit, etc. See REF *SYSTEM
o * sys_file_stat now accepts a null vector as its second argument. This
provides a way of testing whether a file exists without creating a
device record (as -readable- does).
o New procedure -sys_host_name- added. This returns the name of the
machine POPLOG is running on. See REF * SYSTEM/sys_host_name.
LIB * POPHOST updated to use -sys_host_name-. Also, it prints a warning
message when loaded (to encourage system adminstrators to amend it).
o There are new procedures for extracting individual filename fields
provided by the new procedure * sys_fname and others built on top of it:
* sys_fname_path,
* sys_fname_nam,
* sys_fname_name,
* sys_fname_namev,
* sys_fname_extn,
These procedures use an internal cache so that successive operations on
the same file name will not cause unnecessary garbage. See REF *SYSUTIL.
They make obsolete the old filename parsing routines such as
* sysfileparse, * sysfilename.
o * sysfileok has been enhanced so that if given the optional extra
argument true, it provides a parse of filenames into component fields
after doing any translation. Compare * sys_fname. See REF * SYSUTIL* sysisprogfile is now an autoloadable library file defined in terms of
sys_fname_extn. SHOWLIB * SYSISPROGFILE for details.
o New procedure * sys_read_lines for reading in a specified range of
lines from a file, and returning a string for each line:
sys_read_lines(FILE, L1, L2) -> (LINE_L1, ..., LINE_L2, NREAD)
The FILE argument can be a file name, or a device record.
See REF * sys_read_lines
o line_repeater is a utility for creating a line-repeater for a file,
(ie. a procedure that returns a string each time it is called).
See REF line_repeater
o The use of one of % $ or ! at the beginning of a line to spawn a Unix
shell or VMS DCL sub-process has caused quite a lot of trouble. The
procedure CHARIN has been redefined so that it will now do this only if
the character at the beginning of a line is in the user assignable
variable * pop_charin_escapes, which, in VMS POPLOG defaults to [`$`]
and on Unix to [ `%` `$` `!`]. The procedure VEDSETPOP has been
redefined to set pop_charin_escapes to [], so that the mechanism will no
longer be triggered accidentially in VED immediate mode (See HELP *IM)
or in processes that compile from the VED buffer. (VED allows an
alternative mechanism for spawning sub-processes from the command line,
as described in REF * VEDCOMMS)
o POPLOG no longer automatically alters terminal settings on entry.
Whenever it is entered (or re-entered after being suspended) it records
the current terminal settings and re-sets them on exit or suspension.
This should overcome various problems including using POPLOG via
Emacs.
NB. More changes relevant to operating system access are described in
the UNIX and VMS specific sections. See also changes related to external
data in the section `New data types and data-structure facilities'
below.
-- External procedures and data (using C, Fortran, etc) ---------------
The facilities for handling external procedures and external data have
been significantly extended, partly in order to support the new X
interface described above.
o POPLOG uses a new representation of data to facilitate sharing of
data-structures with external procedures. In particular, POPLOG pointers
now refer to the third word of all structures, which, for vector type
structures is where the data begins. (The previous word points to the
key for the datatype.)
This change makes POPLOG pointers to vectors and records directly
useable by external procedures, as explained in the section `Format of
POPLOG Data Structures' in REF * DATA.
The change should have no other effect on user programs, except for
programs that abuse 'fast' procedures. The value fields of identifiers
and the cont fields of references are now in different places, which
means for example that -fast_idval- will no longer work on references,
nor -fast_cont- on identifiers, etc.
o There is a new callback mechanism described in REF * EXTERNAL/Callback
allowing external procedures to invoke POPLOG procedures. External
function closures, described in the section `New data types and
data-structure facilities', below, enhance this facility.
o V14 provides a whole new set of facilities for defining and accessing
external structures -- including new, more convenient, ways of loading
and calling external functions (the term `external function' replacing
the old `external procedure').
As well as a completely rewritten REF *EXTERNAL (now covering both Unix
and VMS), and radical revisions to REF *KEYS and REF *DATA, these
changes are covered by two new REF files:
REF *DEFSTRUCT - Pop-11 syntax for defining and accessing both POPLOG and
external structures
REF *EXTERNAL_DATA
- Using external data structures in POPLOG, and POPLOG
data externally
The changes are completely upward-compatible with previous versions of
the system; the old facilities for loading and calling external
procedures remain as autoloadable libraries.
An associated change is that the field specifiers of the three built-in
vectorclasses strings, shortvecs and intvecs have changed from integers
8, -16 and -32, to the words "byte", "short" and "int" respectively.
However, -class_spec- still returns the old values (which it does by
applying -field_spec_info- to the actual -class_field_spec- of the keys,
the latter being the new replacement for -class_spec-). See REF *KEYS.
o Object files containing external functions and data may be loaded
with the new syntax form (defined in REF *EXTERNAL):
exload
<mark item>
<input files>
<identifier specs>
endexload;
This runs the operating system linker ("ld" in Unix, "link" in VMS) to
link in with the POPLOG system specified object files and then provides
access to the named external functions and data defined in those files,
including the use of implicit access procedures, and automatic type
conversion procedures. A "batching mechanism" is provided that enables
external loads to be batched, in order to save time and space, as
described in REF * EXTERNAL/exload_batch.
o There are special facilities for dealing with abnormal exits from
POPLOG procedures invoked by external callbacks. These are described in
REF * EXTERNAL/Abnormal
o WARNING: Care is needed if the the new callback facilities are
combined with POPLOG processes (REF * PROCESS). Although processes can
be run and suspended as normal inside callback, you cannot suspend a
process ACROSS callback (that is, so as to include external calls in
the process's context). See REF * EXTERNAL/Processes
o There are more convenient facilities for declaring links to external C
programs, provided by LIB * NEWEXTERNAL, which makes accessible
LIB * NEWC_DEC
To use the new version it is necessary to do
lib newexternal
before using the forms described in HELP * NEW_CDEC. The changes are:
A completely new parser, and interface paradigm. The difference
between the paradigms presented by LIB * c_dec and LIB * newc_dec
(the new version) is in the level of help given to the programmer.
There is no automatic coercion performed on a procedure's input
arguments. The exception to this is a "var args" (ie. variadic
function) capability. This should allow programmers to
write more efficient code.
The new interface also allows the programmer to specify C style
structure declarations. The return argument of external procedures
can be typed to be one of these structures, causing coercion to be
performed automatically on the return data.
See HELP * NEWEXTERNAL, * EXTERNAL, * NEWC_DEC,
o POPLOG has a new facility for creating 'fixed-address' data
structures, that is, structures whose memory locations are guaranteed to
remain unchanged by garbage collection, as long as the structures remain
in use. This facility solves one of the principal problems associated
with using POPLOG data structures inside external procedures. See
information under `Store Manager and Garbage Collector', below.
o REF * SHADOWCLASS describes LIB *SHADOWCLASS and LIB *SHADOWKEY,
which provide a utility designed to bridge the gap between ordinary
POPLOG record- and vectorclasses and external class specifications as
used by -defexacc- etc. (see REF *DEFSTRUCT).
-- New data types and data-structure facilities -----------------------
o There are major enhancements to the facilities for creating record and
vector classes, in addition to those concerned with external data
mentioned above. The new features are described in REF * DEFSTRUCT,
REF * EXTERNAL_DATA, and REF * KEYS.
o New built in data types, described in REF * DATA, are
"external_ptr"
Pointer to external data (including external functions)
(See REF * EXTERNAL_DATA
"XptDescriptor"
X toolkit Interface Descriptor (See REF *XTOOLKIT)
o The new syntax word "defclass" is used to construct new record and
vector classes, making recordclass and vectorclass redundant, though
they are still available as autoloadable libraries for backward
compatibility. The new construct, defined in REF * DEFSTRUCT has the
form
defclass <declaration> <dataword> <attributes> <typespec> ;
It copes with a wide range of options, and allows user-defined field
types, field value conversion procedures, special facilities for
accessing external data.
o External data can be accessed (or functions called, etc) either with
in-line code generated by the syntax construct -exacc-, or with
procedures defined by -defexacc-, both defined in REF *DEFSTRUCT. The
latter has the form
defexacc <declaration> <name> <attributes> <typespec> ;
This constructs new access/update procedures for external data. It uses
-cons_access- (see REF *KEYS) to create or procedures appropriate to the
<typespec> argument supplied, including any external pointer-class
structure. The mechanisms support "implicit" access procedures and
"implicit type access" specifications.
o The -exacc- syntax form generates in-line code to access external data
and call functions, avoiding the use of access procedures, and trading
space for time.
exacc <attributes> <typespec> <pointer expression> <access part>
-exacc- is also usually a more convenient form for calling external
functions; it is particularly designed for use with pointers to
external functions and data. It uses the new POPLOG VM instruction
-sysFIELD-, see REF *VMCODE).
o Facilities are also provided for "address mode" accessing, using
pointer values as data, and for specifying re-use of intermediate
structures for the sake of avoiding garbage collections, but with
reduced "safety".
o The new callback mechanism that allows external procedures to invoke
POPLOG procedures introduces the risk of POPLOG procedures invoking a
garbage collection which might cause POPLOG data previously handed to a
still active external procedure to be re-located, with disastrous
results. To prevent this there is a new facility, -cons_fixed- described
in REF * EXTERNAL_DATA. See the section on `Store Manager and Garbage
Collector' below.
o In order to allow externally-defined callback procedures that invoke
POPLOG callback procedures and give them `client' data, `external
function closures' are now provided. These are records that allow an
arbitrary POPLOG item to be `frozen' as an argument into an external
function. When passed out as an external argument it represents an
executable object; when called, its action is to deposit the frozen
argument value in the standard variable -pop_exfunc_arg-, and then call
the base function (which gets whatever actual arguments were passed to
the closure). (See REF * EXTERNAL_DATA, REF * EXTERNAL/Callback).
o All the built in data-types now have corresponding identifiers
referring to their keys, e.g. pair_key, vector_key, etc.
o isclosure- now returns 1 if its argument is a "protected" closure
whose components cannot be changed. See HELP * CLOSURES.
o Some new "fast" procedures described in REF * FASTPROCS* fast_prop_entry_arg, * fast_apply, * fast_chain,
* class_fast_access added. See REF * KEYS (???)
-- New startup mechanisms. Starting Lisp, Prolog, ML in VED -----------
o Please note: the file that used to be called $popcom/poplib is now
called $popcom/popenv, to reflect its role in defining environment
variables.
o The system startup procedures have been drastically revised, and more
control provided for users. For full details see REF * SYSTEM, which has
been considerably revised and extended.
o A new system variable * poparg0 holds the string containing the
command POPLOG was started up with. This is usually the same as
hd(poparglist0), but in some cases poparglist0 can get altered. Then
poparg0 preserves the original start-up command name.
o Argument strings passed to POPLOG on startup (and put into
-poparglist- etc) can now be formed into sub-lists by using the argument
strings '(' and ')' as list brackets. That is, all arg strings between
these two are collected into a single sub-list element of -poparglist-.
See REF * poparglist0.
o There are new special optional startup flags %nobanner, %noinit, %x,
to control startup procedures as described in REF * SYSTEM/syssetup, and
a mechanism for bracketing arguments given to POPLOG on startup, so that
the bracketed arguments go into a list (See REF * SYSTEM/poparglist0).
So the following special command line arguments, all starting with `%`,
are recognised:
%nobanner suppresses printing of the startup "banner"
%noinit prevents compilation of initialisation files
%x tells POP-11 to start-up under X
The %x argument may optionally be followed by a bracketed list
of X arguments, which is assigned to the variable -popunderx-.
For example,
pop11 %nobanner %x \( -display cx010:0.0 \)
causes POPLOG to startup under X without printing the banner.
The variable -popunderx- will have the value:
['-display' 'cx010:0.0']
o In order to allow saved images to take arguments using the "-" prefix
that is standard in Unix, and to allow the same notation to be used in
VMS and UNIX there is a new saved image startup notation. E.g.
pop11 +foo +baz -flag arg1 arg2
Will run the saved image baz.psv that was created as a "layer" on the
saved image foo.psv, and will provide the rest of the command line as
arguments to go into poparglist. The "+" notation for invoking saved
images also works for VMS, as an alternative to "/", improving the
uniformity of POPLOG between VMS and Unix. For details see REF * SYSTEM.
The old notation can also still be used (on Unix). I.e.
pop11 -foo -baz -flag arg1 arg2
will run three layered saved images foo.psv, baz.psv and flag.psv with
two arguments.
o The system initialisation procedure -syssetup- is now available for
use in user programs. It is useful for re-initialising after restoring a
saved image. See REF * syssetup.
o Startup procedures for POPLOG Lisp, Prolog and ML have been improved
so that if they are run with an argument such as "ved <filename>" or
"help <filename>" they will go straight into VED, and read in the
appropriate file, as if the command had been given to VED. E.g.
prolog help news
This is not done for Pop-11 (a) because it is inconsistent with the
existing mechanism for giving a program file name as argument to Pop-11
(See REF * SYSTEM) and (b) because "ved", "help", "teach" etc are
already defined as abbreviations for this purpose.
o Users wishing to make saved images that include all their VED
tailoring files pre-compilied, for quicker VED startup, should use the
new file LIB * MKVEDIMAGE. See HELP * MKVEDIMAGE
o The directory $poplocalauto is now included in $popcomppath (used for
running Pop-11 with a file to be compiled). See REF * SYSTEM for
details.
o POPLOG startup routines no longer give an error if a directory
included in $popcomppath or $popsavepath does not exist.
-- New VED editor startup mechanisms
VED needs to know how to control the screen on the current terminal, and
how the function keys (if available) are mapped onto VED procedures. New
improved procedures are now used, which should make it much easier for
most users to get started using POPLOG, though existing users may have
to make slight changes to their vedinit.p files.
o The VED startup mechanism for identifying the terminal in use and
tailoring itself to the terminal has been drastically revised, though
MOST things will work as before.
The new mechanisms are described fully in HELP * TERMINAL, which
explains how to configure VED for your terminal, and REF * VEDTERMINALS
which describes how VED determines which terminal it is, how it
configures itself to make use of that terminal, and summarises which
terminal types are known.
Library files configuring VED to the screen and to the keyboard have
been separated, so that (e.g.) people using a particular VDU can load
the screen control file, and do their own keyboard mapping. The new
terminal configuration files are to be found in $popvedlib/term, i.e.
$usepop/pop/lib/ved/term/*
o If the terminal is not already known, then (on Unix systems) the
TERMCAP file will be used to configure VED.
o A consequence of the changes is that saved images can now contain
compiled versions of several libraries for configuring VED. Then when
the saved image starts up the relevant screen and key facilities are set
up quickly and automatically, at the cost of some wasted space, which
will matter less if the saved image is shared between several users.
This is particularly useful if VED is used on a time-shared machine with
by people using different terminals. See HELP * MKVEDIMAGE.
o Another consequence is that when VED finally sets up the key bindings
for the terminal it can over-ride uses of "vedset keys", or "vedsetkey"
included at top level in your vedinit.p file. This can be overcome by
inserting all such instructions into the body of a procedure called
"vedinit" defined in your vedinit.p file. That procedure will be run
after the basic terminal key bindings have been set up. (This means that
if you use "ENTER dk" to define new key bindings in your vedinit.p file
you should later move them inside the definition of vedinit.p). To save
space, you can make your vedinit procedure end with the line
identfn -> vedinit;
o As described in REF * VEDTERMINALS, a terminal library loaded
explicitly in a "vedinit.p" file (e.g. "uses vedvt220") still takes
precedence over the new terminal identification mechanisms, if POPLOG
is started up interactively.
o The biggest change is for Unix users, where * vedterminalselect (used
for automatic terminal interrogation) is now null by default: VED will
consult the $TERM environment variable to find the terminal type rather
than using the answer-back mechanism. Also, VED no longer assumes a
Visual 200 terminal as a default case, but will prompt the user for the
terminal name instead.
o A new procedure *VEDUSETERM simplifies the process of configuring VED
for a particular terminal type: the call
veduseterm(TERM)
tries to set up VED for the terminal type TERM, and returns a flag
indicating whether the set-up was successful. VEDUSETERM may load a
terminal library, or on Unix systems, consult the TERMCAP database.
VEDUSETERM can be called more than once if (for example) the
terminal is initially set up incorrectly.
o Most VED terminal libraries have been revised to conform to a standard
format: instead of containing in-line code to configure VED, each
library defines a procedure to do this instead. This will be called
automatically if the library is loaded from a "vedinit.p" file compiled
by -vedsetup-, but not otherwise. This may impact on users who have made
saved images containing terminal libraries: the fix for this is to
insert a call to the terminal specific procedure (e.g. vedvt220();
vedxterm(); etc.) at the point at which the library is loaded. For more
details see HELP * TERMINAL.
-- New syntax for tailoring VED: vedset ... endvedset -----------------
A new syntax word "vedset" simplifies the definition of new VED
key bindings (providing syntactic sugar for calls to *VEDSETKEY)
and for initialising screen-control variables in terminal libraries.
Thus it is no longer necessary for users of Prolog, Lisp or ML, to
learn the details of how to represent strings in Pop-11, as vedset
has a more mnemonic notation. For example:
vedset keys
enter = esc cr ;;; <ESC> <RETURN> invokes vedenter
markfind = ^b a ;;; CTRL-B a invokes vedmarkfind
ENTER define = 'DEF' ;;; typing DEF invokes ved_define
endvedset
vedset screen
;;; assign string '\^[[D' to vvedscreencharleft
charleft = esc [ D ;;; Move cursor left
charright = esc [ C ;;; Move cursor right
endvedset
See HELP * VEDSET for full details, where many more options are
described. Examples of its use can be found in the files in
$usepop/pop/lib/ved/term/*
o See also HELP * DK, for interactively defining keyboard mappings. This
has been enhanced.
-- New VED terminal libraries -----------------------------------------
o The ved terminal customising libraries are now all stored in
$usepop/pop/lib/ved/term/*.p. The 'term' sub-directory of $popvedlib is
now included in popliblist and popuseslist.
For each terminal type there are normally (though not always) three
files, including one for the key-bindings, and one for setting the
screen-control variables and procedures: e.g. for a VT220 type terminal
the three files are
vedvt220.p, vedvt220keys.p, vedvt220screen.p
acessible as
LIB * VEDVT220, LIB * VEDVT220KEYS, LIB * VEDVT220SCREEN
The first file loads the other two, but they can be accessed
independently if necessary. Some terminal types share "keys" files or
"screen" files.
Many terminals have their own help files also.
The following are included in the $popvedlib/term directory (excluding
the screen and key versions):
vedansi.p vedatari.p vedbbc.p vedbbcvt100.p
vedcifer.p vedcmdtool.p veddxterm.p vedhpkeys.p
vedhpscreen.p vedpwmsun.p vedsun.p vedsun_cmd.p
vedsunkeys_NOSUNVIEW.p vedsunkeys_SUNVIEW.p
vedsunxtermkeys.p vedtvi.p vedtvi925.p
vedvi200.p vedvi500.p vedvi55.p vedvi550.p
vedvt100.p vedvt200.p vedvt220.p vedvt300.p
vedvt320.p vedvt52.p vedwinsun.p vedxterm.p
If VED does not have an appropriate library to customise itself to the
terminal, it will use the "termcap" entry, if available.
LIB * VEDANSI is now provided for terminals without function keys, e.g.
some X terminals. See HELP * ANSIKEYS. It uses LIB * VEDNEWKEYS.
LIB * VEDSUN now works both on the console and in a shelltool window
but LIB * VEDWINSUN has been kept for compatibility.
LIB * VEDCMDTOOL provides for a sunview command tool window
o LIB * CIFER and HELP * CIFER removed. Long since redundant.
(See HELP * VEDCIFER).
LIB * VEDATARI, HELP * VEDATARI and HELP * VEDATARIKEYS, included for
Atari ST using UniTerm terminal emulator.
-- Additional major changes to VED
o A new procedure *VEDSCREENCONTROL is used to output all terminal
control sequences to the terminal. This replaces the old
*VEDSCREENESCAPE. The difference is that the new procedure no longer
automatically adds the VEDESCAPE character to each sequence it prints.
The corollary of this is that all the screen control variables such as
VVEDSCREENCHARRIGHT, VVEDSCREENCHARUP, VVEDSCREENCLEAR etc. now have the
leading escape character included as part of their values.
NB.NB. Users who have written their own terminal libraries or have made
use of these variables in some other way should check their code for
consistency with the new mechanism. In most cases it will suffice to
replace calls of VEDSCREENESCAPE with calls of VEDSCREENCONTROL, but
explicit assignments to any screen control variables will typically have
to be changed. The relevant screen control variables are listed in
the `Terminal Descriptions' section of REF * VEDTERMINALS. More detailed
information is in `The "screen" file' section of HELP * TERMINAL
o The default VED key bindings are now more completely described in HELP
* VEDKEYS. Some VED terminal setup libraries will over-ride them as
described in their help files. The defaults can always be restored by
running the new procedure vedoldkeys, which is the default value for the
variable veddefaultkeys (See REF * VEDTERMINALS).
There are some additional key bindings now provided by -vedoldkeys- to
help users whose keyboards lack adequate function keys. The new
facilities are flagged with "++" in HELP VEDKEYS.
o There is also a new (far more systematic) set of key bindings, loosely
modelled on Emacs (but made compatible with VMS and access via
networks). These are described in HELP * VEDNEWKEYS. If you wish to use
these make sure that there is call of vednewkeys() in your vedinit.p
file, before any terminal conversion libraries are loaded. Alternatively
put this in your vedinit.p
vednewkeys -> veddefaultkeys;
It would be better to use the new more rational bindings as the default,
but too many old VED users complained at the change when it was tried
early in 1990.
For more information on all this see
REF * VEDTERMINALS, HELP * TERMINAL, HELP * INITIAL,
HELP * VEDOLDKEYS, HELP * VEDKEYS, HELP * VEDNEWKEYS
o VED's behaviour on starting up a new file has changed slightly.
Previously the procedure -vedsetfiletypes- used to make -compile- the
default value of -popcompiler-, so that it had to be over-ridden
explicitly in different versions of -vedfiletypes- called in different
contexts. This initialisation is now done outside -vedsetfiletypes-
whenever a new file is created. (See HELP * VEDFILETYPES)
o The default value of -vedfiletypes- has changed slightly.
1. It has a new default condition making -vednotabs- true and
-vedbreak- true. Changing these for a particular file used
previously to affect the values for the next file read in.
2. Defaults for Lisp and ML have been added to -vedfiletypes-
and to -vednonbreakfiles-
3. The variable -vedindentstep- is set by default for all files so
that if changed for one file it is not inherited for all other
files. Users wishing to have a different default value should assign
an appropriate list to -vedfiletypes- in their vedinit.p
See HELP * VEDFILETYPES/DEFAULT
o The user-defineable procedure vedinitialise(ITEM) is now invoked after
creation of a new VED file or renaming of an existing one, to enable
user-defined actions to be performed after the file has been read in
from disk or an empty buffer created. This was not previously possible
with * VEDVEDDEFAULTS or * VEDFILETYPES, both of which are accessed
before the file is read in, in order to set up variables that control
the reading. Possible values for ITEM are:
true - invoked by -vedreadfile- when it creates a new empty
buffer because no file was found on disk
false - invoked by -vedreadfile- when it has found the file on
disk and read it in.
"ved_name" - invoked by -ved_name- when used to change the name
of an existing file.
For details See REF * vedinitialiase and HELP * INITIAL - section on
Tailoring VED
o HELP * VEDFILECOMPLETE describes a new mechanism for automatic file
name completion in VED. By default this is now bound to "ESC 3", but
that may be overridden by some terminal key libraries.
o Various enhancements to LIB VEDEMACS. See HELP * VEDEMACS
o DIRED (Unix only) directory-browsing facility extended in various ways
since V13.6. See HELP * DIRED.
-ved_dired- has been altered so that if a dired command to produce new
directory information is given in a file that was originally produced by
ved_dired, then instead of putting the new information in a separate
temporary file, it splices it into the current file. This default is
controlled by the variable -dired_current_file- and can be suppressed by
doing the following in your vedinit.p"
vars dired_current_file = false;
See also REF * diredpipein
The inserted listing can be removed by the "ENTER -dcd" (Delete Current
Directory) command.
In the commands
"ENTER dired -mv <name>" "ENTER dired -cp <name>"
if <name> is the name of a directory, then the file named on the current
VED line is moved or copied to the named directory. The former can now
cope with moving or renaming a directory.
Two new commands for copying or renaming WITHIN the existing directory:
ENTER dired -mvd <new name>
ENTER dired -cpd <new name>
These rename or copy the file to the new name but in THE SAME directory
as the original. Hence it is not necessary to type the full pathname.
ENTER dired -load
compiles the file specified by the current line in the VED
buffer. It is sensitive to the file extension.
ENTER dired -grep <string>
will run grep to search for occurrences of the string on the
file(s) specified by the current line in the VED buffer.
See HELP * DIRED, SHOWLIB * DIRED_GREP (Compare * VED_GREP)
LIB * DIRED (see HELP * DIRED) has been modified so that the key
sequence CTRL-X CTRL-X is equivalent to ENTER qdired.
o HELP * VEDXTERM , VEDDXTERM describe support for VED in XTERM and
DXTERM windows.
o Most information about VED procedures and variables can now be found
in the overview files: REF * VEDPROCS, * VEDCOMMS, and * VEDVARS. These
are more complete than previous VED overview HELP files.
o LIB * VEDWORDSTAR provides a partial VED emulation of the WORDSTAR
editor. See HELP * VEDWORDSTAR
o There is more information on changes to VED in the section below on
new documentation and browsing facilities, and in the section on
Miscellaneous changes to VED.
-- Miscellaneous changes to VED ---------------------------------------
o TABS in files are no longer lost. Users who leave *VEDNOTABS TRUE (the
default) and do not set their *VEDFILETYPES so as to make VEDNOTABS
false in all cases where tabs should be preserved, have occasionally
lost the tabs in files and found them hard to replace properly. To
reduce the risk of this happening in future, the variable VEDREADINTABS
now defaults to TRUE. This means that if a file read into VED contains
tabs, then VEDNOTABS will be set FALSE for that file and tabs will be
preserved.
To restore the old behaviour put 'false -> vedreadintabs' into your
'vedinit.p' file.
o * vedstartwindow has been made an active variable. Its value is
now tied to that of * vedscreenlength: whenever the screen length
changes, vedstartwindow is adjusted automatically in proportion.
See REF * vedstartwindow.
o * vedloadline (i.e. compile the current line) now maps onto the key
sequence <ESC> d, by default.
o vedtableft added, to complement vedtabright. See REF * vedtableft
o LIB * VED_DK has been extended to make the ENTER dk command far more
versatile, so that it can be used to map a key sequence onto a known VED
function or onto an ENTER command. For details See HELP * DK
o ENTER ljmr extended to cope with negative argument, and bug fixed.
See REF * ved_ljmr
o New VED command ENTER cols added. If called, VED will display the
current column number on the status line, instead of the current line
number. Uses the procedure *ved_cols and the variable
*vedstatusshowcols.
o Global variable -vedinputfocus- put in to fix bug in connection with
immediate mode has had to be exported for use in things like LIB *
WINDOWS. If not false, it specifies the VED file that should be made
current when control returns to top level in vedprocess.
o New procedure * VEDCHECKSIZE to determined whether * VEDRESIZE
should be invoked.
o New procedure *VEDSEARCHFILETYPES added. It returns the value that
-vedsetfiletypes- would assign to a given variable for a given filename.
(It uses vedfiletypes non-locally).
o New VED command ENTER hkeys added. This displays a HELP file
which illustrates the current set of VED key bindings. Documented
in REF * VEDCOMMS/ved_hkeys
o HELP * VEDSUN has been substantially rewritten. It discusses the
various libraries for using VED on a Sun workstation, including the new
variable -vednosunviewkeys- which can be used to force LIB * VEDSUNKEYS
to load the key mapping described in the file HELP * SUNKEYS. See also
HELP * SUNKEYS_SUNVIEW and REF * VEDTERMINALS/vedsun.
o The libraries that set up VED on a Sun now make use of the
extra right hand keypad keys available on Sun type-4 keyboards.
o New VED commands for manipulating list expressions in the VED buffer.
ENTER gbl Go to beginning of list
ENTER gel Go to end of list
ENTER gol Go out of current list
ENTER mbl Mark beginning of list
ENTER mel Mark end of list
ENTER mcl Mark current list
These all use a new procedure -vedfindbracket- for searching for bracket
characters in VED. -vedfindbracket- is intended as a replacement for
-vedmatchbracket-. See REF * VEDCOMMS and REF * VEDPROCS for more
details.
o ENTER grep (Unix only)
provides a mechanism for searching named files for occurrences of a
string, using one of the "grep" family of programs. See HELP * VED_GREP
o Bugs fixed in LIB WINDOWS (the version of VED for more than 2 windows
on a VDU), and documentation revised. See HELP * WINDOWS
o * vedrestorescreen, * vedfindpdheader, and a number of other VED
procedures have now been made user definable. They are indicated in REF
* VEDPROCS with the [procedure variable] specification instead of just
[procedure].
o Some VDUs based on the VT100 terminal control sequences can now handle
character insertion and deletion in a line. This can be used to speed
up some of VED's interactions. See LIB * VEDVT100SCREENEXTRA
o New procedure * vedscreenblankpartline, described in REF * VEDPROCS
o A number of new "hooks" into VED have been provided at the request of
users, and defined in REF * VEDPROCS.
* vedinitialise(item), allows user initialisation procedures to
be run after a new file has been read in, unlike * vedvedefaults.
* vededitortrap allows a user-definable procedure to be run whenever
vededitor starts or is re-started (via the VED command).
* vededitorexit allows a user-definable procedure to be run whenever
vededitor is about to exit, normally or abnormally.
Compare the existing * vedprocesstrap, * vedcommandtrap
o Two new procedures for more efficient screen handling.
See REF * rawsubstringout, * vedrefreshpartline
o The latter permits * vedrefreshblock to be reimplemented so that it
handles tabs correctly (See LIB * VEDBLOCKS)
o LIB * VEDBLOCKS extended (see HELP * VEDBLOCKS). The procedures
* vedoverlayblocks and * ved_yotb can be used for overlaying a text
block on some text in the VED buffer in such a way that spaces in
the overlaid block are "transparent".
LIB * VEDBLOCKREPEATER takes in a vector of strings such as might be
produced by * VEDCUTBLOCK and returns a character repeater.
o Abnormal exits from VED did not always reset the screen properly, both
in the POPLOG Window Manager and when using ordinary terminals. This has
now been fixed by re-organising -vededitor- so that appropriate action
is always taken whether it is exited normally or abnormally, including
re-setting * popcompiler.
The new standard way to exit from VED temporarily or permanently is via
the procedure * VEDEXIT, and * VED_POP has been redefined to use it.
o Documentation on * VEDOPEN corrected to point out that it can take two
optional extra arguments.
o Altered -vededitor- and -vedreadfile- so that after errors they don't
leave terminal in graphics mode.
o Fixed bug in -vedgetsysfile- (<ESC> h) which sometimes prevented it
searching for the item following "/" as in HELP * VEDGETSYSFILE/strings
o ENTER wapp <file>
Write and append current VED buffer to file. Much faster than ved_to
because it uses * discappend
ENTER wappr <file>
Write and APPend marked Range to file.
ENTER wappdr <file>
Write and APPend to FILE then Delete marked Range
o A new VED search procedure vedteststartsearch(string) searches for a
line starting with the string.
o The variable * ved_last_char is now available to users. It holds
the last character read in by -vedprocesschar- or -vedgetproctable-
* Two new undocumented system procedure variables -vedlastcommand-,
veduserdocommand(BOOL, PDR), will be used later for further VED
enhancements.
o ENTER s
VED's interactive search and substitute command, has been extended to
allow the response "g" meaning: do the search and substitution globally,
without further interaction. This is useful if you wish to check that
you have given the right pattern before allowing the global replacement.
Also ved_s no longer calls vedscreenbell when there are no more
occurrences to replace. See HELP * VEDSEARCH
o LIB * VEDARGINT added, to complement LIB * VEDARGNUM. The former, but
not the latter, produces an error if a non-integer is produced. Several
VED utilities that could have produced bizarre errors if given
non-integral values, have been changed to use VEDARGINT, namely ved_bl
ved_br ved_dc ved_dl ved_dw ved_mc ved_ml ved_mw.
o The VED_TIDY procedure for indenting Pop-11 programs has been
considerably improved and extended.
(a) There are two new user-modifiable global lists controlling its
behaviour.
(1) A list giving words that "quote" everything following them up to
the occurrence of a closing bracket. So the intervening words do not
affect indentation. A list of possible closers can be associated with
each such word.
ved_tidy_skip_pairs
= [vedset [endvedset] lib [^newline ;]]
(2) A list of words each specifying that N additional items are
to be read in and regarded as quoted, and therefore ignored. I.e.
they have no effect on changing indentation. N is in a list, for
compatibility with ved_tidy_skip_pairs
ved_tidy_skip_some
= [" [2] nonmac [1] nonop [1] nonsyntax [1] uses [1]]
(b) ved_tidy no longer corrupts strings going over more than
one line (e.g. with pop_longstrings true, or `\` at end of line).
(c) The closing vector bracket or list bracket now lines up with its
opener, if on a line by itself.
(d) Indentation after vars, dlocal, lconstant, etc. is incremented
by vedindentstep, not by 5 as previously.
(e) "return" has been removed from vedbackers. "=>" and "==>" have
been added to vedforwarders.
(f) Labels are no longer de-indented to column 1. Instead they
are de-indented to the same level as the beginning of the current
procedure definition.
(g) ved_tidy fixed to deal more sensibly with "%". E.g. "%]" "%}" and
"%)" now work like the corresponding closing brackets
(h) ved_tidy no longer gets confused by `'`.
o New VED procedures (documented in REF * VEDPROCS):
*ved_ccw
changes the case of the current word;
*vedprevsent, *vednextsent
move to start of previous/next sentence;
*vedprevpara, *vednextpara
move to start of previous/next paragraph;
*vedtopwindow
relocate the current line at the top of the window
(companion to -vedmidwindow-);
*vedresize(lines, columns)
resizes the display after the window size has changed.
(Replaces vedwin_adjust)
*vedchecksize(lines, columns) -> boolean
Check whether vedresize needs to be invoked
o vedputchar - (an obsolete synonym for * vedinput) has been WITHDRAWN.
o Corrected bug in UNIX version of ved read routine - lines are no
longer broken at column 512. Also, ved file read speed increased by
approximately 30%. Note that devices to be passed to -vedreadin- should
be preferably opened mode <true>, i.e. disk block I/O, rather than the
previous "line".
o ved_splice used to give an inappropriate error if invoked before
ved_cut. Now fixed. See REF * ved_splice, * ved_cut
o ved_imsh (Unix Only) used sometimes to give no response to the first
command, then, after each subsequent command, produce output to the
previous command. Now fixed. See HELP * IMSH-- Immediate mode in VED ----------------------------------------------
o Pop-11 VED commands like "ved", "help", etc now work correctly
in VED immediate mode compilation.
o VED's immediate mode mechanism is now fully(?) documented in
REF * VEDPROCS (see -vedsetpop-, -vedprocswaiting-, -veddocr)
o Two new procedures: * ved_end_im terminates input in immediate mode
(since it is not possible to type in the end of file character
directly); * ved_switchmode_im switches immediate mode between allowing
<RETURN> to hand the current line to the compiler and requiring ved_lmr
to be invoked. See HELP * IM
o Added "ENTER noprompts" command for tidying files created by immediate
mode. See HELP * VED_NOPROMPTS.
o (Unix POPLOG Only).
The VED facility for interaction with the C-shell via a VED buffer
previously would not work if the user's .cshrc file defined a changeable
prompt string. This has now been fixed by using a constant, but user
assignable prompt string, as described in
HELP * CSH_COMPILE and HELP * IMCSH.
o The procedures csh_compile, sh_compile and dcl_compile, used by the
ENTER commands imcsh, imsh, imdcl, have been altered to prevent slow
sideways scrolling when long lines are printed in VED.
See (on Unix) HELP * IMCSH, *IMSH, (on VMS) *IMDCL *DCL_COMPILE
o As explained above, the change to CHARIN prevents commands starting
with shell escape characters triggering incomprehensible behaviour.
See REF * pop_charin_escapes-- LIB * SUBSYSTEM: facilities for mixed language programming ---------
LIB * SUBSYSTEM has been substantially revised and is documented in the
much revised HELP * SUBSYSTEMS, and the new file REF * SUBSYSTEM.
Some of these extensions are experimental and further revisions are
likely for POPLOG V15.
The New library LIB * MKSSIMAGE added, for building saved images that
contain subsystems. See HELP * MKSSIMAGE for more details.
o Two new command files added to create mixed language saved images:
The files are (add '.com') for VMS
$usepop/pop/com/mklispplog
Creates a saved image with Prolog loaded on top of Lisp
$usepop/pop/com/mkploglisp
Creates a saved image with Lisp loaded on top of Prolog
(Both saved images will automatically contain Pop-11 and VED.
o New procedure -is_subsystem_loaded- tests whether a given language
subsystem has been loaded. See HELP * IS_SUBSYSTEM_LOADED.
o The section on `New documentation and browsing mechanisms' below
contains further information relevant to POPLOG sub-systems, especially
getting information about one language while working with another.
-- Ports to new machines ----------------------------------------------
o POPLOG now runs on the following machines: new versions (since V13.6)
are marked with asterisks.
VAX, VAXstation (VMS/Ultrix/Bsd Unix),
* DECStation and DECServers running Ultrix (E.g. DECStation 3100)
* MIPS workstations and servers
Sun3, Sun4
* SPARCStation, SPARCServer
* Solbourne
HP 9000 300 (M680x0) series workstations with HPUX
Sequent Symmetry with Dynix
* Sun386i
(This machine is no longer being sold by Sun. So 386i POPLOG
will not be kept up to date)
Apollo with Bsd Unix
(Apollo POPLOG is frozen at V13, unless demand increases)
Orion 1/05 (with Clipper).
(This version is no longer being updated or supported because
of inadequate demand. It was frozen at V13.5)
o Pre-release versions of POPLOG exist for
* MAC II running A/UX
* 80386/80486 PCs running Unix system V
These may be made more generally available if there is sufficient
demand.
Other ports are under consideration.
-- Contrib directory tree ---------------------------------------------
Software, documentation and teaching material supplied free by POPLOG
users, and distributed "as is" without support, or any warranty are now
included in the $popcontrib directory. See HELP * CONTRIB for an
overview.
Software provided includes versions of CLX and CLOS (PCL) tailored for
POPLOG Lisp users, and the program examples from the Gazdar and Mellish
books on Natural Language Processing. (See HELP * POPREFS).
It includes an extended version of the POPLOG window manager provided by
Anthony Worrall of Reading University.
There are also additional demonstration programs, library utilities,
Xpop demonstrations, and the Edinburgh Standard ML library.
The file $popcontrib/contrib.news will summarise additions to the
contrib library.
NOTE: whether the POPLOG contrib library is available will depend on
your installation manager. It may be deleted to save space.
-- Re-building POPLOG -------------------------------------------------
For system administrators:-
Anyone intending to re-link poplog is advised to examine relevant
command files, starting from:
$usepop/pop/src/newpop (Unix POPLOG)
usepop:[pop.src]newpop.com (VMS POPLOG)
These files reference other files that are also relevant. Comments
at the top of the files indicate linking options.
Please also see the notes for the POPLOG administrator, and notes on
installation in the printed POPLOG documentation.
See also HELP * NEWPOP
-- Store Manager and Garbage Collector --------------------------------
o A new facility permits POPLOG users to create "fixed address"
structures that will never be relocated by the garbage collector as long
as they remain in use. This means that pointers to them can safely be
handed to C programs, including programs that "call back" to POPLOG
procedures that may trigger garbage collections. (Although
non-relocatable they are garbage collectable.) The main new procedure
is:
cons_fixed(ARG_1, ..., ARG_N, KEY, HOLD) -> FIXED_STRUCT
cons_fixed(ARG_1, ..., ARG_N, KEY) -> FIXED_STRUCT
This creates 'fixed-address' structures, whose memory locations do not
change. An ordinary constructor procedure is called, but in such a way
that the result is allocated memory in a separate part of the heap
reserved for fixed-address objects --- and where its address is
guaranteed to remain unchanged by garbage collection, until it is
no longer accessible, in which case it will be garbage collected and the
space re-used.
The HOLD argument provides an option to automatically hold the new
structure on a global list (from which, when no longer required, it can
be freed with the procedure -free_fixed_hold-). This allows POPLOG
structures to be created for use by external procedures, where the
structures are not pointed to by any other POPLOG structure.
There are three additiona new procedures, viz * init_fixed, * copy_fixed
and * is_fixed.
See 'Fixed-Address POPLOG Structures for External Use' in
REF *EXTERNAL_DATA.
There are number of associated changes in the store-allocation
mechanisms of POPLOG, which may result in slightly different patterns of
memory use in existing programs. In particular, the garbage collection
message output when -popgctrace- is true has been revised and extended.
See REF *POPGCTRACE.
-- Standard ML Version 2 ----------------------------------------------
o POPLOG ML (PML) is an implementation of Standard ML version 2.0,
including modules. It is now supplied as standard with POPLOG. The
PML help file HELP * VERSION2 gives detailed information concerning the
differences, and explains how to keep a copy of the old POPLOG ML
working if you wish to.
o Users who had previously obtained POPLOG ML as an optional extra will
need to find out how the version has changed. For details see
HELP * PMLNEWS
The ML system has been radically revised to meet the new specification.
In addition to the extensions required for the new standard, there have
been many efficiency improvements, better support for ML in the editor
VED, and improved facilities for switching between different POPLOG
languages, as described in HELP * SUBSYSTEMS and REF * SUBSYSTEM.
o In addition to ML-specific changes, many of the new features
available to Pop-11 users can be accessed by ML users. In particular,
this applies to all the X Window System interface mechanisms.
-- Lisp Changes -------------------------------------------------------
o There have been many changes to POPLOG Common Lisp concerned with
improved efficiency, bug fixes, improved debugging aids, improved
documentation, better support for LISP in VED, and additional tools for
mixed language programming, described in HELP * SUBSYSTEMS with
technical details in REF * SUBSYSTEM. The ved_?? and ved_? mechanisms
now work for LISP.
o The new "contrib" directory includes some Lisp facilities, including
PCL and CLX.
o See HELP * LISPNEWS and HELP * LISPCHANGES for full details.
o In addition to Lisp-specific changes, many of the new features
available to Pop-11 users can be accessed by Lisp users. In particular,
this applies to all the X Window System interface mechanisms.
-- Prolog Changes -----------------------------------------------------
See HELP * PLOGNEWS for full details.
o The use of Prolog macros for implementing directives such as "ved",
"help" etc. has been discontinued, and a new system of commands
instituted in its place -- see PLOGHELP * COMMANDS. The virtue of this
is that command names (unlike macros) are treated specially only at the
start of a top-level goal or clause, which should fix a long-standing
complaint. A new command "pop11" has been added as an abbreviation for
:- prolog_language(pop11).
o The new LIBRARY * EDINSYNT provides full Edinburgh (or DEC-10) syntax
in POPLOG Prolog. To get full Edinburgh syntax, type:
?- library(edinsynt).
followed by:
?- syntax(edinburgh).
See PLOGHELP * EDINSYNT for details.
o The module system has now been incorporated into the standard Prolog
system rather than being a library, and has been improved in a number of
ways. In particular, it is now possible to make inter-module calls,
that is, to invoke predicates (which need not have been named in an
interface specification) by prefixing the call with the module pathname
of the defining module. In other words,
$-Name$-Goal
will invoke Goal inside module Name. See PLOGHELP * MODULES, and the
details in HELP * PLOGNEWS.
o Predicates that are to be asserted and retracted can now be declared
"dynamic" with considerable improvements in efficiency.
There are improved facilities for switching between different POPLOG
languages, as described in HELP * SUBSYSTEMS and REF * SUBSYSTEM.
o A new facility has been added which allows the pre-processing of
clauses read when consulting or reconsulting a file. The user may define
transformations to be applied to each clause by asserting clauses for
the predicate term_expansion/2. See PLOGHELP * EXPAND_TERM. Note that
this is compatible with similar facilities in some other Edinburgh-style
Prolog systems.
o Full user defined pretty printing is now available in POPLOG Prolog.
The evaluable predicate print/1 now checks for the definition of a
suitable portray/1 clause at every level of the term. Previously, if the
call to portray/1 failed at the top-level of the term, write/1 was
invoked immediately. See PLOGHELP * PRINT. In addition, all debugging
output is now printed using print/1, and so will take note of portray/1
clauses.
o The functionality of the evaluable predicate save/2 has been
considerably enhanced. It now accepts as its second argument a (possibly
empty) list of attributes, which give control over whether the Prolog
saved image is created as a locked system (and if so whether the
nonwriteable area should be made shareable) and whether standard Prolog
system initialisation should be performed when the image is restored.
This particularly simplifies the creation of layered saved images from
Prolog. See PLOGHELP * SAVE.
o The mechanisms previously described in HELP *BASEPROLOG have been
withdrawn, as POPLOG Prolog has been substantially re-implemented.
o In addition to Prolog-specific changes, many of the new features
available to Pop-11 users can be accessed by Prolog users. In particular,
this applies to all the X Window System interface mechanisms, though
$popcontrib/x/prolog includes some Prolog-specific facilities for
interacting with X.
-- Pop-11 syntax ------------------------------------------------------
o The Pop-11 itemiser has been altered so that it is now possible
to represent control characters in strings or character constants
without using upper case. E.g. `\^a`, `\^b` etc are equivalent to
`\^A`, `\^B` etc. and similarly in strings.
HELP * ASCII, HELP * STRINGS, and REF * ITEMISE updated.
o Pop-11 now supports expression sequences in update mode, where the
expressions are evaluated in reverse order. This makes possible `stack
tuple' assignments of the form
1,2,3 -> (x,y,z); equivalent to 1,2,3 -> z -> y -> x;
1,2,3 -> if <cond> then x,y,z else u,v,w endif;
As normal, an empty expression in update mode is interpreted as an
erase, so that
foo(x,y) -> (u,,w)
would erase the second result of -foo-, and
foo(x,y) -> (,,)
would erase all three, etc.
o A `tuple' facility is also available for use with "=" in
identifier declaration and -dlocal- statements, thus:
lvars (remainder,quotient) = 14//4;
dlocal (u,,w) = foo(x,y);
Note that parentheses that are associated with identprops, etc are
completely separate from `tuple' parentheses. Thus something like
vars procedure (p1, p2) = (identfn, identfn);
is NOT allowed; however, tuple parentheses may occur either inside or
outside the other kind, i.e. both of
vars ( procedure (p1, p2) ) = (identfn, identfn);
vars procedure ( (p1, p2) = (identfn, identfn) );
are legal. (Also, commas for separation are MANDATORY everywhere inside
tuple parentheses.)
o The output local syntax of -define- and -procedure- is similarly
extended, so that
define foo(x, y) -> (u, v, w);
corresponds to the existing
define foo(x, y) -> w -> v -> u;
etc.
o The new Pop-11 syntax construct
#| <statement sequence> |#
counts how many items are pushed onto the stack by the statement
sequence. E.g.
#| "a", "b", "c" |# =>
** a b c 3
This construct largely does away with the need for -cons_with-, since
cons_with consstring {% ... %} can now be written more simply as
consstring(#| ... |#)
(Note that what #| actually puts on the stack is
(stacklength after) - (stacklength before)
which means that if more items are removed than added, then the result
will be negative.) See REF * SYNTAX/#|, * POPSYNTAX
o The -dlocal- statement now reads identifier names with -itemread-
instead of -readitem-, meaning that macros can be expanded. The only
respect in which this is non- upward-compatible is that making a macro
identifier dlocal now requires "nonmac", e.g.
dlocal nonmac foo;
This change also applies to 'define dlocal ... '.
o The ':pdr_valof' option to -define- is now replaced by
define <name> = <expression> enddefine
e.g.
define constant procedure iscolour =
member(%[red orange yellow blue green indigo violet]%)
enddefine;
o The "for ... endfor" loop syntax has been made user extensible using
for_form (in a manner that is similar to the extensibility of "define"
using define_form). Full details are provided in HELP * FOR_FORM. New
forms provided include:
for <var1>, <var2> ... in_vectorclass <vector1>, <vector2>, ... do ...
for <var1>, <var2> ... in_vector <vector1>, <vector2>, ... do ...
for <var1>, <var2> ... in_string <string1>, <string2>, ... do ...
for <var1>, <var2> ... in_subscripted <struct1>, <struct2>, ... do ...
for <var1>, <var2>, ... in_list <list1>, <list2>, ... do ...
for <var1>, <var2>, ... on_list <list1>, <list2>, ... do ...
for <keyvar>,<valvar> in_property <property> do ...
fast_for <entry> on_property <property> do ...
for <var> from_repeater <pdr> do ...
The "with_index" option allows the loop body to use an index variable,
for iteration over vectors: e.g.
for a with_index b in_vector v do
[^a ^b] =>
endfor;
HELP * FOR_FORM also explains how to define new iteration constructs
using
define :for_extension <name>(varlist, isfast);
...
enddefine;
o recordclass and vectorclass are now syntax words rather than macros,
and also now accept "lconstant", "lvars", etc as declaration keywords
for the key and associated key-procedure identifiers. (However,
*defclass provides a more general construct.)
-- New "include" library mechanism for shared declarations ------------
o All .ph files in $usepop/pop/lib/include are now set up so that when
used with #_INCLUDE they declare only 'lconstant' macros (but reverting
to 'global constant' as before if directly compiled). (This is achieved
by the autoloadable macro INCLUDE_constant, which produces either
'lconstant' or 'global constant' depending on whether the file is being
#_INCLUDEd or not; to determine this it tests the variable
-pop_#_include_stack-. For full information see REF * LIBRARY/Include,
REF * #_INCLUDE, REF * PROGLIST.
o The autoloadable macro -include- provides a "uses"/"lib" like syntax
and mechanism for #_INCLUDEing files. It uses * popincludelist to search
for .ph files. The default is
global vars popincludelist =
['$poplib/include'
'$poplocal/local/include'
'$usepop/pop/lib/include'];
See HELP *INCLUDE, LIB * INCLUDE
o LIB * VED_SHOWINCLUDE makes it easy to use VED to examine "include"
files accessed via -popincludelist-. E.g. try
ENTER showinclude sigdefs.ph
or
ENTER showinclude sigdefs
Cross references in documentation files also work, e.g.
See INCLUDE * xdefs
-- New or changed procedures, global variables, etc -------------------
o popliblist has been changed to popautolist.
o rawcharout generalised so that it can take a string instead of a
character, so that -vedoutascii-, which now simply calls it, is strictly
redundant, though it can still be used for modularity.
o New POP-11 compiler variable -popclosebracket_exec- allows recognition
of 'execute' context during compilation. See REF * POPCOMPILE.
o The procedure -pdnargs- now has an updater. See REF * PROCEDURE.
o Two new autoloadable library procedures added, * dupnum and
* applynum, completing this table
sysERASE erase erasenum
sysPUSHS dup dupnum
sysCALLS apply applynum
o -apply- and -applynum- have updaters. see REF * STACK, * PROCEDURE-- Words, identifiers and sections ------------------------------------
See REF * WORDS and REF * SECTIONS, both updated.
REF * IDENT describes some important new facilities relevant to the
potential use of the POPLOG stand alone compiler POPC, to be made
available later on. In particular there is a new form of "weak"
declaration for use in connection with facilities that may or may not be
included in a deliverable.
-- Pop-11 matcher -----------------------------------------------------
LIB * FMATCHES, described in HELP * FMATCHES makes available a new
version of the Pop-11 pattern matcher that can be used with in sections
and with lexical variables.
fmatches can also find some matches involving nested lists with repeated
"??" variables, not found by matches. For example
vars x, y;
[[1 2 3 4][3 4 1 2]] matches [[??x ??y][??y ??x]] =>
** <false>
[[1 2 3 4][3 4 1 2]] fmatches [[??x ??y][??y ??x]] =>
** <true>
See HELP * FMATCHES for full details, including the disadvantages
(e.g. fmatches is a syntax word and cannot be passed as an argument to
a procedure).
-- New documentation and browsing mechanisms --------------------------
The online documentation mechanisms have been considerably improved, and
generalised in order to be equally useful for all the POPLOG languages,
and so as to be more extendable by users.
o In particular the ved_?? and ved_? procedures for accessing summary
information no longer require their own database (previously stored in
$usepop/pop/lib/data/ved_what/*). Instead they have been integrated with
the REF files, using the doc_index subdirectory, mentioned below. This
saves duplicated documentation, and makes it easier to browse the
summary information according to topic area. Consequently, "ENTER ??
member" will get the same information as "ENTER ref member", except that
the former will save the text in a short temporary file, whereas the
latter reads in the whole REF file (REF * LISTS in this case.)
For more information see HELP * QUERY, HELP * MKREFINDEX
o The documentation access procedures ved_help, ved_ref, ved_teach, and
ved_doc have been generalised. They all use -syssearchpath-, which has
been generalised in two ways (See HELP * SEARCH_LISTS):
(a) -syssearchpath- accepts search lists that can contain not only
directory names, but also lists of names, procedures, words that are
names of procedures, or identifiers whose idvals are procedures. (The
latter is preferable to use of words because it survives changes of
section.)
If a "flat" list of directory names is wanted, * flatten_searchlist can
be used, though it will not deal with procedures in search lists.
(b) If syssearchpath does not find a file with the appropriate name in
one of the directories D, syssearchpath looks to see if D contains a
sub-directory called 'doc_index'. If so, that is assumed to contain
index files created using the mechanisms described in HELP * MKREFINDEX,
which can point to a subsection in one of the files in D. If so, that
section of the file is read into a temporary VED buffer. This is the
also the mechanism now used by ved_??. (See HELP * QUERY).
This new mechanism makes it possible for many short HELP files to be
combined in one HELP or REF file, whose entries are accessed via the
doc_index sub-directory. Examples of such new "portmanteau" files are
REF * VEDPROCS, REF * VEDCOMMS, and REF * VEDVARS, showing the different
formats that the indexing mechanism can cope with. A consequence of this
is that it is now possible to access the REF documentation for any
procedure by giving the command REF <procedure name>. REF * member
(Some of the old overview HELP files are now redundant, and have been
removed, e.g. HELP * VEDCOMMS)
o Users can themselves now create doc_index files for accessing
sub-sections in their own documentation, using the new procedures
described in HELP * MKREFINDEX.
mkrefindex(DIR);
sys_parse_doc_index_entry(STRING) -> VEC
sys_search_doc_index(NAME, DIR, EXACT) -> N
description_hdr_start(LINE) -> BOOL
description_hdr_end(LINE) -> BOOL
description_hdr_name(LINE) -> STRING
o The "subsystem" mechanisms have been considerably revised and extended
to facilitate switching between languages. The most important changes
are described in HELP * SUBSYSTEMS/Documentation. In particular
From inside VED, you can always get hold of documentation relevant to a
particular subsystem by prefixing the appropriate command with the
subsystem name. For example, no matter which language you are currently
using, you can always view documentation on the Prolog error handler by
doing:
ENTER prolog help error
or on the Common Lisp FLET special-form with
ENTER lisp ref flet
Some other commands, relevant to software developers, can now also take
a sub-system "prefix". E.g. the command
ENTER prolog lmr
will compile the marked range as a Prolog program, while
ENTER lisp f insert
will locate the definition of the Lisp function INSERT. Such commands
are useful for mixed-language programming, where a single file may
contain fragments of code written in various languages. "ENTER pop11"
can be used in the same way.
For more information, see HELP * SUBSYSTEMS.
o Many areas of POPLOG have been documented more fully, using the format
required for convenient access via these mechanisms. Most of the basic
information has been collected into REF files, though HELP files are
still used to provide overviews, extended examples, discussions of pros
and cons of techniques, etc.
o The VED command "ENTER helpfor" has been considerably improved.
See HELP * HELPFOR.
o Failed documentation requests now produce polite "not found" messages,
instead of causing a MISHAP. It is now possible to trap failed requests
by redefining the new procedure *vedsysfileerror.
o HELP * VED_INDEXIFY describes the facilities for putting headings,
building tables of contents, and using "ENTER g" to go to a section. For
a tutorial introduction see HELP * ENTER_G.
ved_indexify has been changed so that if used to re-build a table of
contents it no longer deletes portions in which extra bits of text have
been inserted.
o For improved documentation on libraries and search lists: see
REF * LIBRARY
HELP * AUTOLOAD
HELP * POPLIBLIST
HELP * POPUSESLIST
HELP * SEARCH_LISTS (new file).
-- New or updated documentation files ---------------------------------
There are many new files concerned with X facilities. For overviews see
HELP * XPOP, REF * XPOPINDEX, HELP * XPOPINDEX, TEACH * XPOPINDEX,
Additional X-related files are in:
$usepop/pop/x/pop/ref/*
$usepop/pop/x/pop/help/*
$usepop/pop/x/pop/teach/*
$usepop/pop/x/pop/doc/*
-- -- New or updated DOC files
The online copies of the Installation, Administrator's, and User Guides
(DOC PIG, PAG and PUG) have been removed (because they are now produced
using FrameMaker. From now on, they will only be supplied in hard copy
format.
Updated DOC * SYSSPEC (system overview)
DOC * VEDMANUAL updated and reformatted for online use. Still not
complete, however.
On Unix systems, online "man" files for POPLOG are kept in
$usepop/pop/doc/man/*
-- -- New or updated REF files
There are many new REF files, several of which make old HELP files,
especially summary help files, redundant. Most of the old REF files have
been extensively revised and extended, and in some cases re-formatted so
as to provide information accessible via ved_??.
See REF * REFFILES, REF * INDEX
REF * SYSTEM has been radically revised to describe the new startup
procedures, including some X startup information. Information about
saved images is now in REF * SYSTEM instead of REF * SYSUTIL.
New REF files, include:
REF * VEDPROCS, * VEDCOMMS,
replacing and improving on old HELP files with these names
REF * REFFILES
overview of REF files
REF * LIBRARY
gives information on libraries and search lists (See also
HELP files on this.)
REF * SHADOWCLASS
Describes LIB * SHADOWCLASS
New Xpop REF files: see REF * XPOPINDEX
REF * POPCOMPILE extended with a section on different compilation
contexts.
REF * MISHAP_CODES
Some mishap messages start with a string of characters
representing a code for the error. This file contains a summary of
those codes, which can be accessed via ENTER ??, or ENTER ref commands.
E.g. REF * crsv. This file replaces previous separate help files for
different error codes. See also HELP * ERRORS and REF * MISHAPS
The Pop-11 procedure -charin- is now fully documented in REF * CHARIO
REF * OBSOLETE lists all identifiers that have been superseded, though
some have autoloadable backward compatibility libraries.
All other REF files have been either substantially re-written or
extended.
-- -- New or updated HELP files
New Xpop HELP files: see HELP * XPOP, * XPOPINDEX
HELP * LISPNEWS and HELP * PLOGNEWS have been updated, HELP * PMLNEWS
and HELP * XPOP_NEWS created.
HELP * INITIAL now explains how individuals can avoid system-wide
tailoring done in $popsys/init.p $popsys/vedinit.p etc. It has also
been extensively revised, with a section added on POPLOG ML.
HELP * QUERY, HELP * MKREFINDEX describe the ved_?? and ved_? mechanisms
and how to build index files that use them.
A number of HELP files have been added or improved, with cross
references brought up to date, including
HELP * STANDARDS, * NEWC_DEC, * EXTERNAL, * INITIAL, * SUBSYSTEMS
HELP * NEWPROPERTY, * PVED, * EQUAL, * MARK, * LIBRARIES
HELP * DOCUMENTATION, * VED, * HELPFILES, * VEDSEARCH
HELP * LOGICAL_KEYS, * VEDCOMMANDS, * VEDVEDDEFAULTS* VEDEMACS
HELP * VEDGETSYSFILE
HELP *LIBWORDS, *POPPROCS, *POPVARS.
Improved documentation on libraries and search lists: see REF * LIBRARY
HELP * AUTOLOAD, * POPLIBLIST, * POPUSESLIST and
HELP * SEARCH_LISTS (new file).
Information about lexical scoping clarified, with examples, and
discussion of pros and cons of lexical scoping, provided in:
See HELP * LVARS, HELP * LEXICAL, HELP *DLOCAL.
HELP * DLOCAL extended to explain problems with initialised
variables in dlocal expressions.
Previous documentation did not give adequate warnings about ways in
which use of lexical scoping can generate unwanted garbage collection
overhead. This is now explained in HELP * LVARS. Related information in
HELP * LEXICAL, * EFFICIENCY has also been updated.
Several HELP files concerned with numbers improved:
HELP * INTOF, HELP * FRACOF, and the section of HELP * EQUAL concerned
with comparing numbers
HELP * VEDKEYS has been re-written to have a clearer structure, with
an indication of new "default" key bindings. HELP * VEDNEWKEYS describes
an alternative, more rational option.
HELP * VEDSETKEY considerably expanded and updated. The new notation for
customising VED is described in HELP * VEDSET
The HELP files VEDCOMMS, VEDPROCS, VEDVARS, and VEDWORDS have been
deleted and replaced by the following REF files:
REF * VEDCOMMS, REF * VEDPROCS REF * VEDVARS (all used by ved_??).
Added HELP * BUGFORM for use in reporting bugs, by UK academics who
obtain POPLOG direct from Sussex University.
HELP * NEWPSYS describes the new LIB * NEWPSYS
o HELP files for three obsolete procedures have been updated:
HELP * POPCONSTRUCT, * POPDEFINECONSTANT, * POPDEFINEPROCEDURE
For information on their replacements see
REF * pop_pop11_flags, LIB * COMPILE_MODE.
o The following obsolete HELP files have been deleted, because the
identifiers they described have been renamed:
DEADPROC DEVNAME POPDEVRAW POPDPLACES REALOF
SYS_INPUTON_TERMINAL SYSCOMPILE SYSLOOP SYSLOOPEND SYSNEED
SYSNMTRY SYSNVARIABLE SYSSTRUCTURE SYSTRY SYSTXCOMP SYSTXSQCOMP
SYSXCOMP SYSXSQCOMP FASTPROCS (See the REF file)
See REF * OBSOLETE-- -- New or updated TEACH files
New Xpop TEACH files: see TEACH * XPOPINDEX
TEACH * TEACH and other VED-related files have been made less terminal
dependent, using the "logical" key names listed in HELP * LOGICAL_KEYS
Improved/revised
TEACH * GC, * STACK, * PARSE, * PROLOG, * RIVER, and many others
TEACH * LISTS and TEACH *SETS considerably revised and improved. TEACH
SETS now includes suggestions on how to specify a procedure as a step
towards designing and implementing it. Further improvements in
TEACH * RECURSE1, * RECURSE2, * RECURSE3.
TEACH *EVANS referred to non-existent TEACH *PICDEM. The latter has now
been installed, using LIB * PICDEM (a simple program illustrating some
problems of describing and recognising 2-D shapes.)
TEACH * PSYSRIVER has a demonstration of LIB * NEWPSYS-- Errors and tracing -------------------------------------------------
o The procedure -sysprmessage- added, for printing messages in standard
POPLOG error format (but not necessarily flagged by the word "MISHAP").
The procedures -sysprmishap-, -sysprwarning-, and -warning- now all use
-sysprmessage-. See REF * MISHAPS.
o Users wanting to over-ride some of the default settings for the Pop-11
error handler can now do this more easily, using the variable
-pop_default_prmishap-. Its default value is -false-. If a procedure is
assigned to it then that be used as the value for prmishap inside VED
instead of -vedprmishap-. It will also be used inside ved_lmr, which
also previously used to over-write user's error handlers.
o Printing in error messages in VED is now controlled by setting
pop_pr_level = 20, instead of using a special purpose print routine.
This also fixes a bug: the previous version could not cope with errors
involving pairs.
-- New virtual machine instructions -----------------------------------
o The POPLOG VM now supports lexical blocks, which allow the scopes of
lexical identifiers to be constrained. In the POPLOG VM this is
represented by two new pseudo-instructions
sysLBLOCK
sysENDLBLOCK
and in POP-11 by the syntax
lblock
<statement seq>
endlblock
These can be used (nested to any depth), either inside procedures or at
execute level, e.g. in
define foo();
lvars x;
lblock
lvars y;
...
endlblock
lblock
lvars z;
...
endlblock
enddefine;
the variables -y- and -z- are accessible only inside their respective
blocks (whereas -x- is accessible everywhere in the procedure);
moreover, the resources utilised for -y- in the first block are freed
for reuse in the second block, etc. This mechanism speeds up some Common
Lisp programs. See REF * VMCODE for full details.
o Lexical blocks (lblock ... endlblock), can be used at top level as
well as in a procedure. So the following POP11 code outside a procedure
lvars i;
for i to 10 do
lblock
lvars j = i;
procedure(); j endprocedure
endlblock
endfor;
will now create a new variable -j- (and thus a different lexical
closure) each time round the loop, just as it would inside a procedure.
A result of this change is that testing for -popexecute- false is no
longer a reliable way of determining whether code is being planted
inside a procedure (since it will be false inside a non-executing
lblock, enclosed in a procedure or not). Instead, use the new variable
* pop_vm_compiling_list, which holds a list of all procedures currently
being compiled, and can therefore be tested == or /== to nil. (Note
however that -popexecute- true is still the correct test for being at
execute level, i.e. whether -sysEXECUTE- can be called or not).
See REF *VMCODE for full details.
o Two new VM instruction sysFIELD, sysUFIELD for generating in-line
access and update code, render obsolete all of the following:
sysFIELD_VAL, sysUFIELD_VAL, sysSUBSCR, sysUSUBSCR
sysEXT_FIELDVAL, sysUEXT_FIELD_VAL, sysEXT_SUBSCR, sysUEXT_SUBSCR
-- New compiler control facilities ------------------------------------
There are new control mechanisms in the POP11 and POPLOG VM compilers:
o A new variable, -pop_debugging-, is intended to serve as a general
indication as to whether programs are being compiled in debugging or
'real-use' mode. It also combines the roles previously played by the
variables -popconstants- and -pop_optimise- (which for upward
compatibility are now autoloadable active variables).
Permanent constants were previously 'turned off' by assigning
<false> to -popconstants-; this now corresponds to -pop_debugging-
having the value <true>. Since the default value of -pop_debugging- is
"undef", constants are (as before) on by default.
Setting -pop_optimise- true previously caused the VM to do extra
optimisation; this now happens when -pop_debugging- is <false> (i.e.
extra optimisation is also off by default).
(Note that -pop_debugging- is NOT local to any system procedures, so
assigning to it is guaranteed to change its value globally.)
See REF * IDENT and REF * pop_debugging
o The POP11 compiler variables -popdefineconstant-,
-popdefineprocedure-, -popconstruct- and -pop_args_warning- have all
been replaced by flag bits in a new variable -pop_pop11_flags-
(analogous to -pop_vm_flags- for the VM compiler). These are defined and
described in INCLUDE * pop11_flags (use ESC h to read this, or "ENTER
showinclude pop11_flags") and REF * pop_pop11_flags. Further information
is in the comments in LIB * COMPILE_MODE. (The old variables remain as
autoloadable active variables.)
o There are also a number of new VM compiler flags in -pop_vm_flags-.
These are mainly concerned with disabling the inclusion of run-time
checking code (although these are only effective when -pop_debugging- is
false). See INCLUDE * vm_flags or (ENTER showinclude vm_flags)
and REF * VMCODE.
o Both -pop_pop11_flags- and -pop_vm_flags- to be are localised to every
compilation stream, procedure and lexical block, and there is a new
(autoloadable) syntax construct -compile_mode-, which permits the flag
bits in either variable to be set or cleared (either singly or in
groups) on the basis of keyword arguments. E.g. a POP11 program file can
now make -define- default to 'constant procedure' for that file only by
including the command
compile_mode:pop11 +defcon +defpdr;
at the beginning.
So compile_mode can used locally within a procedure or lexical block to
affect compilation of that procedure or block, e.g. to turn off
procedure entry checking, or checking at backward jumps, etc.
For more detail, and examples, see SHOWLIB * COMPILE_MODE, which
includes detailed documentation.
-- VMS specific changes -----------------------------------------------
o The procedure -systranslate- which translates logical names has been
upgraded to use the current standard VMS system routines for this
purpose (it was previously using old routines which became obsolete in
Version 4 of VMS). As a consequence, logical names with the "concealed"
attribute are now dealt with correctly, i.e. not translated by default.
(Also, names with the "terminal" attribute will not now have an
underscore prefixed to the translation).
o The handling of arguments to a POPLOG process from the DCL foreign
command line has now been further enhanced. Essentially, POPLOG now
behaves like a Unix shell, in that it automatically expands filename
arguments containing wildcard characters (e.g. '*.p' will be replaced by
all matching filenames). In addition, a filename argument with an @
character prepended is replaced by further arguments read from the
specified file; this surmounts the problem of the DCL foreign command
line being limited to 255 characters, and enables larger numbers of
arguments to be supplied.
See REF *POPARGLIST0 for full details. An associated change is that
the procedure * sys_file_match no longer necessarily returns
fully-qualified filenames, but instead produces names containing only
those parts which appeared in the given file specification (e.g.
filenames matched by '*.p' will be of the form 'foo.p', 'baz.p', etc,
with no directory or version.) See REF *SYSUTIL.
(Note that the rationale behind these changes is to allow POPLOG
programs to be written in a portable way. A program can now simply
assume that arguments are available Unix-style, whether it is run on
Unix or VMS.)
-- UNIX specific changes ----------------------------------------------
o The Unix version of * SYSTRANSLATE now has an updater (the VMS version
already had one). This can now be used to alter * POPENVLIST.
See REF * SYSUTIL
o POPLOG will henceforth try to standardise on having all (non-empty)
strings representing directory pathnames be recognisable as such by
ending with / . For example, this is now true of -current_directory-,
all members of * popliblist and * popuseslist, and the result of the new
procedure * sys_fname_path for getting the path part of a filename.
(Also, the operator * dir_>< given an empty string as second
argument will now append / to the first if it's non-empty and
doesn't end with one. Thus for path /= nullstring, the result of
path dir_>< nullstring
will always have a trailing / )
o HELP * SYSPIPE gave wrong information about the argument to -syspipe-.
Now corrected. See also REF * SYSIO/syspipe
o * sys_input_waiting now accepts a list of devices to be checked.
o A new procedure * sys_async_input allows control over asynchronous
input (using SIGIO) on a device. See REF * SYSIO
o TERM and HUP signal handlers now both exit tidily (write VED files
etc.). Minor changes to suspend/continue signal handling to improve
response to termination while suspended. See REF *SIGNALS.
o Fixed bug in -sys_file_match- which prevented correct matching of
pattern chars inside [ ] (e.g. [a-z]). Also, -sys_file_match- with true
STRIP argument now returns separate directory pathnames ending with /
(except when empty). See REF * sys_file_match
o A high resolution timer is now provided in Unix POPLOG, based on the
setitimer(2) system call. E.g. on a Sun-3 the resolution is now 1/50th
of a second instead of 1 second. See REF * syssettimer.
o New library LIB * ITIMER_VIRTUAL added. This defines a POP11
interface to the virtual interval timer provided by the C library
function SETITIMER(2). See HELP * ITIMER_VIRTUAL for details.
o A new VED command for reading Unix 'man' files.
ENTER man [<section number>] <name>
reads output of 'man' command into VED, then removes underlining, for
easy reading. See HELP * MAN
o Unix mail facilities have been improved.
o ved_Reply (for replying to Unix mail) altered to handle more
cases correctly. Also no longer interferes with VED search state
variables. (See HELP * VED_REPLY, SHOWLIB * VED_REPLY)
o ved_reply- altered to insert "Re: " in subject line
o ved_mdir (for building index to Unix mail file) altered to
include "To:" line. See HELP * VED_MDIR
o LIB VED_SEND has been changed so as to use the Unix mail program
rather than sendmail. This means that the full range of facilities
is available in .mailrc files. It also makes sending mail from VED
very much faster. However, users cannot now add arbitrary additional
header lines to mail messages, as they are not kept in the header by
mail.
Various new control variables have been added to ved_send and
ved_sendmr.
See the revised HELP *SEND and SHOWLIB * VED_SEND/History
o Extended LIB * VED_SEND as follows:
If the command "ENTER sendmr" is given with no arguments then, in
order to preserve Unix mail file format (e.g. for ved_mcm), any
lines in the message that start with 'From ' will have '>' inserted
at the beginning. This can be suppressed by assigning -false- to the
new user-assignable variable -vedindent_From- (default is true).
(see HELP * SEND)
o Attempting to read the interactive device (terminal or pipe) could
result in an infinite loop if that device were no longer readable. This
might occur, say, if running via a telnet connection which prematurely
breaks. POPLOG will now attempt to write all VED files and exit if such
a condition occurs.
o LIB * PIPEOUT extended so that it can produce output to the terminal
if necessary. HELP PIPEOUT is now part of HELP * PIPEUTILS
o Changes to facilities described in HELP * PIPEUTILS:
The command ved_rsh was not available on non-Bsd type unix
systems, e.g. HPUX, so an equivalent command ved_remsh has been
provided, for running remote commands from VED. The ved_rved
command has been generalised to work on non-Bsd systems providing
'remsh' but not 'rsh'. HELP * PIPEUTILS has been updated.
-vedpipein- (see HELP * PIPEUTILS) now allows its third argument,
the -file- to be FALSE, in which case the incoming information is
read into the current VED file after the current line.
o New BSD Unix utilities.
A collection of utilities developed by Roger Evans has been added
to the non-autoloadable, non-supported library $usepop/pop/lib/lib
as illustrations of useful programming techniques available on
Berkeley Unix systems for communication between poplog and other
subprocesses.
Documentation is to be found in the following help files
HELP * NOECHO HELP * PTYFORK HELP * MUX HELP * VEDMUX
HELP * VSH
Of these the most interesting user utility is VSH, which offers a
'shell-in-ved-buffer' interface - like IMCSH only more
sophisticated.
These and other facilities in the $usepop/pop/lib/lib directory
are not necessarily supported. See DOC * SYSSPEC
o Some new commands for printing files from VED. These are -ved_lp-
(uses HP-UX 'lp') and -ved_lpr- (uses Berkeley Unix 'lpr'). It is now
recommended that on Unix systems instead of ved_print, either ved_lp or
ved_lpr should be used, whichever is available.
See HELP * LP and HELP * LPR.
o -vedpipein- and procedures defined in terms of it HELP * PIPEUTILS
were capable of producing "zombie" processes that would not die until
you exited from poplog. This bug has been fixed. Programs that used lib
pipein directly still have to call -syswait-. See REF * SYSUTIL/syswait
o The system now behaves more rationally when EOF (^Z or ^D) is typed to
a terminal prompt; it now always puts out a newline after this (and as a
consequence, no longer needs to put out a special newline when the
system exits, meaning that there will be no surplus newline output when
exiting in any way other than by EOF, as was previously the case).
o BERKELEY UNIX POPLOG ONLY
The * device_full_name of a device now dereferences symbolic links, i.e.
it is always the name of the underlying file (rather than the name of
any symbolic link that was used to open it).
o BERKELEY UNIX POPLOG ONLY
POPLOG now checks to see if it is 'backgrounded' before attempting to
alter terminal modes. If it is, it stops, by sending itself the TTIN
signal (see REF *SIGNALS), as it would if it attempted to read while
backgrounded. The previous behaviour was causing serious problems with
some operating systems.
o The default value for the TTOU signal handler is now <true>, that is,
the (Bsd) Unix default action (which is to stop immediately). The
previous value (tidy screen and stop) proved unworkable for TTOU.
o New procedures -sys_search_unix_path- and -run_unix_program- added
(for locating and executing Unix programs from within POPLOG). See
REF * SYS_SEARCH_UNIX_PATH and HELP * RUN_UNIX_PROGRAM respectively.
(For Lisp users there is a new module, "run-unix-program", added, for
running Unix programs See HELP * RUN_UNIX_PROGRAM for details.)
-- Net News tools (UNIX only) -----------------------------------------
A collection of utilities is now provided for reading and sending Net
News from within VED. These have been used at Sussex University for some
time and a few other places. However, they are offered on an "as is"
basis and will not necessarily be supported, though reports of faults
may receive action.
For reading news, see LIB * VED_NET, LIB * VED_GN, all documented
in HELP * VED_NET.
For posting news, or preparing followups to news items, or cancelling a
news item, see LIB * VEDPOSTNEWS, documented in HELP * VED_POSTNEWS
(The library will need editing for some sites.)
-- SUN POPLOG only ----------------------------------------------------
The directory '$popsunlib' is now automatically included in -popliblist-
(and -popuseslist-). It is no longer necessary to do this in an 'init.p'
file. If you use a Sun as a terminal, but actually run POPLOG on a
different processor, you may still have to do:
uses popsunlib
o LIB SUN_TTY_SIZE updated to use newer ioctl.
o (Sun-2/3 POPLOG Only) The Sun-2 and Sun-3 systems are now (by default)
linked with the version of the C maths library 'libm.a' in
/usr/lib/fswitch. This means that math functions doing floating-point
operations will use run-time-switched routines that automatically test
for and use any floating-point hardware support (FPA, MC68881, Sky)
available on the host machine (internal POPLOG floating-point operations
always use these switched routines). (Cf the C compiler '-fswitch'
option.)
o (Sun-4/SPARCStation POPLOG Only) A serious problem that could occur
while running external procedures inside POPLOG has been overcome (this
was associated with programs that called -malloc- to get dynamic memory
for use with floating-point operations).
o The library OLDVEDSUN (and associated help file) have been
removed (as previously advertised).
-- LIB FLAVOURS -------------------------------------------------------
Only minor changes to this object oriented programming library:
o Bug fixed in -quitmessage- for update methods. See REF * FLAVOURS
o The command file for building the 'flavours' saved image now ensures
that -setpop- is assigned to -interrupt- when the image is restored.
-- POPLOG Window Manager (PWM) ----------------------------------------
o LIB V12PWM is no longer supported. See HELP * V12PWM
o On Suns, the value that the PWM assigns to the environment variable
$TERM has been changed from "pwm" to "pwmsun".
o PWM identifier names have been rationalised according to the
conventions described in HELP * PWMNAMES, and autoloadable library
synonyms provided for backward compatibility for programs using the old
identifiers.
o REF * PWM is a new overview file.
o The library directory '$poppwmlib' is now automatically added to
-popliblist- when POPLOG starts up under the PWM.
o Users now have more control over whether and when the input focus
is moved automatically if multiple VED windows are used.
A new variable -vedpwmwindowchanged- has been introduced. If it is true
when control returns to -vedprocess- and if the user assignable variable
-vedusepwmwindows- has appropriate values, then the mouse pointer is
"warped" to the current VED window.
This automatic warping can be controlled by the user. E.g. If
-vedusepwmwindows- is a list and contains the word "ved_q" then quitting
a file will move the input focus to the next available VED file window,
otherwise not. If the word "ved_rb" is in the list -vedusepwmwindows-
then ved_rb now properly moves the input focus to the next window
displayed, otherwise not.
To use multi-window VED in the pwm, but without ANY automatic change of
input focus put the following into your vedinitpwm.p file.
Assigning true to vedusepwmwindows is now equivalent to assigning the
list
[vedswapfiles vedfileselect ved_rb] -> vedusepwmwindows;
to it, which will make ESC x (vedswapfiles) and ESC e (vedfileselect)
work as expected.
(In the Beta-test POPLOG (V13.91), having any value other than [] could
cause odd effects when the input focus is moved. This has now been
fixed.)
See REF * VEDPROCS/vedusepwmwindows, for more details.
This change has been used to modify * ved_diff and * ved_cdiff so that
they don't repeatedly expose the "other" window.
o * VEDFILESELECT now works under the PWM. The input focus moves to the
selected window if the word "vedfileselect" is in the list
-vedusepwmwindows-.
o LIB * SUNICONFILE had had a bug from V13.7. Now fixed, generalised and
made more efficient. WARNING: because suniconfile reads image files
faster, programs that used delays in writing raster arrays to the screen
may need longer delays.
o HELP PWMCOLOUR removed. It was made obsolete by HELP * PWMCOLOURS
o Two new PWM libraries (courtesy of Reading University) added.
See LIB * PWM_MAKE_LABELITEM and LIB * PWM_MAKE_LISTITEM.
-- New expert system tool ---------------------------------------------
HELP * NEWPSYS describes a new more general and more efficient forward
chaining production system interpreter than was previously provided by
LIB * PSYS and LIB * PRODSYS.
It includes various aids to constructing expert systems, including a
built in menu facility. Rules can be partitioned for efficiency.
TEACH * PSYSRIVER provides an extended example showing a simple planning
expert system.
o LIB * PRODSYS, the demonstration production system interpreter has
been improved. See TEACH * PRODSYS. SHOWLIB * PRODSYS/History-- Miscellaneous additional changes -----------------------------------
o LIB * INSPECT now ignores colons in command input (to soothe users of
the Lisp debugger who are used to preceding commands with a colon).
o There is an improved version of * sys_lock_system allowing much
greater control over which structures are kept writeable and which are
made nonwriteable. Associated with this are two new operators *
writeable and nonwriteable, a new procedure * sys_writeable_prop, and a
new variable * pop_record_writeable. See 'Creating Layered Systems' in
REF * SYSTEM.
An associated change is that * conskey (and * defclass, * recordclass
and * vectorclass) can now take optional "writeable" and "nonwriteable"
attributes for a new class key. See REF * KEYS, REF * DEFSTRUCT
o Two new autolodable checking procedures * check_string and
* fi_check, like * checkinteger but returns the integer if OK and does
not check its second and third arguments.
o Speeded up and rationalised * POPINDEX, which is used also by
* SOURCEFILE and * POPWHERE.
The index building mechanism is now able to cope with some of the newer
syntax forms. LIB * BUILDINDEX is now used for index building scripts.
The scripts for building the indexes have been extended to include
Pop-11 files in the prolog, lisp and Xpop sources. The scripts are:
$usepop/pop/com/mkind (Unix)
usepop:[pop.com]mkind.com (VMS)
o New format for search lists. They can contain not only strings (names
of directories), but also sublists, or words whose valof is a search
list, or an ident whose idval is a searchlist or a procedure which when
applied to the wanted name returns false or the required file path name.
See HELP * SEARCH_LISTS
The library procedure * flatten_searchlist has been provided to produce
a list of strings (directory names) from search lists using the new
format, e.g. * popuseslist or * poplibist.
o extend_searchlist is now available for adding directories to search
lists if not already present. See REF * LIBRARY/extend_searchlist
o New (autoloadable) procedure * newprwarning added. If assigned to
-prwarning-, extra information (i.e. the current filename and line
number) will be printed whenever a 'DECLARING VARIABLE' warning occurs.
o A new (protected) variable trap procedure * pop_chario_trap is
now called by -charin-, -charout-, and -charerr-. See REF *CHARIO.
o New procedures * pop_setpop_compiler, * sys_process_poparg1 concerned
with system startup.
o New user-definable procedure *LOADCOMPILER, default value -compile- is
provided, for use by * load. It is redefined by LIB * SUBSYSTEM for
different languages.
o POP11 autoloading can now be turned off by assigning false to the new
variable -pop_autoload-. (This is more convenient than the old method of
assigning [] to -popliblist-, since ensuring that autoloading is back on
in contexts that require it can be done without worrying about saved
values of -popliblist-, etc.)
o New procedures -sysEXEC_COMPILE- and -pop11_exec_compile- for
compile-time code execution. See REF *VMCODE and REF *POPCOMPILE.
o Added "missing" compilation procedure * pop11_need_nextreaditem
See REF * POPCOMPILE
o Previously, properties could only be temporary on the argument item;
they can now be temporary on the value item, or on either the argument
or the value. They can also be 'unconditionally' temporary, i.e. cleared
at every garbage collection. See -newproperty- and -newanyproperty- in
REF * PROPS.
o property_size added. It returns the table size of a property (NOT the
number of entries). See REF * property_size.
o * substring now returns the standard empty string * nullstring
when the result is empty.
o isendstring('','') previously gave an error. It now returns 1. This
also fixes certain errors that occasionally caused VED to go badly wrong
when given a file name with no file name part.
o Changes to the process mechanism:
New procedures -suspend_chain- and -ksuspend_chain- allow control to
be regained after (k)suspending a process, by chaining a procedure out
of the call of -runproc- which ran the process.
The procedure -consprocto- has been replaced by a better procedure
-consproc_to-. The old one remains in the autoloadable library.
A process can now be constructed as either 'volatile' or 'non-volatile'.
See REF *PROCESS for full details.
o The POP2 syntax words "lambda", "function", "enddo" and "exit" have
been removed from the standard values of -vedopeners-, and -vedclosers-.
They are added to these lists by the library LIB POP2.
-- Miscellaneous bug fixes --------------------------------------------
This is an incomplete list. See HELP NEWS and the other
language-specific news files for more details.
o The pretty-print arrow (==>) has been modified so as to ensure that
poplinemax is set locally to vedscreenwidth - 3. This prevents unwelcome
horizontal scrolling on long lines. Also A minor bug in the procedure
-pretty- invoked by ==>, which caused long lines to be printed with
excessive refreshing in VED, has been fixed.
o The procedure -pretty-, used by ==>, has been modified so that it
never increases poplinewidth or poplinemax, though it still decreases
them if necessary to fit in a VED window.
o The system no longer crashes if too large a value is assigned to
pop_callstack_lim. A mishap now results if the operating system's limit
on call stack memory is about to be reached; this makes it safe to
assign any value to pop_callstack_lim. See REF *POP_CALLSTACK_LIM.
o A bug in the 'destroy actions' mechanism (see REF *PROPS) has been
fixed. Formerly the existence of an independent destroy action for an
object was not in itself sufficient to retain entries for the object in
temporary properties when the object became otherwise garbage. Now it
is.
o Certain uses of * pop_after_restore could lead to a system crash
(because the system was calling it in an inappropriate place). Now
fixed.
o * ved_w1 now restores cursor to status line if that is where it was,
and prevents a bug that caused VED to get the value of * vvedbuffersize
wrong, so that it could not access most of the file.
o LIB * DATAFILE now successfully copes with empty properties.
o vedreadfile checks its first argument more thoroughly. It used to
allow a first argument that was not a procedure, and that could cause
problems later.
o Fixed bug in -vedfileselect-. It previously got into trouble if a
file had something like a list for vedfileprops
o LIB * SHUFFLE. no longer removes repeated elements from the list.
o LIB * SYSSORT previously used global variables that could prevent
temporary lists being garbage collected. Now fixed.
o The garbage collector now locally resets -cucharout- to -charout- if
its current value is -identfn-. This prevents infinite GC loops in data
constructors that locally redefine -cucharout-, e.g. ><.
o (Sun-4 POPLOG Only) Fixed a serious bug in the passing of arguments to
external functions. See HELP NEWS
o In order to reduce the occurrence of spurious trailing spaces in files
written by VED vedswitchstatus and vedsaveglobals both now call
vedtrimline.
o Bug in the power operator ** fixed.
-2 ** -1 now produces -1_/2 instead of 1_/-2
o LIB * SHOWTREE used to call VEDSETUP while the file was being
compiled. It now does so only if the current input (popdevin) is a
terminal.
o LIB * EXTERNAL now handles -array_of_pointer- structures properly.
o LIB * VTURTLE bug: vturtle_origin was wrongly adjusted.
Now fixed. (TEACH * VTURTLE)
o Various commands using -vedsysfile- now ensure that vedinit.p has been
called BEFORE they accessed the relevant search lists.
o LIB VED_WTYPE now copes properly with active identifiers and syntax
operators. See REF * VEDCOMMS/ved_wtype
o In certain situations (including bugs in user programs) -vedline-
could end up negative or == 0, leading to an error. This is now
corrected: -vedline- is set to 1 in such cases.
o Previously * vedprocess changed * pop_after_restore locally by
assigning * vedrestorewindows to it. Instead it now does:
vedrestorewindows <> pop_after_restore -> pop_after_restore;
so that user procedures in -pop_after_restore- will run when saved
images created inside VED are restored.
See REF * SYSTEM/pop_after_restore
o (Sun4 Only) Under certain (fairly rare) circumstances, the run-time
code generator produced code for a procedure that failed to initialise
certain lvars correctly, causing the garbage collector to crash (it
happened only with procedures that had some non-locally used lvars, but
fewer than 2 ordinary lvars). Now cured.
-- New POPLOG-based products available from ISL -----------------------
Integral Solutions Ltd, who have been distributing POPLOG since mid
1989 now offer a growing collection of POPLOG-based tools and packages,
including:
POPLOG-Neural
A Neural net demonstration and teaching package
POPLOG-Flex
A Prolog-based expert system shell, originally developed by Logic
Programming Associates, and now ported to POPLOG Prolog.
POPLOG-Rules
A rule-induction package.
POPLOG-Oracle
An interface to the Oracle database system.
Other companies selling POPLOG-based products include Program Validation
Ltd, and COGSYS Ltd.
-- POPLOG User Information --------------------------------------------
A collection of HELP files has been provided giving information supplied
by the POPLOG USER GROUP (PLUG). They are
HELP *RESOURCES - file cross-referencing useful info sources
HELP *PLUG - The POPLOG and Pop Languages User Group
HELP *POPFORUM - E-mail discussion group
HELP *POPREFS - Books and other written material about Pop
HELP *POPCONTACTS - Contact addresses for Pop issues and products
HELP *POPSYSTEMS - Pop-related systems and products
-- NOTE ON FILENAMES --------------------------------------------------
In some of the examples in this file and elsewhere, UNIX file name
format is used. VMS users should do the corresponding translation. E.g.
UNIX version VMS version
------------ -----------
$usepop/pop/lib/psv/eliza.psv USEPOP:[POP.LIB.PSV]ELIZA.PSV
$usepop/pop/com/poplog USEPOP:[POP.COM]POPLOG.COM
The addition of ".COM" is required only for DCL command files in the
[POP.COM] OR [POP.SRC] directory.
Apart from this, the UNIX format may be used in all VMS POPLOG programs
to ensure portability. They will automatically be translated. See the
section on "File Specifications" in DOC * SYSSPEC-- Further information on previous changes ----------------------------
For summaries of previous changes between versions of POPLOG please see
HELP * V13_6.CHANGES
HELP * V13.CHANGES
For more detailed change notes (in chronological order):
HELP * NEWS.4
HELP * NEWS.5
HELP * NEWS.6
HELP * NEWS.7
HELP * NEWS.8
HELP * NEWS.9
HELP * NEWS.V10
HELP * NEWS.V11
HELP * NEWS.V12
HELP * NEWS.V13
HELP * NEWS.V13_6
HELP * NEWS
See also
HELP * LISPNEWS
HELP * PMLNEWS
HELP * PLOGNEWS
HELP * XPOP_NEWS
--- C.all/help/v14.changes
--- Copyright University of Sussex 1991. All rights reserved. ----------