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Pike 7.2.30 Release Notes

New/changed behaviour in pike 7.2

  • #pike

    Pike files can now be identified with which version of pike they where written for with the preprocessor directive #pike. The Pike interpreter can then use the apropriate compatibility features.

    Note that this can also be used for older versions of Pike; a Pike 7.0 or 0.6 script won't take offence just because you add a #pike line in the beginning of it but it will give 7.2 or later versions of pike a fair chance of running it witout complaining about incompatible changes to pike that were introduced later. By running the pike with eg. -V 7.0, you explicitly tell the compiler to assume compatibility mode of the given version, except where overridden by other #pike directives.

  • --features

    The pike binary can be started with the flag --features which will make it return a list of all "features" available. The subjective definition of a feature is something that depends on an external library, special features in the OS/hardware or extra compile options.

  • --info

    The --info flag shows, in addition to the feature list, some version and environment information about the pike binary. An example: 

          Software......Pike
      Version.......Pike v7.2 release 30
      WWW...........http://pike.idonex.se/
      Main author...Fredrik Hübinette
      
      pike binary.../export/d1/nilsson/pike/7.2.30/bin/pike
      master.pike.../export/d1/nilsson/pike/7.2.30/lib/master.pike
      Module path.../export/d1/nilsson/pike/7.2.30/lib/modules
      Include path../export/d1/nilsson/pike/7.2.30/lib/include
      Program path..
      
      Features......dynamic_modules
  		    threads
  		    out-of-band_data
  		    Crypto
  		    GL
  		    GTK
  		    Gdbm
  		    Gmp
  		    Gz
  		    Image.JPEG
  		    Image.GIF
  		    Image.TIFF
  		    Image.TTF
  		    Image.PNG
  		    Java
  		    Mird
  		    Mysql

  • All LFUNs may now be static.

    Callbacks used for overloading may now be declared as static.

  • Improved error diagnostics.

    The Pike compiler will now provide better error messages, i.e. more specific than "parse error" in many more cases than before.

  • Improved optimization of recursive functions.

    Tail recursion optimization is now applied in more cases.

  • Improved optimizer.

    The global optimizer now has a tree optimizer that performs parse tree transformations such as strength reduction optimization.

  • Improved support for 64bit platforms.

    The entire pike source has been audited and successfully compiled on 64 bit architectures.

  • Improved support for LFUNs in various efuns.

    Overloading is now taken into account in more places than before.

  • Improved type resolving.

    Pike can better derive the proper type of complex expressions.

  • Labeled break and continue.

    Loops can now be labeled and referenced to from break and continue. Example: 

      	int a, b;
      foo:
  	for (int i = 1; i <= 4; i++) {
  	  a = i;
  	  switch (1) {
  	    case 1:
  	      if (i >= 3) break foo;
  	      if (i >= 2) continue foo;
  	  }
  	  b = i;
  	}
  	return ({a, b}); // Returns ({3, 1})

  • Local variables at the same nesting depth may no longer overlap.

    This is a return to the behavior of Pike 0.6. (We promise not to change it again...) This may cause some compatibility problems with Pike 7.0 code. (See the #pike feature above)

  • More well-defined destruct order in the GC.

    Yep. Actually most of the GC has been rewritten from scratch.

  • New platforms supported.

    MacOS X (Darwin 1.3), Linux 2.4 IA64, MS Windows 2000, MS Windows XP, MS Windows XP 64bit.

  • Optimized compiler.

    The Pike compiler is now 50% faster than before.

  • Optimized the search algorithms some more.

    search() et al are now faster than before.

  • Several headerfiles renamed to improve portability.

  • Simulate is gone

    If you actually need Simulate, use #pike 7.0 and it will appear.

  • SQL sprintf style arguments

    It is now possible to make sprintf style SQL queries with automatic, database specific quoting. Example: 

        db->query("SELECT * FROM things WHERE id > %d AND name LIKE %s",
              lowest, pattern);

  • Support for Unix system calls.

    Support for the Unix system calls setpgrp(), getsid() and setsid(), setrlimit(), getrlimit() (all in the system module, see below), support for setsid in Process.create_process().

  • Support for cross-compilation.

  • Support for implicit create().

    The following two class definitions are equivalent: 

        class Foo {

      int a;
      string b;
      static void create(int _a, string _b) {
        a = _a;
        b = _b;
      }
    }

    class Foo(int a, string b) {
    }

  • Support for local constants.

    Constants can now be defined inside functions.

  • Support for the local::id syntax.

    Makes it possible to resolve symbols in the local scope. Example: 

        class A {

      int foo() { return 1; }
      int bar() { return foo(); }
      int baz() { return local::foo(); }
    }

    class B {
      inherit A;

      int foo() { return 2; }
    }
    B()->bar() will return 2 while B()->baz() returns 1.

  • type_of() and _type_of() now return the type type.

    Example: 

          constant boolean = typeof(0)|typeof(1);
      boolean flag = 1;
      
      int main( int argc, array(string) argv )
      {
      	flag = (argc>1)?(int)argv[1]:flag;
      	write( "Type of flag is %O\n", typeof(flag) );
      	write( "Value of flag is %O\n", flag );
      	return 0;
      }

  • typedef syntax added.

    Example: 

          typedef int(0..1) boolean;
      boolean flag = 1;
      
      int main( int argc, array(string) argv )
      {
      	flag = (argc>1)?(int)argv[1]:flag;
      	write( "Type of flag is %O\n", typeof(flag) );
      	write( "Value of flag is %O\n", flag );
      	return 0;
      }

  • enum syntax added.

    Example: 

           enum boolean {
         false,true
       }
       boolean flag = true;

New modules

  • ADT.Stack

    Previously known as Stack.

  • Cache

    Plugin-based generic caching system, supporting chain-deletion of records. Currently supported storage areas are RAM, GDBM, Yabu or MySQL databases, removal policies are explicit remove, time-constrained, size-constrained, combined.

  • Calendar

    The new Calendar module. There is a big FAQ in its directory describing many of its capabilities.

  • Calendar_I

    The old Calendar module. Available as Calendar when #pike 7.0 is used.

  • Crypto.aes / Crypto.rijndael

    Rijndael is a block cipher, designed by Joan Daemen and Vincent Rijmen, which was the winning candidate algorithm for the AES (http://csrc.nist.gov/encryption/aes/). The cipher has a variable block length and key length.

  • Crypto.md2

    The MD2 Message-Digest Algorithm, as defined in RFC 1319 (http://community.roxen.com/developers/idocs/rfc/rfc1319.html).

  • Geography

    Capable of converting between symbolic names for the countries to the actual country name. It can convert between differnet kinds of position systems such as longitude/latitude, UTM and Georef. The conversion can be done on any type of ellipsoid. 18 of the most common earth approximations are included.

  • Image.FreeType

    Support for FreeType 2.0.

  • Math.Angle

    For easy use of angles in computations. It can handle degrees, radians and gons and conversion between them. You can reference a degree angle with degrees, minutes and seconds. Includes methods for normalization, trigonometrical calculations etc.

  • Mird

    Glue module to libmird, a free simple database with transactions, see http://www.mirar.org/mird/

  • PDF

    This is a glue module to pdflib,a "half-free" PDF generating library.

  • Parser.XML.DOM

    An implementation of DOM Level 1. See http://www.w3.org/DOM/.

  • Parser.XML.Tree

    An easy to use, lightweight module to traverse and manipulate XML trees.

  • Protocols.HTTP

    The API functions in Protocols.HTTP now take their URLs either as strings or Standards.URI objects. You also no longer need to set the authorization header on your own, if your URL contains user:password information (e g http://user:password@some.host.com/).

  • Protocols.IRC

    A client implementation of the IRC (Internet Relay Chat) protocol.

  • Protocols.SNMP

    Implements SNMP v1, according to RFC 1157: http://community.roxen.com/developers/idocs/rfc/rfc1157.html

  • Standards.ISO639_2

    A module providing mapping from ISO-639-2 language codes to language names and vice versa.

  • Standards.URI

    Abstract class for URI:s (or URL:s) that both handles indexing out/altering the various individual components of a URI and correct resolving/reresolving of a URI with respect to another base URI, all according with RFC 2396: http://community.roxen.com/developers/idocs/rfc/rfc2396.html

    Protocols.HTTP now also accepts Standards.URI objects as input to all methods that previously used to accept only URL strings.

  • Stdio.Stat

    file_stat() now returns Stdio.Stat objects instead of arrays. These objects emulate the behaviour of the previously used arrays, but also provide an easier to use interface. (See the #pike feature above)

  • Tools.AutoDoc

    Extracts the new inline documentation format. We will post more information on this when this system has matured enough to build working pike reference manuals. Some information is available in files .autodoc_inlining and .autodoc_syntax in the top directory.

  • system

    A module housing various operating system calls made available to pike that previously used to be provided as efuns (hardlink, symlink, resolvepath, umask, chmod, chown, chroot stc.). Be prepared to see these efuns disappear to compat mode only in the future. They will, however, of course be available in the system module.

  • Added array Regexp match.

    Example: 

      
      Regexp("[0-9]+")->match( ({ "hello", "12", "foo17" }) );
    Returns ({ "12", "foo17" })