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2 <sect1 id="release-5-00">
3 <title>Release notes for version 5.00 (April 2001)</title>
6 <title>User-visible compiler changes</title>
9 <para>GHCi, the new interactive environment on top of GHC, has
10 been added (<xref linkend="ghci">).</para>
13 <para>New <option>––make</option> flag added (<xref
14 linkend="make-mode">).</para>
17 <para>The native code generator now supports Sparc in addition
21 <para>We now make it clear which options can be placed in an
22 OPTIONS pragma. See <xref
23 linkend="static-dynamic-flags">.</para>
26 <para><option>-fglasgow-exts</option> no longer implies
27 <option>-package lang</option>.</para>
30 <para><option>-noC</option> is no more.</para>
33 <para><option>-hi</option> and <option>-nohi</option> are no more.</para>
36 <para>The concept of “packages” has been
37 generalised and extended. Packages may be installed or
38 removed from an existing GHC installation using the new
39 <command>ghc-pkg</command> tool. See <xref
40 linkend="packages">.</para>
43 <para>Initial unicode support: the <literal>Char</literal>
44 type is now 31 bits. We don't yet have support for unicode
48 <para><option>-v</option> now takes an optional numeric
49 argument indicating the level of verbosity (<xref
50 linkend="options-help">). <option>-dshow-passes</option> has
54 <para>Parallel list comprehensions added. See <xref
55 linkend="parallel-list-comprehensions">.</para>
58 <para>Functional dependencies are now fully implemented.
62 <para>Profiling: please use
63 <literal>{-# SCC ".." #-}</literal>
64 rather than <literal>_scc_ "..."</literal>. The latter
65 will be phased out in due course.</para>
68 <para>A new experimental optimisation, SpecConstr, is turned
69 on with <literal>-O2</literal>.</para>
72 <para>Please report bugs using the <ulink
73 url="http://sourceforge.net/projects/ghc/">SourceForge bug
74 tracker</ulink> instead of
75 <email>glasgow-haskell-bugs@haskell.org</email> if
79 <para>Documentation changes: there's now a useful Flag
80 Reference section, see <xref linkend="flag-reference">.</para>
83 <para>Many, many, bugfixes.</para>
89 <title>New experimental features</title>
93 <para>A “front panel” for GHC-compiled programs
94 displays real-time graphs of memory behaviour in a GTK+
95 window. You need to recompile the RTS with front panel
96 support to use this.</para>
102 <title>FFI changes</title>
105 <para><command>hsc2hs</command> added (<xref linkend="hsc2hs">).</para>
108 <para>FFI libraries have been updated to the latest proposal
109 from the FFI task force. Too many changes to list here, see
110 the docs: <xref linkend="Foreign">.</para>
116 <title>User-visible library changes</title>
119 <para><function>putMVar</function> now blocks if the
120 <literal>MVar</literal> is already full. The
121 <literal>PutFullMVar</literal> exception no longer exists.
122 A non-blocking version of <function>putMVar</function>,
123 <function>tryPutMVar</function>, has been added (<xref
124 linkend="MVars">).</para>
127 <para>The <literal>Int</literal> and
128 <literal>Integer</literal> types now have instances of
129 <literal>Bits</literal> (<xref linkend="Bits">).</para>
132 <para>Package <literal>hssource</literal> has been added. It
133 contains a Haskell 98 abstract syntax, parser, lexer and pretty
134 printer. No documentation yet.</para>
137 <para>The methods <literal>fromInt</literal> and
138 <literal>toInt</literal>, which used to be in class
139 <literal>Num</literal> but exported from module
140 <literal>Int</literal>, are no longer in class
141 <literal>Num</literal>. They're still available from module
142 <literal>Int</literal>, however.</para>
144 <para>In most cases, there should be no benefit from using
145 <literal>fromInt</literal> instead of
146 <literal>fromIntegral</literal>, which is specialised for all
147 integral types.</para>
150 <para>New modules: DiffArray (<xref linkend="DiffArray">),
151 StorableArray (<xref linkend="StorableArray">),
152 MonadList, MonadCont (no documentation yet).</para>
158 <title>Build system changes</title>
162 <para>The <literal>WithGhcHc</literal> setting in
163 <literal>build.mk</literal> has been replaced by the
164 <literal>––with-ghc=<replaceable>ghc</replaceable></literal>
165 option to <literal>configure</literal>. The new option
166 <emphasis>must</emphasis> be used if you intend to use
167 anything except “<literal>ghc</literal>” to
168 bootstrap GHC, in order that the build system can figure out
169 what version of GHC you're using.</para>
172 <para>Source distributions are now made by doing <literal>make
173 distclean</literal> in a build tree, instead of requiring a
174 linked build tree.</para>
180 <title>Internal changes</title>
183 <para>Many internal compiler changes: too many to list
187 <para>The old perl driver has been removed and replaced by a
188 driver in the compiler proper.</para>
191 <para>We now use GMP 3 instead of GMP 2 for
192 arbitrary-precision integer support.</para>
195 <para>Several libraries rewritten to use the FFI.</para>
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