+++ /dev/null
-<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1"?>
-<sect1 id="release-6-0">
- <title>Release notes for version 6.0</title>
-
- <sect2>
- <title>User-visible compiler changes</title>
- <itemizedlist>
- <listitem>
- <para>Template Haskell, a new feature for compile-time
- metaprogramming has been introduced. See <xref
- linkend="template-haskell"/>.</para>
- </listitem>
- <listitem>
- <para>INLINE pragmas on methods in class or instance
- declarations now work properly.</para>
- </listitem>
- <listitem>
- <para>Recursive do-notation (aka <literal>mdo</literal>) is
- now supported. See <xref linkend="mdo-notation"/>.</para>
- </listitem>
- <listitem>
- <para>There is now a native code generator for PowerPC
- platforms.</para>
- </listitem>
- <listitem>
- <para>Profiling: the <option>-xt</option> RTS option enables
- inclusion of thread stacks in a heap profile. See <xref
- linkend="rts-options-heap-prof"/>.</para>
- </listitem>
- <listitem>
- <para>Non-blocking I/O is now supported on Windows.</para>
- </listitem>
- <listitem>
- <para>The <ulink url="../libraries/base/Data.Dynamic.html#Typeable"><literal>Typeable</literal></ulink> class can now be
- derived, and the implementation of <literal>Typeable</literal>
- is now more efficient.</para>
- </listitem>
- </itemizedlist>
- </sect2>
-
- <sect2>
- <title>User-visible interpreter (GHCi) changes</title>
- <itemizedlist>
- <listitem>
- <para>Loading a <literal>Main</literal> module that does not
- define <literal>main</literal> is no longer an error, although
- GHCi will still emit a warning in this case.</para>
- </listitem>
- </itemizedlist>
- </sect2>
-
- <sect2>
- <title>User-visible library changes</title>
- <itemizedlist>
- <listitem>
- <para>Hierarchical libraries are now available without needing
- to specify an explicit <option>-package</option> flag. There
- are some exceptions to this rule (see <xref
- linkend="using-packages"/>), but if you stick to GHCi and
- <option>--make</option> mode then there will normally be no
- need to specify <option>-package</option> options at
- all.</para>
-
- <para>Non-hierarchical libraries
- (i.e. <literal>hslibs</literal> libraries) still need to be
- explicitly requested with <option>-package</option>
- options.</para>
- </listitem>
-
- <listitem>
- <para>The <literal>Posix</literal> library has been rewritten.
- It is now a hierarchical library rooted at
- <literal>System.Posix</literal>, and has some additions aimed
- at supporting the latest revision of the POSIX standard (IEEE
- Std 1003.1-2001). See the <ulink
- url="../libraries/unix/index.html"><literal>unix</literal>
- package</ulink> for details.</para>
-
- <para>The old <literal>posix</literal> package is still
- available for backwards compatibility, but is deprecated and
- will be removed in a future release.</para>
- </listitem>
-
- <listitem>
- <para><ulink url="../libraries/base/Data.IORef.html"><literal>Data.IORef</literal></ulink>: Added <literal>atomicModifyIORef</literal>.</para>
- </listitem>
-
- <listitem>
- <para><ulink url="../libraries/base/System.Cmd.html"><literal>System.Cmd</literal></ulink>: Added <literal>rawSystem</literal>.</para>
- </listitem>
-
- <listitem>
- <para><ulink
- url="../libraries/base/System.Environment.html"><literal>System.Environment</literal></ulink>:
- Added <literal>withArgs</literal> and <literal>withProgName</literal>.</para>
- </listitem>
-
- <listitem>
- <para><ulink
- url="../libraries/network/Network.Socket.html"><literal>Network.Socket</literal></ulink>:
- Added <literal>sendFd</literal> and <literal>recvFd</literal>.</para>
- </listitem>
-
- <listitem>
- <para>The <literal>Readline</literal> library has moved to
- <ulink
- url="../libraries/readline/System.Console.Readline.html"><literal>System.Console.Readline</literal></ulink>,
- and is in a package of its own
- (<literal>readline</literal>).</para>
- </listitem>
-
- <listitem>
- <para>The non-hierarchical versions of the FFI libraries are
- now all available without needing to specify <literal>-package
- lang</literal> (they are actually now in the
- <literal>haskell98</literal> package, which is available by
- default).</para>
- </listitem>
-
- <listitem>
- <para><ulink
- url="../libraries/network/Network.BSD.html"><literal>Network.BSD</literal></ulink>:
- <literal>symlink</literal> and <literal>readline</literal> are
- now deprecated; use
- <literal>System.Posix.createSymbolicLink</literal> and
- <literal>System.Posix.readSymbolicLink</literal>
- respectively.</para>
- </listitem>
-
- <listitem>
- <para><ulink
- url="../libraries/base/Control.Exception.html"><literal>Control.Exception</literal></ulink>:
- Added <literal>mapException</literal>.</para>
- </listitem>
-
- <listitem>
- <para><ulink
- url="../libraries/base/Data.Dynamic.html"><literal>Data.Dynamic</literal></ulink>:
- various changes to make the implementation of
- <literal>Typeable</literal> more efficient. This entails some
- changes to the interface, and affects how instances of
- <literal>Typeable</literal> are defined.</para>
- </listitem>
-
- <listitem>
- <para><ulink
- url="../libraries/base/Data.Tree.html"><literal>Data.Tree</literal></ulink>
- is a new library for trees.</para>
- </listitem>
-
- <listitem>
- <para><ulink
- url="../libraries/base/Data.Graph.html"><literal>Data.Graph</literal></ulink>
- is a new library for graphs.</para>
- </listitem>
-
- <listitem>
- <para><ulink
- url="../libraries/base/System.IO.html"><literal>System.IO</literal></ulink>:
- Removed <literal>bracket</literal> and
- <literal>bracket_</literal> (use the versions from
- <literal>Control.Exception</literal> instead).</para>
- </listitem>
-
- <listitem>
- <para><ulink
- url="../libraries/base/System.IO.html"><literal>System.IO</literal></ulink>:
- The <literal>IOError</literal> type is now a synonym for
- <literal>IOException</literal>, whereas previously it was a
- synonym for <literal>Exception</literal>. This has various
- consequences, one of which is that the types of
- <literal>System.IO.catch</literal> and
- <literal>Control.Exception.catch</literal> are now different
- (useful, because they do different things).</para>
- </listitem>
-
- <listitem>
- <para><ulink
- url="../libraries/base/System.IO.Error.html"><literal>System.IO.Error</literal></ulink>:
- added <literal>annotateIOError</literal>,
- <literal>modifyIOError</literal>, and <literal>ioeSet{ErrorType,ErrorString,Handle,FileName}</literal>.</para>
- </listitem>
-
- <listitem>
- <para><ulink
- url="../libraries/base/Text.ParserCombinators.ReadP.html"><literal>Text.ParserCombinators.ReadP</literal></ulink>:
- lots of updates.</para>
- </listitem>
-
- <listitem>
- <para><literal>Control.Monad.Monoid</literal> is now <ulink url="../libraries/base/Data.Monoid.html"><literal>Data.Monoid</literal></ulink>.</para>
- </listitem>
-
- <listitem>
- <para><ulink
- url="../libraries/base/Data.PackedString.html"><literal>Data.PackedString</literal></ulink>:
- added <literal>joinPS</literal>, <literal>unwordsPS</literal>
- and <literal>unlinesPS</literal>.</para>
- </listitem>
-
- <listitem>
- <para><ulink
- url="../libraries/base/Data.HashTable.html"><literal>Data.HashTable</literal></ulink>
- is a new dynamic hash-table implementation.</para>
- </listitem>
-
- <listitem>
- <para>Added <ulink
- url="../libraries/unix/System.Sendfile.html"><literal>System.Sendfile</literal></ulink>.</para>
- </listitem>
-
- <listitem>
- <para>Added <ulink
- url="../libraries/base/Foreign.Marshal.Pool.html"><literal>Foreign.Marshal.Pool</literal></ulink>.</para>
- </listitem>
-
- <listitem>
- <para><ulink
- url="../libraries/base/Data.Bits.html"><literal>Data.Bits</literal></ulink>:
- <literal>shiftL</literal>, <literal>shiftR</literal>,
- <literal>rotateL</literal>, and <literal>rotateR</literal> are
- now methods of the <literal>Bite</literal> class.</para>
- </listitem>
-
- <listitem>
- <para>The FFI libraries now conform to the latest version of
- the FFI spec:</para>
- <itemizedlist>
- <listitem>
- <para>Added <ulink
- url="../libraries/base/Foreign.ForeignPtr.html#mallocForeignPtr"><literal>Foreign.ForeignPtr.mallocForeignPtr</literal></ulink>
- and friends.</para>
- </listitem>
- <listitem>
- <para>Finalizers added to a <literal>ForeignPtr</literal>
- with <literal>addForeignPtrFinalizer</literal> are now run
- in strict order; namely the reverse of the order they were
- added.</para>
- </listitem>
- <listitem>
- <para><literal>Foreign.C.TypesISO</literal> has been
- merged into <ulink
- url="../libraries/base/Foreign.C.Types.html"><literal>Foreign.C.Types</literal></ulink>.</para>
- </listitem>
- </itemizedlist>
- </listitem>
- </itemizedlist>
- </sect2>
-
- <sect2>
- <title>Experimental features</title>
- <itemizedlist>
- <listitem>
- <para>The <literal>Data</literal> class provides for generic
- data traversals and folds; see <ulink
- url="../libraries/base/Data.Generics.html"><literal>Data.Generics</literal></ulink>.
- <literal>Data</literal> can be derived for arbitrary
- datatypes. The <literal>Data</literal> class is still
- experimental, so its contents may change in the future.</para>
- </listitem>
- <listitem>
- <para>Several bugs have been fixed in the threaded RTS, and it
- should now be rather more robust (it should still be
- considered experimental, however).</para>
- </listitem>
- </itemizedlist>
- </sect2>
-
- <sect2>
- <title>Internal changes</title>
- <itemizedlist>
- <listitem>
- <para>Sweeping changes to the compiler and runtime system to
- change the evaluation model from <quote>push/enter</quote> to
- <quote>eval/apply</quote>. The bottom line is that the
- compiler is now more portable and some of the complexity is
- now more centralised, while performance and binary sizes
- remain about the same.</para>
-
- <para>A paper describing these changes can be found <ulink
- url="http://research.microsoft.com/~simonpj/papers/eval-apply">here</ulink>.</para>
- </listitem>
- <listitem>
- <para>The test suite is now driven by a Python script and is
- rather more flexible and robust. It now supports building
- tests several different "ways", and as a result we now run
- each test with optimisation, profiling, native code
- generation, and GHCi in addition to the vanilla way.</para>
- </listitem>
- <listitem>
- <para>The build system now supports bootstrapping the compiler
- in a single build tree. By default, typing
- <literal>make</literal> at the top level will bootstrap the
- compiler once to create a stage-2 compiler. See the Building
- Guide for more details.</para>
- </listitem>
- <listitem>
- <para>The RTS debugging flags are no longer represented by a
- bitfield and now have single-character names. For example, to
- turn on scheduler debugging output, use <literal>-Ds</literal>
- rather than <literal>-D1</literal>.</para>
- </listitem>
- <listitem>
- <para>The compiler no longer requires any packages from
- <literal>hslibs</literal> to bootstrap. It is enough to
- compile <literal>fptools/libraries</literal> before building
- the stage 2 compiler.</para>
- </listitem>
- </itemizedlist>
- </sect2>
-
-</sect1>
-
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