docs/users_guide/7.0.1-notes.xml

   1 <?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1"?>
   2 <sect1 id="release-7-0-1">
   3   <title>Release notes for version 7.0.1</title>
   4
   5   <para>
   6     The significant changes to the various parts of the compiler are
   7     listed in the following sections. There have also been numerous bug
   8     fixes and performance improvements over the 6.12 branch.
   9   </para>
  10
  11   <sect2>
  12     <title>Highlights</title>
  13     <itemizedlist>
  14       <listitem>
  15         <para>
  16           GHC now defaults to the Haskell 2010 language standard.
  17         </para>
  18
  19         <para>
  20           Libraries are not quite so straightforward.  By default, GHC
  21           provides access to the <literal>base</literal> package,
  22           which includes the Haskell 2010 libraries, albeit with a few
  23           minor differences.  For those who want to write strictly
  24           standards-conforming code we also provide
  25           the <literal>haskell2010</literal> package which provides
  26           the precise APIs specified by Haskell 2010, but because the
  27           module names in this package overlap with those in
  28           the <literal>base</literal> package it is not possible to
  29           use both <literal>haskell2010</literal>
  30           and <literal>base</literal> at the same time (this also
  31           applies to the <literal>array</literal> package).  Hence to use
  32           the Haskell 2010 libraries you should hide
  33           the <literal>base</literal> and <literal>array</literal>
  34           packages, for example with GHCi:
  35 <screen>
  36 $ ghci -package haskell2010 -hide-package base -hide-package array
  37 </screen>
  38           If you are using Cabal it isn't necessary to
  39           hide <literal>base</literal> and <literal>array</literal>
  40           explicitly, just don't include them in your <literal>build-depends</literal>.
  41         </para>
  42       </listitem>
  43
  44       <listitem>
  45         <para>
  46           On POSIX platforms, there is a new I/O manager based on
  47           epoll/kqueue/poll, which allows multithreaded I/O code to
  48           scale to a much larger number (100k+) of threads.
  49         </para>
  50       </listitem>
  51
  52       <listitem>
  53         <para>
  54                                         GHC now includes an LLVM code generator. For certain code,
  55                                         particularly arithmetic heavy code, using the LLVM code
  56                                         generator can bring some nice performance improvements.
  57         </para>
  58       </listitem>
  59
  60       <listitem>
  61         <para>
  62           The inliner has been overhauled, which should in general
  63           give better performance while reducing unnecessary code-size
  64           explosion.
  65         </para>
  66       </listitem>
  67
  68       <listitem>
  69         <para>
  70           Large parts of the runtime system have been overhauled, in
  71           particular the machinery related to blocking and wakeup of
  72           threads and exception throwing (<literal>throwTo</literal>).
  73           Several instances of pathological performance have been
  74           fixed, especially where large numbers of threads are
  75           involved.
  76         </para>
  77       </listitem>
  78
  79       <listitem>
  80         <para>
  81           Due to changes in the runtime system, if you are
  82           using <literal>Control.Parallel.Strategies</literal> from
  83           the <literal>parallel</literal> package, please upgrade to
  84           at least version 2 (preferably version 3).  The
  85           implementation of Strategies
  86           in <literal>parallel-1.x</literal> will lose parallelism
  87           with GHC 7.0.1.
  88         </para>
  89       </listitem>
  90
  91       <listitem>
  92         <para>
  93           The full Haskell <literal>import</literal> syntax can now been
  94           used to bring modules into scope in GHCi, e.g.
  95         </para>
  96 <programlisting>
  97 Prelude> import Data.List as L
  98 Prelude Data.List> L.length "foo"
  99 3
 100 </programlisting>
 101       </listitem>
 102
 103       <listitem>
 104         <para>
 105           GHC now comes with a more recent mingw bundled on Windows,
 106           which includes a fix for windres on Windows 7.
 107         </para>
 108       </listitem>
 109     </itemizedlist>
 110   </sect2>
 111
 112   <sect2>
 113     <title>Language changes</title>
 114     <itemizedlist>
 115       <listitem>
 116         <para>
 117           GHC now understands the <literal>Haskell98</literal> and
 118           <literal>Haskell2010</literal> languages.
 119         </para>
 120
 121         <para>
 122           These get processed before the language extension pragmas,
 123           and define the default sets of extensions that are enabled.
 124           If neither is specified, then the default is
 125           <literal>Haskell2010</literal> plus the
 126           <literal>MonoPatBinds</literal> extension.
 127         </para>
 128       </listitem>
 129
 130       <listitem>
 131         <para>
 132           GHC now supports the <literal>DoAndIfThenElse</literal>
 133           extension, which is part of the Haskell 2010 standard.
 134         </para>
 135       </listitem>
 136
 137       <listitem>
 138         <para>
 139           Datatype contexts, such as the <literal>Eq a</literal> in
 140         </para>
 141 <programlisting>
 142 data Eq a => Set a = NilSet | ConsSet a (Set a)
 143 </programlisting>
 144         <para>
 145           are now treated as an extension
 146           <literal>DatatypeContexts</literal> (on by default) by GHC.
 147         </para>
 148       </listitem>
 149
 150       <listitem>
 151         <para>
 152           GHC's support for unicode source has been improved, including
 153           removing support for U+22EF for the <literal>..</literal>
 154           symbol. See <xref linkend="unicode-syntax" /> for more details.
 155         </para>
 156       </listitem>
 157
 158       <listitem>
 159         <para>
 160           Pragmas are now reread after preprocessing. In particular,
 161           this means that if a pragma is used to turn CPP on, then other
 162           pragmas can be put in CPP conditionals.
 163         </para>
 164       </listitem>
 165
 166       <listitem>
 167         <para>
 168           The <literal>TypeOperators</literal> extension now allows
 169           instance heads to use infix syntax.
 170         </para>
 171       </listitem>
 172
 173       <listitem>
 174         <para>
 175           The <literal>PackageImports</literal> extension now understands
 176           <literal>this</literal> to mean the current package.
 177         </para>
 178       </listitem>
 179
 180       <listitem>
 181         <para>
 182           The <literal>INLINE</literal> and <literal>NOINLINE</literal>
 183           pragmas can now take a <literal>CONLIKE</literal> modifier,
 184           which indicates that the right hand side is cheap to compute,
 185           and can thus be duplicated more freely.
 186           See <xref linkend="conlike" /> for more details.
 187         </para>
 188       </listitem>
 189
 190       <listitem>
 191         <para>
 192           A <literal>ForceSpecConstr</literal> annotation on a type, e.g.
 193         </para>
 194 <programlisting>
 195 import SpecConstr
 196 {-# ANN type SPEC ForceSpecConstr #-}
 197 </programlisting>
 198         <para>
 199           can be used to force GHC to fully specialise argument of that
 200           type.
 201         </para>
 202       </listitem>
 203
 204       <listitem>
 205         <para>
 206           A <literal>NoSpecConstr</literal> annotation on a type, e.g.
 207         </para>
 208 <programlisting>
 209 import SpecConstr
 210 {-# ANN type T NoSpecConstr #-}
 211 </programlisting>
 212         <para>
 213           can be used to prevent SpecConstr from specialising on
 214           arguments of that type.
 215         </para>
 216       </listitem>
 217
 218       <listitem>
 219         <para>
 220           There is are two experimental new extensions
 221           <literal>AlternativeLayoutRule</literal> and
 222           <literal>AlternativeLayoutRuleTransitional</literal>,
 223           which are for exploring alternative layout rules in Haskell'.
 224           The details are subject to change, so we advise against using
 225           them in real code for now.
 226         </para>
 227       </listitem>
 228
 229       <listitem>
 230         <para>
 231           The <literal>NewQualifiedOperators</literal> extension has
 232           been deprecated, as it was rejected by the Haskell' committee.
 233         </para>
 234       </listitem>
 235     </itemizedlist>
 236   </sect2>
 237
 238   <sect2>
 239     <title>Warnings</title>
 240     <itemizedlist>
 241       <listitem>
 242         <para>
 243           There is now a warning for missing import lists, controlled
 244           by the new <literal>-fwarn-missing-import-lists</literal> flag.
 245         </para>
 246       </listitem>
 247
 248       <listitem>
 249         <para>
 250           GHC will now warn about <literal>SPECIALISE</literal> and
 251           <literal>UNPACK</literal> pragmas that have no effect.
 252         </para>
 253       </listitem>
 254     </itemizedlist>
 255   </sect2>
 256
 257   <sect2>
 258     <title>DLLs</title>
 259     <itemizedlist>
 260       <listitem>
 261         <para>
 262           Shared libraries are once again supported on Windows.
 263         </para>
 264       </listitem>
 265
 266       <listitem>
 267         <para>
 268           Shared libraries are now supported on OS X, both on x86 and on
 269           PowerPC. The new <literal>-dylib-install-name</literal> GHC
 270           flag is used to set the location of the dynamic library.
 271           See <xref linkend="finding-shared-libs" /> for more details.
 272         </para>
 273       </listitem>
 274     </itemizedlist>
 275   </sect2>
 276
 277   <sect2>
 278     <title>Runtime system</title>
 279
 280     <itemizedlist>
 281       <listitem>
 282         <para>
 283           For security reasons, by default, the only RTS flag that
 284           programs accept is <literal>+RTS --info</literal>. If you want
 285           the full range of RTS flags then you need to link with the new
 286           <literal>-rtsopts</literal> flag. See
 287           <xref linkend="options-linker" /> for more details.
 288         </para>
 289       </listitem>
 290
 291       <listitem>
 292         <para>
 293           The RTS now exports a function <literal>setKeepCAFs</literal>
 294           which is important when loading Haskell DLLs dynamically, as
 295           a DLL may refer to CAFs that hae already been GCed.
 296         </para>
 297       </listitem>
 298
 299       <listitem>
 300         <para>
 301           The garbage collector no longer allows you to specify a number
 302           of steps; there are now always 2. The <literal>-T</literal>
 303           RTS flag has thus been removed.
 304         </para>
 305       </listitem>
 306
 307       <listitem>
 308         <para>
 309           A new RTS flag <literal>-H</literal> causes the RTS to use a
 310           larger nursery, but without exceeding the amount of memory
 311           that the application is already using. It makes some programs
 312           go slower, but others go faster.
 313         </para>
 314       </listitem>
 315
 316       <listitem>
 317         <para>
 318           GHC now returns memory to the OS, if memory usage peaks and
 319           then drops again. This is mainly useful for long running
 320           processes which normally use very little memory, but
 321           occasionally need a lot of memory for a short period of time.
 322         </para>
 323       </listitem>
 324
 325       <listitem>
 326         <para>
 327           On OS X, eventLog events are now available as DTrace probes.
 328         </para>
 329       </listitem>
 330
 331       <listitem>
 332         <para>
 333           The PAPI support has been improved. The new RTS flag
 334           <literal>-a#0x40000000</literal> can be used to tell the RTS
 335           to collect the native PAPI event <literal>0x40000000</literal>.
 336         </para>
 337       </listitem>
 338     </itemizedlist>
 339   </sect2>
 340
 341   <sect2>
 342     <title>Compiler</title>
 343     <itemizedlist>
 344       <listitem>
 345         <para>
 346           GHC now defaults to <literal>--make</literal> mode, i.e. GHC
 347           will chase dependencies for you automatically by default.
 348         </para>
 349       </listitem>
 350
 351       <listitem>
 352         <para>
 353           GHC now includes an LLVM code generator.
 354         </para>
 355         <para>
 356           This includes a number of new flags:
 357           a flag to tell GHC to use LLVM, <literal>-fllvm</literal>;
 358           a flag to dump the LLVM input ,<literal>-ddump-llvm</literal>;
 359           flags to keep the LLVM intermediate files,
 360           <literal>-keep-llvm-file</literal> and
 361           <literal>-keep-llvm-files</literal>;
 362                                         flags to set the location and options for the LLVM optimiser
 363                                         and compiler,
 364           <literal>-pgmlo</literal>,
 365           <literal>-pgmlc</literal>,
 366           <literal>-optlo</literal> and
 367           <literal>-optlc</literal>.
 368                                         The LLVM code generator requires LLVM version 2.7 or later on
 369                                         your path.
 370         </para>
 371       </listitem>
 372
 373       <listitem>
 374         <para>
 375           It is now possible to use <literal>-fno-code</literal> with
 376           <literal>--make</literal>.
 377         </para>
 378       </listitem>
 379
 380       <listitem>
 381         <para>
 382           The new flag <literal>-dsuppress-coercions</literal> controls
 383           whether GHC prints coercions in core dumps.
 384         </para>
 385       </listitem>
 386
 387       <listitem>
 388         <para>
 389           The new flag <literal>-dsuppress-module-prefixes</literal>
 390           controls whether GHC prints module qualification prefixes
 391           in core dumps.
 392         </para>
 393       </listitem>
 394
 395       <listitem>
 396         <para>
 397           The inliner has been overhauled. The most significant
 398           user-visible change is that only saturated functions are
 399           inlined, e.g.
 400         </para>
 401 <programlisting>
 402 (.) f g x = f (g x)
 403 </programlisting>
 404         <para>
 405           would only be inlined if <literal>(.)</literal> is applied to 3
 406           arguments, while
 407         </para>
 408 <programlisting>
 409 (.) f g = \x -> f (g x)
 410 </programlisting>
 411         <para>
 412           will be inlined if only applied to 2 arguments.
 413         </para>
 414       </listitem>
 415
 416       <listitem>
 417         <para>
 418           The <literal>-finline-if-enough-args</literal> flag is no
 419           longer supported.
 420         </para>
 421       </listitem>
 422
 423       <listitem>
 424         <para>
 425           Column numbers in warnings and error messages now start at 1,
 426           as is more standard, rather than 0.
 427         </para>
 428       </listitem>
 429
 430       <listitem>
 431         <para>
 432           GHCi now understands most linker scripts. In particular, this
 433           means that GHCi is able to load the C pthread library.
 434         </para>
 435       </listitem>
 436
 437       <listitem>
 438         <para>
 439           The <literal>ghc --info</literal> output has been updated:
 440         </para>
 441         <para>
 442           It now includes the
 443           location of the global package database, in the
 444           <literal>Global Package DB</literal> field.
 445         </para>
 446         <para>
 447           It now includes the build, host and target platforms, in the
 448           <literal>Build platform</literal>,
 449           <literal>Host platform</literal> and
 450           <literal>Target platform</literal> fields.
 451         </para>
 452         <para>
 453           It now includes a <literal>Have llvm code generator</literal>
 454           field.
 455         </para>
 456         <para>
 457           The <literal>Win32 DLLs</literal> field has been removed.
 458         </para>
 459       </listitem>
 460
 461       <listitem>
 462         <para>
 463           The registerised via-C backend, and the
 464           <literal>-fvia-C</literal> flag, have been deprecated. The poor
 465           floating-point performance in the x86 native code generator
 466           has now been fixed, so we don't believe there is still any
 467           reason to use the via-C backend.
 468         </para>
 469       </listitem>
 470
 471       <listitem>
 472         <para>
 473           There is now a new flag <literal>--supported-extensions</literal>,
 474           which currently behaves the same as
 475           <literal>--supported-languages</literal>.
 476         </para>
 477       </listitem>
 478
 479       <listitem>
 480         <para>
 481           GHC progress output such as
 482         </para>
 483 <programlisting>
 484 [ 1 of 5] Compiling Foo              ( Foo.hs, Foo.o )
 485 </programlisting>
 486         <para>
 487           is now sent to stdout rather than stderr.
 488         </para>
 489       </listitem>
 490
 491       <listitem>
 492         <para>
 493           The new flag <literal>-fexpose-all-unfoldings</literal>
 494           makes GHC put unfoldings for <emphasis>everything</emphasis>
 495           in the interface file.
 496         </para>
 497       </listitem>
 498
 499       <listitem>
 500         <para>
 501           There are two new flags, <literal>-fno-specialise</literal>
 502           and <literal>-fno-float-in</literal>, for disabling the
 503           specialise and float-in passes.
 504         </para>
 505       </listitem>
 506
 507       <listitem>
 508         <para>
 509           The new flag <literal>-fstrictness-before=<replaceable>n</replaceable></literal> tells
 510           GHC to run an additional strictness analysis pass
 511           before simplifier phase <replaceable>n</replaceable>.
 512         </para>
 513       </listitem>
 514
 515       <listitem>
 516         <para>
 517           There is a new flag
 518           <literal>-funfolding-dict-discount</literal>
 519           for tweaking the optimiser's behaviour.
 520         </para>
 521       </listitem>
 522
 523       <listitem>
 524         <para>
 525           The <literal>-fspec-inline-join-points</literal> flag has been
 526           removed.
 527         </para>
 528       </listitem>
 529
 530       <listitem>
 531         <para>
 532           The <literal>-dynload wrapper</literal> flag has been
 533           removed.
 534         </para>
 535       </listitem>
 536     </itemizedlist>
 537   </sect2>
 538
 539   <sect2>
 540     <title>GHCi</title>
 541     <itemizedlist>
 542       <listitem>
 543         <para>
 544           GHCi now understands layout in multi-line commands, so
 545           this now works:
 546         </para>
 547 <programlisting>
 548 Prelude> :{
 549 Prelude| let x = 1
 550 Prelude|     y = 2 in x + y
 551 Prelude| :}
 552 3
 553 </programlisting>
 554       </listitem>
 555     </itemizedlist>
 556   </sect2>
 557
 558   <sect2>
 559     <title>Template Haskell and Quasi-Quoters</title>
 560     <itemizedlist>
 561       <listitem>
 562         <para>
 563           It is now possible to quasi-quote patterns with
 564           <literal>[p| ... |]</literal>.
 565         </para>
 566       </listitem>
 567
 568       <listitem>
 569         <para>
 570           It is no longer to use a <literal>$</literal> before the
 571           name of a quasi-quoter, e.g. one can now say
 572           <literal>[expr| ... |]</literal> rather than
 573           <literal>[$expr| ... |]</literal>.
 574         </para>
 575       </listitem>
 576
 577       <listitem>
 578         <para>
 579           It is now possible to use a quasi-quoter for types, e.g.
 580           <literal>f :: [$qq| ... |]</literal>
 581         </para>
 582       </listitem>
 583
 584       <listitem>
 585         <para>
 586           It is now possible to quasi-quote existentials and GADTs.
 587         </para>
 588       </listitem>
 589     </itemizedlist>
 590   </sect2>
 591
 592   <sect2>
 593     <title>GHC API</title>
 594     <itemizedlist>
 595       <listitem>
 596         <para>
 597           There are now <literal>Data</literal> and
 598           <literal>Typeable</literal> instances for the
 599           HsSyn typed.
 600         </para>
 601       </listitem>
 602
 603       <listitem>
 604         <para>
 605           As language extensions are not applied until after the base
 606           language (Haskell98, Haskell2010 or the default) has been
 607           selected, it is now necessary to tell the GHC API the point
 608           at which the extension flags should be processed. Normally
 609           this is done by calling
 610           <literal>DynFlags.flattenExtensionFlags</literal> once all
 611           the flags and pragmas have been read.
 612         </para>
 613       </listitem>
 614     </itemizedlist>
 615   </sect2>
 616
 617   <sect2>
 618     <title>Libraries</title>
 619
 620     <sect3>
 621         <title>array</title>
 622         <itemizedlist>
 623             <listitem>
 624                 <para>
 625                     Version number 0.3.0.2 (was 0.3.0.1)
 626                 </para>
 627             </listitem>
 628         </itemizedlist>
 629     </sect3>
 630
 631     <sect3>
 632         <title>base</title>
 633         <itemizedlist>
 634             <listitem>
 635                 <para>
 636                     Version number 4.3.0.0 (was 4.2.0.2)
 637                 </para>
 638             </listitem>
 639
 640             <listitem>
 641                 <para>
 642                     There is a new asynchronous exception control API
 643                     in <literal>Control.Exception</literal>, using the
 644                     new functions
 645                     <literal>mask :: ((forall a. IO a -> IO a) -> IO b) -> IO b</literal>
 646                     and <literal>mask_ :: IO a -> IO a</literal>
 647                     rather than the old
 648                     <literal>block</literal> and <literal>unblock</literal>.
 649                     There are also functions
 650                     <literal>uninterruptibleMask :: ((forall a. IO a -> IO a) -> IO b) -> IO b</literal>
 651                     and
 652                     <literal>getMaskingState :: IO MaskingState</literal>,
 653                     and a type
 654                     <literal>MaskingState</literal>, as well as
 655                     <literal>forkIOUnmasked :: IO () -> IO ThreadId</literal>
 656                     in <literal>Control.Concurrent</literal>.
 657                 </para>
 658             </listitem>
 659
 660             <listitem>
 661                 <para>
 662                     <literal>Control.Monad</literal> exports a new function
 663                     <literal>void :: Functor f => f a -> f ()</literal>.
 664                 </para>
 665             </listitem>
 666
 667             <listitem>
 668                 <para>
 669                     <literal>Data.Tuple</literal> exports a new function
 670                     <literal>swap :: (a,b) -> (b,a)</literal>.
 671                 </para>
 672             </listitem>
 673
 674             <listitem>
 675                 <para>
 676                     <literal>System.IO</literal> exports a new function
 677                     <literal>hGetBufSome :: Handle -> Ptr a -> Int -> IO Int</literal>
 678                     which is like <literal>hGetBuf</literal> but can
 679                     return short reads.
 680                 </para>
 681             </listitem>
 682
 683             <listitem>
 684                 <para>
 685                     There is a new function
 686                     <literal>mfilter :: MonadPlus m => (a -> Bool) -> m a -> m a</literal>
 687                     in
 688                     <literal>Control.Monad</literal>.
 689                 </para>
 690             </listitem>
 691
 692             <listitem>
 693                 <para>
 694                     The <literal>Foreign.Marshal</literal> module now
 695                     exports
 696                     <literal>unsafeLocalState :: IO a -> a</literal>
 697                     as specified by Haskell 2010.
 698                 </para>
 699             </listitem>
 700
 701             <listitem>
 702                 <para>
 703                     The <literal></literal>
 704                     module now exports four new functions specified by
 705                     Haskell 2010:
 706                     <literal>castCUCharToChar :: CUChar -> Char</literal>,
 707                     <literal>castCharToCUChar :: Char -> CUChar</literal>,
 708                     <literal>castCSCharToChar :: CSChar -> Char</literal> and
 709                     <literal>castCharToCSChar :: Char -> CSChar</literal>.
 710                 </para>
 711             </listitem>
 712
 713             <listitem>
 714                 <para>
 715                     The <literal>Foreign.Marshal.Alloc</literal>
 716                     module now exports
 717                     <literal>allocaBytesAligned :: Int -> Int -> (Ptr a -> IO b) -> IO b</literal>
 718                     for allocating memory with a particular alignment.
 719                 </para>
 720             </listitem>
 721
 722             <listitem>
 723                 <para>
 724                     There is a new function
 725                     <literal>numSparks :: IO Int</literal>
 726                     in <literal>GHC.Conc</literal>.
 727                 </para>
 728             </listitem>
 729
 730             <listitem>
 731                 <para>
 732                     <literal>Data.Either.partitionEithers</literal>
 733                     in now lazier.
 734                 </para>
 735             </listitem>
 736
 737             <listitem>
 738                 <para>
 739                     There is now a <literal>Typeable</literal> instance for
 740                     <literal>Data.Unique.Unique</literal>.
 741                 </para>
 742             </listitem>
 743
 744             <listitem>
 745                 <para>
 746                     <literal>Control.Concurrent.SampleVar.SampleVar</literal>
 747                     is now an abstract type.
 748                 </para>
 749             </listitem>
 750
 751             <listitem>
 752                 <para>
 753                     There are now
 754                     <literal>Applicative</literal>,
 755                     <literal>Alternative</literal> and
 756                     <literal>MonadPlus</literal>
 757                     instances for <literal>STM</literal>.
 758                 </para>
 759             </listitem>
 760
 761             <listitem>
 762                 <para>
 763                     There are now <literal>Applicative</literal>,
 764                     <literal>Monad</literal> and
 765                     <literal>MonadFix</literal>
 766                     instances for <literal>Either</literal>.
 767                 </para>
 768             </listitem>
 769
 770             <listitem>
 771                 <para>
 772                     There are now
 773                     <literal>Ord</literal>,
 774                     <literal>Read</literal> and
 775                     <literal>Show</literal> instances for
 776                     <literal>Newline</literal> and
 777                     <literal>NewlineMode</literal>.
 778                 </para>
 779             </listitem>
 780
 781             <listitem>
 782                 <para>
 783                     There is now a <literal>Show</literal> instance for
 784                     <literal>TextEncoding</literal>.
 785                 </para>
 786             </listitem>
 787
 788             <listitem>
 789                 <para>
 790                     The <literal>unGetChan</literal> and
 791                     <literal>isEmptyChan</literal> functions in
 792                     <literal>Control.Concurrent.Chan</literal> are now
 793                     deprecated.
 794                     <literal>Control.Concurrent.STM.TChan</literal>
 795                     should be used instead if you need that
 796                     functionality.
 797                 </para>
 798             </listitem>
 799
 800             <listitem>
 801                 <para>
 802                     The <literal>Read Integer</literal> instance now
 803                     matches the standard definition.
 804                 </para>
 805             </listitem>
 806         </itemizedlist>
 807     </sect3>
 808
 809     <sect3>
 810         <title>base 3 compat</title>
 811         <itemizedlist>
 812             <listitem>
 813                 <para>
 814                     We no longer ship a base 3 compat package
 815                 </para>
 816             </listitem>
 817         </itemizedlist>
 818     </sect3>
 819
 820     <sect3>
 821         <title>bin-package-db</title>
 822         <itemizedlist>
 823             <listitem>
 824                 <para>
 825                     This is an internal package, and should not be used.
 826                 </para>
 827             </listitem>
 828         </itemizedlist>
 829     </sect3>
 830
 831     <sect3>
 832         <title>bytestring</title>
 833         <itemizedlist>
 834             <listitem>
 835                 <para>
 836                     Version number 0.9.1.8 (was 0.9.1.7)
 837                 </para>
 838             </listitem>
 839         </itemizedlist>
 840     </sect3>
 841
 842     <sect3>
 843         <title>Cabal</title>
 844         <itemizedlist>
 845             <listitem>
 846                 <para>
 847                     Version number 1.9.2 (was 1.8.0.6)
 848                 </para>
 849             </listitem>
 850
 851             <listitem>
 852                 <para>
 853                     Many API changes. See the Cabal docs for more information.
 854                 </para>
 855             </listitem>
 856         </itemizedlist>
 857     </sect3>
 858
 859     <sect3>
 860         <title>containers</title>
 861         <itemizedlist>
 862             <listitem>
 863                 <para>
 864                     Version number 0.4.0.0 (was 0.3.0.0)
 865                 </para>
 866             </listitem>
 867
 868             <listitem>
 869                 <para>
 870                     Strictness is now more consistent, with containers
 871                     being strict in their elements even in singleton
 872                     cases.
 873                 </para>
 874             </listitem>
 875
 876             <listitem>
 877                 <para>
 878                     There is a new function
 879                     <literal>insertLookupWithKey'</literal> in
 880                     <literal>Data.Map</literal>.
 881                 </para>
 882             </listitem>
 883
 884             <listitem>
 885                 <para>
 886                     The <literal>foldWithKey</literal> function in
 887                     <literal>Data.Map</literal> has been deprecated in
 888                     favour of <literal>foldrWithKey</literal>.
 889                 </para>
 890             </listitem>
 891         </itemizedlist>
 892     </sect3>
 893
 894     <sect3>
 895         <title>directory</title>
 896         <itemizedlist>
 897             <listitem>
 898                 <para>
 899                     Version number 1.1.0.0 (was 1.0.1.1)
 900                 </para>
 901             </listitem>
 902
 903             <listitem>
 904                 <para>
 905                     The <literal>System.Directory</literal> module
 906                     now exports the <literal>Permissions</literal> type
 907                     abstractly. There are also new functions
 908                     <literal>setOwnerReadable</literal>,
 909                     <literal>setOwnerWritable</literal>,
 910                     <literal>setOwnerExecutable</literal> and
 911                     <literal>setOwnerSearchable</literal>, and
 912                     a new value <literal>emptyPermissions</literal>.
 913                 </para>
 914             </listitem>
 915         </itemizedlist>
 916     </sect3>
 917
 918     <sect3>
 919         <title>
 920             dph
 921             (dph-base, dph-par, dph-prim-interface, dph-prim-par,
 922             dph-prim-seq, dph-seq)
 923         </title>
 924         <itemizedlist>
 925             <listitem>
 926                 <para>
 927                     All the dph packages are version 0.4.0.
 928                 </para>
 929             </listitem>
 930         </itemizedlist>
 931     </sect3>
 932
 933     <sect3>
 934         <title>extensible-exceptions</title>
 935         <itemizedlist>
 936             <listitem>
 937                 <para>
 938                     Version number 0.1.1.2 (was 0.1.1.1)
 939                 </para>
 940             </listitem>
 941         </itemizedlist>
 942     </sect3>
 943
 944     <sect3>
 945         <title>filepath</title>
 946         <itemizedlist>
 947             <listitem>
 948                 <para>
 949                     Version number 1.2.0.0 (was 1.1.0.4)
 950                 </para>
 951             </listitem>
 952
 953             <listitem>
 954                 <para>
 955                     The current directory is now <literal>"."</literal>
 956                     rather than <literal>""</literal>.
 957                 </para>
 958             </listitem>
 959         </itemizedlist>
 960     </sect3>
 961
 962     <sect3>
 963         <title>ghc-binary</title>
 964         <itemizedlist>
 965             <listitem>
 966                 <para>
 967                     This is an internal package, and should not be used.
 968                 </para>
 969             </listitem>
 970         </itemizedlist>
 971     </sect3>
 972
 973     <sect3>
 974         <title>ghc-prim</title>
 975         <itemizedlist>
 976             <listitem>
 977                 <para>
 978                     This is an internal package, and should not be used.
 979                 </para>
 980             </listitem>
 981         </itemizedlist>
 982     </sect3>
 983
 984     <sect3>
 985         <title>haskell98</title>
 986         <itemizedlist>
 987             <listitem>
 988                 <para>
 989                     Version number 1.1.0.0 (was 1.0.1.1)
 990                 </para>
 991             </listitem>
 992
 993             <listitem>
 994                 <para>
 995                     In the <literal>Directory</literal> module, the
 996                     <literal>Permissions</literal> type and the
 997                     <literal>getPermissions</literal> and
 998                     <literal>setPermissions</literal> functions are now
 999                     different to their equivalents in
1000                     <literal>base:System.Directory</literal>.
1001                 </para>
1002             </listitem>
1003         </itemizedlist>
1004     </sect3>
1005
1006     <sect3>
1007         <title>haskell2010</title>
1008         <itemizedlist>
1009             <listitem>
1010                 <para>
1011                     This is a new boot package, version 1.0.0.0.
1012                     It is not exposed by default.
1013                 </para>
1014             </listitem>
1015         </itemizedlist>
1016     </sect3>
1017
1018     <sect3>
1019         <title>hpc</title>
1020         <itemizedlist>
1021             <listitem>
1022                 <para>
1023                     Version number 0.5.0.6 (was 0.5.0.5)
1024                 </para>
1025             </listitem>
1026         </itemizedlist>
1027     </sect3>
1028
1029     <sect3>
1030         <title>integer-gmp</title>
1031         <itemizedlist>
1032             <listitem>
1033                 <para>
1034                     Version number 0.2.0.2 (was 0.2.0.1)
1035                 </para>
1036             </listitem>
1037         </itemizedlist>
1038     </sect3>
1039
1040     <sect3>
1041         <title>old-locale</title>
1042         <itemizedlist>
1043             <listitem>
1044                 <para>
1045                     No change (version 1.0.0.2)
1046                 </para>
1047             </listitem>
1048         </itemizedlist>
1049     </sect3>
1050
1051     <sect3>
1052         <title>old-time</title>
1053         <itemizedlist>
1054             <listitem>
1055                 <para>
1056                     Version number 1.0.0.6 (was 1.0.0.5)
1057                 </para>
1058             </listitem>
1059         </itemizedlist>
1060     </sect3>
1061
1062     <sect3>
1063         <title>pretty</title>
1064         <itemizedlist>
1065             <listitem>
1066                 <para>
1067                     Version number 1.0.1.2 (was 1.0.1.1)
1068                 </para>
1069             </listitem>
1070         </itemizedlist>
1071     </sect3>
1072
1073     <sect3>
1074         <title>process</title>
1075         <itemizedlist>
1076             <listitem>
1077                 <para>
1078                     Version number 1.0.1.4 (was 1.0.1.3)
1079                 </para>
1080             </listitem>
1081         </itemizedlist>
1082     </sect3>
1083
1084     <sect3>
1085         <title>random</title>
1086         <itemizedlist>
1087             <listitem>
1088                 <para>
1089                     Version number 1.0.0.3 (was 1.0.0.2)
1090                 </para>
1091             </listitem>
1092         </itemizedlist>
1093     </sect3>
1094
1095     <sect3>
1096         <title>syb</title>
1097         <itemizedlist>
1098             <listitem>
1099                 <para>
1100                     The syb package is no longer included with GHC.
1101                 </para>
1102             </listitem>
1103         </itemizedlist>
1104     </sect3>
1105
1106     <sect3>
1107         <title>template-haskell</title>
1108         <itemizedlist>
1109             <listitem>
1110                 <para>
1111                     Version number 2.5.0.0 (was 2.4.0.1)
1112                 </para>
1113             </listitem>
1114
1115             <listitem>
1116                 <para>
1117                     There is a new type synonym <literal>DecsQ</literal>
1118                     in <literal>Language.Haskell.TH.Lib</literal>.
1119                 </para>
1120             </listitem>
1121
1122             <listitem>
1123                 <para>
1124                     There is a new <literal>StringPrimL</literal>
1125                     constructor in
1126                     <literal>Language.Haskell.TH.Syntax.Lit</literal>,
1127                     and a new helper function
1128                     <literal>stringPrimL</literal> for it in
1129                     <literal>Language.Haskell.TH.Lib</literal>.
1130                 </para>
1131             </listitem>
1132
1133             <listitem>
1134                 <para>
1135                     There is a new function <literal>quoteFile</literal>
1136                     in <literal>Language.Haskell.TH.Quote</literal>.
1137                 </para>
1138             </listitem>
1139
1140             <listitem>
1141                 <para>
1142                     The
1143                     <literal>Language.Haskell.TH.Quote.QuasiQuoter</literal>
1144                     type has two new fields:
1145                     <literal>quoteType</literal> and
1146                     <literal>quoteDec</literal>.
1147                 </para>
1148             </listitem>
1149
1150             <listitem>
1151                 <para>
1152                     There is a new <literal>ClassInstance</literal>
1153                     type in <literal>Language.Haskell.TH.Syntax</literal>.
1154                     The
1155                     <literal>Language.Haskell.TH.Syntax.Info.ClassI</literal>
1156                     constructor now includes a value of this type, which
1157                     allows instance information to be queried via the
1158                     new <literal>isClassInstance</literal>
1159                     and <literal>classInstances</literal> functions.
1160                     There is also a new method
1161                     <literal>qClassInstances</literal> in the
1162                     <literal>Quasi</literal> class.
1163                 </para>
1164             </listitem>
1165         </itemizedlist>
1166     </sect3>
1167
1168     <sect3>
1169         <title>time</title>
1170         <itemizedlist>
1171             <listitem>
1172                 <para>
1173                     Version number 1.2.0.3 (was 1.1.4)
1174                 </para>
1175             </listitem>
1176
1177             <listitem>
1178                 <para>
1179                     The types provided by the time package now include
1180                     <literal>Data</literal> instances.
1181                 </para>
1182             </listitem>
1183         </itemizedlist>
1184     </sect3>
1185
1186     <sect3>
1187         <title>unix</title>
1188         <itemizedlist>
1189             <listitem>
1190                 <para>
1191                     Version number 2.4.1.0 (was 2.4.0.2)
1192                 </para>
1193             </listitem>
1194
1195             <listitem>
1196                 <para>
1197                     There are three new helper function in
1198                     <literal>System.Posix.Error</literal>:
1199                     <literal>throwErrnoPathIfRetry</literal>,
1200                     <literal>throwErrnoPathIfNullRetry</literal> and
1201                     <literal>throwErrnoPathIfMinus1Retry</literal>.
1202                 </para>
1203             </listitem>
1204
1205             <listitem>
1206                 <para>
1207                     There are three new functions in
1208                     <literal>System.Posix.User</literal>:
1209                     <literal>setEffectiveUserID</literal>,
1210                     <literal>setEffectiveGroupID</literal> and
1211                     <literal>setGroups</literal>.
1212                 </para>
1213             </listitem>
1214         </itemizedlist>
1215     </sect3>
1216   </sect2>
1217 </sect1>
1218