Release notes for CMU Common Lisp 17f, ?? November 94 17f contains bug fixes, PCL enhancements, and support for three new platforms: Sun SPARC/Solaris SGI MIPS/Iris (no load-foreign) DEC Alpha/OSF1 (no Motif or load-foreign) The HPPA/HPux and Sun/Sunos 4.x platforms are still available. Distributions are now gzip'd, not compressed. Other highlights: Motif, load-foreign on Hp/Ux, image size improvements, MIT loop, some documentation of some previously undocumented features. NOTE: Although the group lives on (and is working on Dylan/Gwydion), the CMU Common Lisp project is no longer funded, so only minimal CL support is being done at CMU. There is a net community of CMU Common Lisp users and maintainers who communicate via comp.lang.lisp and the cmucl-bugs@cs.cmu.edu mailing list. This release contains patches from the net (including the major Solaris effort by Caspar Dik), and also some things that were "in the pipe" (the Alpha and Irixs ports.) None of these ports has been extensively tested, and there are missing parts. As always, you get what you pay for. Distribution: CMU Common Lisp is only available via anonymous FTP. We don't have the manpower to make tapes. These are our distribution machines: lisp-sun1.slisp.cs.cmu.edu (128.2.250.58) lisp-rt1.slisp.cs.cmu.edu (128.2.217.9) lisp-rt2.slisp.cs.cmu.edu (128.2.217.10) Log in with the user "anonymous" and "username@host" as password (i.e. your EMAIL address.) When you log in, cd USING ONE SINGLE "cd" COMMAND to /afs/cs/project/clisp/release. If you have any trouble with FTP access, please send mail to slisp@cs.cmu.edu. The most recent version is: 17f The old version is: 16f The currently supported platforms are: alpha_osf1: DEC Alpha workstations running OSF1. hp700_ux90: HP 700 series machines (based on the HPPA architecture) running HP/UX 9.x. sgi_52: MIPS-based SGI workstations running Irix 5.x. sun4c_411: Sun SPARC machines running the the pre-Solaris BSD SunOS system, version 4.x. sun4c_53: Sun SPARC machines running Solaris/SunOS 5.x. The release area holds gzip'ed tar files with names of the form: -.tar.gz -extra-.tar.gz -runtime-.tar.gz -- The first file holds binaries and documentation for the standard Common Lisp portion of CMU CL. This includes our version of the PCL implementation of the CLOS object system. -- The `-extra' file contains the Hemlock editor, the Motif toolkit, the graphical debugger and the CLX interface to X11. -- The `-runtime' file contins one file: lib/runtime.core, which is a smaller substitute for lib/lisp.core. See the "runtime distribution" section. The installed sizes of the configurations are approximately: Basic: 15 megabytes Basic+Extra: 24 megabytes Runtime: 5.3 megabytes For installation directions, see the section "site initialization". FTP gzip'ed tar archives in binary mode. To extract, "cd" to the directory that is to be the root of the tree, then type: gzcat file.tar.gz | tar xf - . If poor network connections make it difficult to transfer a 6 meg file, the release is also available split into 2 megabyte chunks, suffixed `.0', `.1', etc. To extract from multiple files, use: cat file.tar.gz.* | gunzip | tar xf - . The release area also contains source distributions and other binary distributions. A listing of the current contents of the release area is in FILES. Major release announcements will be made to comp.lang.lisp. Source availability: Lisp and documentation sources are available via anonymous FTP ftp to any CMU CS machine. [See the "Distribution" section for FTP instructions.] All CMU written code is public domain, but CMU CL also makes use of two imported packages: PCL and CLX. Although these packages are copyrighted, they may be freely distributed without any licensing agreement or fee. The release area contains a source distribution, which is an image of all the source code files used to build the current version: -source.tar.gz (5 meg) ________________________________________________________________ DETAILED RELEASE NOTES [Notes are also in doc/release-notes.txt] [Also see the README file for platform-specific notes.] Bug fixes to basic CL support: -- Fixed ADJUST-ARRAY to not flame out on arrays containing a zero-length dimension (hence having no elements whatsoever.) -- In SIGNAL, bind *break-on-signals* to NIL even before doing the type test so that we don't wedge the error system if the type is malformed or undefined. -- Fixed bugs with EOF handling in READ-LINE. -- In DEFINE-CONDITION, don't warn about probable error unless both initarg and initform are missing. -- In OPEN, fixed :direction :io :if-does-not-exist :create to actually create. -- Fix problem in LOAD-FOREIGN where (especially on SunOS), the failure to page-align loaded code caused errors when load-foreign was done more than once. -- In OUTPUT-INSTANCE, check for the layout being invalid before calling the print function, since the print function might error. -- Closing composite streams (broadcast, etc.) no longer closes the component streams. -- Fixed pprint goof that didn't actually break anything, but wasted effort. -- (COERCE x 'FLOAT) now convert to a single-float (instead of being an error.) Also, we now check that numeric coercions actually return a value of the specified type (which they might not if the type is not a symbol, e.g. (coerce 0 '(complex float)). Possibly these should "do the right thing", but it seems better to error than quietly do the wrong thing. -- Fixed a bug in FLOAT-BIGNUM-RATIO that could cause an assertion failure when floating particular bignum ratios (or possibly reading particular float values.) Miscellaneous enhancements: -- LOOP is now the MIT/Symblics loop, so whatever it does is by definition correct and The Right Thing. -- PURIFY is now exported as EXT:PURIFY. This function can greatly improve the GC performance of many large programs by moving code and static data into non-collected storage. This is a "poor man's generational GC". Environment compaction now done by purify. -- Some reduction in the size of the image (and of GC scanned memory) from tweaks to build process. -- Binary input can now be done from string streams (from David Axmark.) -- Debugger no longer aborts printing of a frame when printing one arg gets an error (from Harris.) -- LOAD-FOREIGN support for HP/Ux (from TSM.) -- Add sap-ref-64 (only on Alpha). -- Changes to EVAL, ROOM and site-init to work better in a runtime core image (without the compiler loaded.) -- *BEFORE-SAVE-INITIALIZATIONS* is now actually done before saving. Compiler: -- Fixed some problems with multiple values and cleanup code in byte compilation. Also added EXT:*COMPILE-PROGRESS* printout. -- Fixed some problems with internal errors when a function was just declared to be FUNCTION. -- Now allows stream args to compile-file and doesn't attempt to constant-fold pathname functions (which depend on *default-pathname-defaults*.) -- Fixed a case where dead local function in top-level code could cause an internal error. -- Fix compiler-macro expansion to correctly handle macros that pass (by returning the unmodified form.) -- Fix spelling of :COMPILE-TOPLEVEL and :LOAD-TOPLEVEL in EVAL-WHEN. -- If compile-file is :block-compile T, the entire file is block-compiled as a unit (even if it contains embedded START-BLOCK/END-BLOCK declarations.) -- Virtually all of the compiler is now compiled without type checking, giving some space and speed benefit. CLX: -- Merged with CLX R5.02 (no substantive changes). -- In read-resources, trim off spaces, tabs, and "'s in #include file name -- If CLX is compiled when PCL is loaded (as is now done in the binary distribution), DRAWABLE, WINDOW and PIXMAP will be defined as PCL classes (which can be subclasses.) This is compatible with various CLX-based toolkits. -- Fix some CONS declarations to be LIST because they aren't conses on the last iteration (when the body isn't executed.) -- Fix incorrect slot type declaration for DISPLAY-AUTHORIZATION-DATA. -- Changed holding-lock not to turn off GC, which could cause event handlers and other code to run for ling periods of time without garbage collecting. Instead we bind all the GC hooks to (), since it was their invocation that could cause bad recursive entry of CLX. Hemlock: -- Fixed problem in Hemlock recursive error handler (hadn't been properly updated for ANSI conditions.) -- Add ignore handler for client-message events. -- Deleted some setting of hi::*hack-hunk-replace-line* to T, since we may want it explicitly disabled in the init file. -- Dylan mode now infix-oriented. Motif interface: -- Fixed a bug in the generation of Interface.h which was preventing motifd from being successfully compiled on HP/Ux, Solaris, ... -- use pcl::precompile-random-code-segments to minimize run-time compilations. -- Add INVOKE-TTY-DEBUGGER. Don't try to invoke motif debugger if we didn't succeed in opening a connection. -- Print warning in status hook when server dies. -- Made server to fflush after all output so that we see motifd output when it is run on a pipe. -- Fixed severely broken INSPECT-CLOS-PANE according to patch from Marco Antoniotti. -- Fix from Marco Antoniotti to actually remove handlers from the table in remove-event-handler. -- Fix to TOOLKIT-WRITE-VALUE to allow it to write either signed or unsigned word integers. -- Improved error recovery and internal error reporting. PCL: -- Structure-object is now no longer shadowed in PCL. Code that was using PCL::STRUCTURE-OBJECT will now work better. -- BUILT-IN-CLASS, CLASS-NAME, CLASS-OF and FIND-CLASS are once again exported from PCL. This will cause a name conflict if anyone use-package's PCL, but this will at least warn about the distinction. Probably you shouldn't USE-PACKAGE PCL for this reason, but you can now say PCL:FIND-CLASS instead of PCL::FIND-CLASS. It is also possible to use SHADOW or SHADOWING-IMPORT to resolve the conflict. -- Fix to update-instance-for-different-class. -- When updating arg-info slots, check to see if the value is already there. This can reduce non-shared pages. -- Improved handling of invalid structure instances. -- Fix a problem with PCL clobbering byte functions when setting their names. -- New parameterized version of use-dispatch-dfun-p which avoids pessimizing GFs with many methods. -- Fix to :after methods on accessor functions. Also, fixed some problems with the result of get-secondary-dispatch-function1 when there are no methods. -- Add compiler-macro for pcl:find-class which does lookup at load-time when the name is a constant. -- Definitive tweak for handling function-p in compute-secondary-dispatch-function1 which avoids an infinite recursion. -- When signalling an incompatible superclass error, added a hint to the message to check out VALIDATE-SUPERCLASSES. Lisp code: -- Fixed Sparc GC bug fix (L2 never scavenged.) -- On all non-Mach platforms, changed the default for CMUCLLIB to be /usr/local/lib/cmucl/lib. -- On SunOS, added "dynamic segments" patch which prevents the "out of segments" errors that could happen when a Lisp memory management table overflowed. Build tools: -- Fix compilation of motif interface to actually generate the C header files Interface.h, etc. -- Some changes to reduce compiler warnings -- In compile-all, -clean and -noupdate have been flushed. -clean is now done by the clean-build script. -- Add some scripts from David Axmark that automate the entire build process: tools/variant-lisp tools/build-and-install ________________________________________________________________ CMUCL(1) CMUCL(1) October 15, 1991 NAME CMU Common Lisp DESCRIPTION CMU Common Lisp is public domain "industrial strength" Common Lisp programming environment. Many of the X3j13 changes have been incorporated into CMU CL. Wherever possible, this has been done so as to transparently allow use of either CLtL1 or proposed ANSI CL. Probably the new features most interesting to users are SETF functions, LOOP and the WITH-COMPILATION-UNIT macro. HARDWARE REQUIREMENTS CMU CL is currently available for a variety of Unix workstations. See the README file for current platforms. At least 16 megabytes of memory and 25 megabytes of disk space are recommended. As usual, more is better. OVERVIEW When compared other Common Lisp implementations, CMU CL has two broad advantages: -- The new CMU CL compiler (Python) is more sophisticated than other Common Lisp compilers. It both produces better code and is easier to use. -- The programming environment based on the Hemlock editor is better integrated than gnu-emacs based environments. (Though you can still use GNU if you want.) CMU CL also has significant non-technical advantages: -- It has good local support for CMU users, and is well integrated with the CMU CS environment. -- It is public domain, and is freely available to non-CMU sites that aren't able to afford a site-license for a commercial Lisp. COMPILER FEATURES The `Advanced Compiler' chapter of the User's manual extensively discusses Python's optimization capabilities (See DOCUMENTATION below.) Here are a few high points: -- Good efficiency and type-checking at the same time. Compiling code safe gives a 2x speed reduction at worst. -- In safe code, type declarations are verified, allowing declarations to be debugged in safe code. When you go to compile unsafe, you know the declarations are right. -- Full source level debugging of compiled code, including display of the exact call that got an error. -- Good efficiency notes that tell you why an operation can't be open coded or where you are number-consing, and that provide unprecedented source context -- Block compilation, partial evaluation, lightweight functions and proper tail-recursion allow low-cost use of function call abstraction. TYPE SUPPORT Important note: Even debugged programs may contain type errors that remain undetected by other compilers. When compiled with type checking suppressed using the CMU Common Lisp compiler, these type errors may cause said debugged programs to die strangely. If type checking is not suppressed, these programs will die with an explicit type error. The most visible way in which Python differs from previous Common Lisp compilers is that it has a greater knowledge about types and a different approach to type checking. In particular, Python implements type checking which is `eager' and `precise': -- Eager in the sense that type checking is done immediately whenever there is a declaration, rather than being delayed until the the value is actually used. For example: (let ((x ...)) (declare (fixnum x)) ...) Here, the type of the initial value of X must be a FIXNUM or an error will be signalled. -- Precise in the sense that the exact type specified is checked. For example, if a variable is declared to be of type (integer 3 7), then the value must always be an integer between 3 and 7. Since Python does more type checking, programs that work fine when compiled with other compilers may get type errors when compiled with Python. It is important to initially compile programs with the default (safe) policy, and then test this version. If a program with an erroneous declaration is compiled with type checking suppressed (due to the SAFETY optimize quality being reduced), then the type error may cause obscure errors or infinite looping. See the section `Getting Existing Programs to Run' (6.6) in the compiler chapter of the user manual. CMU CL adheres to the X3J13 function type cleanup, which means that quoted lambda-lists are not of type FUNCTION, and are no longer directly callable. Use COERCE with the FUNCTION result type. OPTIMIZATION Python does many optimizations that are absent or less general in other Common Lisp compilers: Proper tail recursion, lightweight function call, block compilation, inter-procedural type inference, global flow analysis, dynamic type inference, global register allocation, stack number allocation, control optimization, integer range analysis, enhanced inline expansion, multiple value optimization and source-to-source transforms. Optimization and type-checking are controlled by the OPTIMIZE declaration. The default compilation policy is type-safe. NUMERIC SUPPORT Python is particular good at number crunching: -- Good inline coding of float and 32 bit integer operations, with no number consing. This includes all the hardware primitives ROUND, TRUNCATE, COERCE, as well as important library routines such as SCALE-FLOAT and DECODE-FLOAT. Results that don't fit in registers go on a special number stack. -- Full support for IEEE single and double (denorms, +-0, etc.) -- In block compiled code, numbers are passed as function arguments and return values in registers (and without number consing.) -- Calls to library functions (SIN, ...) are optimized to a direct call to the C library routine (with no number consing.) On hardware with direct support for such functions, these operations can easily be open-coded. -- Substantially better bignum performance than commercial implementations (2x-4x). Bignums implemented in lisp using word integers, so you can roll your own. Python's compiler warnings and efficiency notes are especially valuable in numeric code. 50+ pages in the user manual describe Python's capabilities in more detail. THE DEBUGGER In addition to a Motif-based windowing interface and a basic command- line interface, the debugger also has several powerful new features: -- The "source" and "vsource" commands print the *precise* original source form responsible for the error or pending function call. It is no longer necessary to guess which call to CAR caused some "not a list" error. -- Variables in compiled code can be accessed by name, so the debugger always evaluates forms in the lexical environment of the current frame. This variable access is robust in the presence of compiler optimization --- although higher levels of optimization may make variable values unavailable at some locations in the variable's scope, the debugger always errs on the side of discretion, refusing to display possibly incorrect values. -- Compiled code can be stepped, stopping at each control transfer. -- Integration with the Hemlock editor. In a slave, the "edit" command causes the editor edit the source for the current code location. The editor can also send non-line-mode input to the debugger using C-M-H bindings. Try apropos "debug" in Hemlock. See the debugger chapter in the user manual for more details. We are working on integrating the debugger with Hemlock and X windows. THE GRAPHICAL INTERFACE CMU Common Lisp has an interface to Motif which is functionally similar to CLM, but works better in CMU CL. See: doc/motif-toolkit.doc doc/motif-internals.doc This motif interface has been used to write the inspector and graphical debugger. There is also a Lisp control panel with a simple file management facility, apropos and inspector dialogs, and controls for setting global options. Call INTERFACE:LISP-CONTROL-PANEL to create the control panel. When INTERFACE:*INTERFACE-STYLE* is :GRAPHICS (the default) and the DISPLAY environment variable is defined, the graphical inspector and debugger will be invoked by INSPECT or when an error is signalled. Possible values are :GRAPHICS and :TTY. If the value is :GRAPHICS, but there is no X display, then we quietly use the TTY interface. DOCUMENTATION The CMU CL documentation is printed as tech reports, and is available (at CMU) in the document room: CMU Common Lisp User's Manual Hemlock User's Manual Hemlock Command Implementor's Manual Non-CMU users may get documentation from the doc/ directory in the binary distribution: cmu-user.info CMU CL User's Manual in Gnu Info format. The ``cmu- user.info-'' files are subfiles. You can either have your EMACS maintainer install this in the info root, or you can use the info ``g(...whatever.../doc/cmu-user.info)'' command. cmu-user.ps The CMU CL User's Manual (148 pages) in postscript format. LaTeX source and DVI versions are also available. release-notes.txt Information on the changes between releases. hemlock-user.ps Postscript version of the Hemlock User's Manual (124 pages.) hemlock-cim.ps Postscript version of the Hemlock Command Implementor's Manual (96 pages). SUPPORT Bug reports should be sent to cmucl-bugs@cs.cmu.edu. Please consult your local CMU CL maintainer or Common Lisp expert to verify that the problem really is a bug before sending to this list. The CMU Common Lisp project is no longer funded, so only minimal support is being done at CMU. There is a net community of who communicate via comp.lang.lisp and the cmucl-bugs@cs.cmu.edu mailing list. DISTRIBUTION CMU Common Lisp is a public domain implementation of Common Lisp. Both sources and executables are freely available via anonymous FTP; this software is "as is", and has no warranty of any kind. CMU and the authors assume no responsibility for the consequences of any use of this software. See the README file in the distribution for FTP instructions. ABOUT THE CMU COMMON LISP PROJECT Organizationally, CMU Common Lisp was a small, mostly autonomous part within the Mach operating system project. The CMU CL project was more of a tool development effort than a research project. The project started out as Spice Lisp, which provided a modern Lisp implementation for use in the CMU community. CMU CL has been under continuous development since the early 1980's (concurrent with the Common Lisp standardization effort.) Most of the CMU Common Lisp implementors are now working on the Gwydion environment for Dylan (see http://legend.gwydion.cs.cmu.edu:8001/gwydion/.) CMU CL was funded by DARPA under CMU's "Research on Parallel Computing" contract. Rather than doing pure research on programming languages and environments, the emphasis was on developing practical programming tools. Sometimes this required new technology, but much of the work was in creating a Common Lisp environment that incorporates state-of-the-art features from existing systems (both Lisp and non-Lisp.) Because sources are freely available, CMU Common Lisp has been ported to experimental hardware, and used as a basis for research in programming language and environment construction. SEE ALSO lisp(1), README The ``CMU Common Lisp User's Manual'', the ``Hemlock User's Manual'', and the ``Hemlock Command Implementor's Manual''