muller@src.dec.com (Eric Muller) (01/20/91)
Archive-name: languages/modula-3/src-modula-3/1991-01-18 Archive-directory: gatekeeper.dec.com:/pub/DEC/Modula-3/ [16.1.0.2] Original-posting-by: muller@src.dec.com (Eric Muller) Original-subject: SRC Modula-3 1.6 beta; gatekeeper reorganization Reposted-by: emv@ox.com (Edward Vielmetti) SRC Modula-3 1.6 beta is now available via anonymous ftp on gatekeeper.dec.com, in pub/DEC/Modula-3. The contents of that directory has been reorganized: % ls -R README m3-1.5 report comp.lang.modula3 m3-1.6beta comp.lang.modula3: README aug90.Z dec90.Z jan90.Z jun90.Z may90.Z oct90.Z apr90.Z dec89.Z feb90.Z jul90.Z mar90.Z nov90.Z sep90.Z m3-1.5: README m3-1.5.tar.Z-03 m3-1.5.tar.Z-07 m3-1.5.tar.Z-11 m3-1.5.tar.Z m3-1.5.tar.Z-04 m3-1.5.tar.Z-08 m3-1.5.tar.Z-12 m3-1.5.tar.Z-01 m3-1.5.tar.Z-05 m3-1.5.tar.Z-09 m3-1.5.tar.Z-02 m3-1.5.tar.Z-06 m3-1.5.tar.Z-10 m3-1.6beta: dist-1.6beta.tar.Z report: README Report.ps Report1.ps Report2.ps Report3.ps This release is intended only for those that are ready to invest some time and effort in fixing and testing the release. If you want a "no problems" installation, you should wait for the release of 1.6. The rest of this message tells you about some of the problems you may expect and what you can do to help us get 1.6 ready. First, thanks for your help. Unfortunately we have access only to VAX and DECstations; this limits severely our ability to test the system. This is why your help is very important to get SRC Modula-3 running on other machines and we appreciate it a lot. Second, there are still some glitches for the VAX and DECstations. I decided to go ahead anyway so that we can get 1.6 faster. Here are the known problems: - in both versions, there is a glitch in the construction of the yacc parser for m3pp. Part of the trouble is that we need a larger-than-normal yacc; normally, we process the yacc file and give the result, but the construction process wants to build it again. - in both versions, the Imakefiles for the tests use the "-g" option. This is option is no longer supported by "m3", as different C compiler have different syntaxes for the debugging/optimization. Instead, one should use something like -X1-g or -X1-g3. I'd like to hear about what the best thing to do is: is the current situation the right solution or should be have an entry in the config file that indicate with options should be passed to cc when -g is given to m3 ? or - in the VAX version, thread switching is broken, but does not prevent the execution of non-threaded programs (such as the compiler itself). - in the AP3000 version, thread switching is broken. It is a bit worse than in the VAX case, in that it probably prevents linking of Modula-3 programs, but I believe that the basic machinery is sound. Of course, I am fixing the problems for VAX and DECstations. Third, this release fixes the alignment problems. However, this means that the C code generated is much more sensitive to the size, alignment and structure layout parameters present in system/compiler/misc/Target.i3.<system>. I hope we got these and structure layout algorithm (in system/compiler/types/RecordType.m3) right. If it is not the case for the architecture you are testing and you don't have 1.5 running, there is little you can do, as it is next to impossible to edit all the .{i,m}c files by hand; the best in that case is that you tell me the right numbers/algorithm and I regenerate the .{i,m}c files. If you have 1.5 running, you can use it to recompile 1.6beta from the .{i,m}3. By the way, 1.5 can compile 1.6beta, it is actually the version I am using to compile the cross-compilers that produced the .{i,m}c of the release. Fourth, the driver has been completely rewritten so that we can support shared libraries. However, there is still a fair amount of work to actually have shared Modula-3 libraries (Ultrix does not have shared libraries and anyway the mechanism depends on the architecture). Please send the messages about problems/modifications to m3-request@src.dec.com. I will summarize to comp.lang.modula3 as we go along.