Release Notes

Version 5.0 (Jun 23 2000)

Major module system revision

The module system has been simplified and at the same time enhanced by features which are important for the implementation of hybrid constraint solvers. See the new User Manual chapter on modules.

Textual interface/body separation given up: The module interface now simply consists of the set of export and reexport directives. A special tool (icompile/1,2) is provided to extract the interface from the source.
Reexport: The new reexport directive and its variants reexport-from and reexport-except allow flexible design of module interfaces. Modules can now extend, restrict, modify and combine multiple other module's interfaces.
Semantics of :/2: It specifies now the lookup-module for the predicate's name rather than the definition module, which is more flexible. A list of modules can be given on the left hand side in order to call e.g. several implementations of the same constraint simultaneously.
Global predicates no longer supported: Modules now have a "language-module" imported by default instead. This allows different modules to be written in different language dialects, a feature which we intend to exploit further in the future. The former Eclipse built-ins now come from the eclipse_language module.
Record/setval: The default visibility for record keys and non-logical variable names (as used in setval) has changed to local.
Dynamic visibility changes no longer allowed: This allows for better optimizations and error detection at compile time and encourages better style.
Import ambiguities: When importing two modules that export predicates of the same name, this only causes a conflict when the predicate is actually being used. In which case the ambiguity can be resolved by explicit import-from or by qualifying with :/2.
Abolish: This now only removes a predicate's clauses. All declarations about the predicate remain in effect. In particular, it is no longer possible to abolish an import link.
Compatibility Libraries: Code written in other language dialects should now be put in modules that use the corresponding compatibility package as their "language-module", rather than just importing the compatibility package.

Harmonised Constraint Syntax

The main arithmetic solvers now use a common constraint syntax for the basic arithmetic constraints. The aim is to use the same names for constraints with the the same declarative meaning and to use module qualification to distinguish different operational behaviours. Refer to the new chapter "Common Solver Interface" in the Library Manual.

Automated Documentation Support

The system now accepts a comment/2 directive which can be used to add structured documentation to your sources. The new library lib(document) extracts this and other information from the source and generates online documentation in html format.

New Comprehensive Reference Manual

A new online Reference Manual is included. This itself is now generated from source documentation and covers all built-in and library predicates (>1700).

Object file format

Modules can now be precompiled into Eclipse Object files (.eco). Refer to the new library lib(fcompile).

New Global Finite-Domain Constraints

The global constraints sorted/2, sorted/3 and alldifferent/2 have been added to library(fd_global). Also alldifferent/1 with new algorithm.

New Interval Constraints

The constraint piecewise_linear/3 has been added to library(ria). It relates two variable according to a piecewise linear function given by a list of points.

Generic Branch-and-Bound Library

A solver-independent library lib(branch_and_bound) replaces the finite-domain specific min_max-predicates. It can be configured for stepwise improvement or dichotomic search.

Cplex/Xpress-MP interface

Support for quadratic objective functions in lib(eplex).

TkEclipse Development GUI

Many details have been improved. A Preference Editor and a Library Browser have been added. New options to create and clear the toplevel module.

Tcl/Tk interface

This release of ECLiPSe goes with Tcl/Tk 8.3.

64-bit Version

This release is available for 64-bit Alpha/Linux systems.

New Built-In Predicates

Module-related:

get_module_info/3
current_module_predicate/2
create_module/3
module/3 (directive)
reexport/1 (directive)

I/O-related:

existing_file/4
pathname/4
canonical_path_name/2
set_stream_property/3
unget/1

Conversions:

expand_goal/2
portray_goal/2
string_list/3
term_hash/4
bytes_to_term/2
term_to_bytes/2

Control:

suspensions/2
trigger/1

Attributes

get_var_bounds/3
set_var_bounds/3

Other

comment/2 (directive)
include/1 (directive)
test_and_setval/3

New Libraries

branch_and_bound (Generic branch-and-bound primitives)
document (Tools for generating documentation from ECLiPSe sources)
fcompile (Generate platform independent object files)
hash (Hash table library)
shadow_cons (A library implementing shadow, or 'local', constraint stores)
test_util (Utilities for automated program tests)

Compatibility Issues

The most likely problems when upgrading from ECLiPSe 4.2 are related to the module system changes and new naming conventions in the constraint libraries:

When using several constraint libraries together, you may get "ambiguous import" errors for constraints that have the same name but different implementations. To resolve these correctly, please read both the new chapters on modules in the User Manual and on the common solver interface in the Library Manual.
Global predicates have to be replaced with exported ones.
Non-logical variables that are implicitly created by setval/2 are now local as opposed to global in the previous release. Should they need to be accessed in several modules, this should be done through exported access predicates. As a temporary solution, it is still possible to explicitly declare them global. The same holds for record keys.

Other minor compatibility issues are:

dump/1 and the .sd file format is no longer supported. It has been superseded by lib(fcompile) and the .eco file format.
precedence of (if) and (else) operators swapped
write/1 now uses "m" print option, i.e. it prints the attributes
line breaks are now allowed within quotes
usage of compatibility libraries changed slightly due to changes to the module system
dim/2 now requires []/N functors when used to retrieve dimensions.
absolute_file_name/2 replaced with more accurate canonical_path_name/2 and existing_file/4.

Miscellaneous

Almost all built-ins are now traced by the debugger
ELSE port is now properly skipped
Two new standard streams: warning_output and log_output. Warning now usually go to warning_output (rather than output or error), information like garbage-collection messages go to log_output. That makes the easier to redirect, and warnings are printed in a different colour in tkeclipse.
After-event timer can be real or virtual time. Events can no longer become due while a handler is running.

ProTcl no longer supported

As of this release, the ProTcl interface to Tcl/Tk is no longer included or supported. Refer to the Embedding Manual for how to embed ECLiPSe applications into Tck/Tk and other host languages.

Release Notes

Version 5.0 (Jun 23 2000)

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