Logtalk 2.33.1 released

[Paulo Moura]

Hi!

Logtalk 2.33.1 is now available for downloading. This release adds a syntax construct for easy access to parametric object proxies, improves the built-in debugger, enhances the entity creation built-in predicates and the built-in database methods, adds new libraries and new examples, improves existing libraries and examples, and updates support for the CxProlog, ECLiPSe, K-Prolog, and XSB compilers.

Known compatibility issues:

* YAP: multi-threading support is currently broken. No timeframe for fixing the current bugs. Use YAP single-threaded version until the bugs are fixed.

Follows the detailed release notes:

* Added a syntax construct for easy access to parametric object proxies represented as Prolog facts when sending a message ({Proxy}::Message). Updated the "proxies" example to illustrate this new functionality.

* Improved the Logtalk built-in debugger to print clause numbers for static predicates at the unification ports ("fact" and "rule").

* Modified the built-in methods create_category/4, create_object/4 and create_protocol/3 to accept a variable as the first argument, which will be instantiated to the identifier generated for the new entity.

* Modified the database built-in methods to allow initialization of static predicates for dynamic objects when the predicates are declared in "this". These changes simplify the initialization of dynamic objects when writing constructors. The dynamic objects must be descendants of "this".

* Fixed a bug in the Logtalk compiler that would result in failure to restore the operator table in case of compilation error.

* Removed support for the deprecated mutex_create/1 Prolog built-in predicate.

* Updated the XSB config file by switching off the use of multifile/1 directives when compiling Logtalk source files as a workaround for know bugs in the implementation of this directive for dynamic predicates.

* Updated the ECLiPSe 6.0 config files in order to switch on the use of multifile/1 directives.

* Update the CxProlog config file to work with and require version 0.97.2.

* Updated the Windows installer to warn the user when it fails to detect the installation of the selected Prolog compilers. Fixed a bug where the creation of the K-Prolog integration shortcut could fail when performing a custom installation. Fixed a bug in detecting a CxProlog installation.

* Added a library for descriptive statistics. For details, see the file "library/statistics.notes".

* Added a new library object, "pairs", defining predicates over lists of pairs (key-value terms).

* Added a new library object, "gensym", defining predicates for generating unique atoms (object protocol based on the "gensym" module of SWI-Prolog).

* Added a predicate partition/4 to the library entities "metap" and "meta".

* Added predicates plus/3 and succ/2 to the library object "integer".

* Added predicates is_ascii/1, is_white_space/1, is_quote/1, is_period/1, is_punctation/1, and parenthesis/2 to the library entities "characterp" and "character".

* Modified the implementation of the predicate product/2 in the library object "numberlist" to fail for empty lists.

* Added an example, "people", illustrating a simple implementation solution for object constructors.

* Improved "metainterpreters" example.

* Improved performance of the object initialization and release predicates defined in the category "initialization" of the "roots" example.

Happy logtalking!

Paulo