2024-05-17: Fuzion May Update

Clarification of multiple-inheritance semantics and redefinition paired with massive performance improvements in the front end were last month's main changes.

• General

  • Tokiwa is a partner in the GreenCode consortium in the ITEA4 cluster, where we plan to work on the Fuzion language and tools to make code greener.

  • Work on a Fuzion module for a nom-like parser combinator framework has started (#2808)

• Documentation

  • readme: add section for installing Fuzion from package manger (#2919)

  • ref_manual: Add more examples for comments and strings (#2939)

• Build infrastructure

  • run_tests: add workaround for macOS (#3017)

  • run_tests: show total time (#2946)

• Fuzion language

  • A string literal containing exactly one codepoint is now of type codepoint, which inherits from String (#2676). This permits writing

          code := "࿋".val                        # results in `4043`
            

    instead of

          code := "࿋".as_codepoints.first.val    # results in `4043`
            

  • Support for multiple inheritance and redefinition of several features (#3034)

  • Extend type visibility into type features (#2999)

    e.g., in

          abc is
            def is
    
            type.test(x abc.def) is
              say x
            

    it is no longer required to qualify the type abc.def, one can use def instead:

          abc is
            def is
    
            type.test(x def) is
              say x
            

  • pre/post conditions in redef-ined features now need else/then to clarify that preconditions are weakened and postconditions are strengthened (#3023)

  • A new effect fuzion.runtime.fault was added to be used to permit handling of failed pre/post conditions in applications. Support check expressions to use this effect was added (#2996, #3011)

  • Fix #2224: precondition of abstract features (#2962)

  • Visibility modifiers are no longer allowed within inner blocks (#2864)

• Base library

  • Addition of the following new standard library features

    • union/intersection/except etc. in Set (#2904)

    • Map.type.empty (#2831)

    • as_persistent_map to lock_free.map (#2977)

    • container.Persistent_Map (#2960)

    • io.buffered.read_line_while (#2881)

    • option/outcome: prefix ! (#2834)

    • In Buffer, add redef as_string (#3024)

    • Add general definition of a mutable map (#2832)

  • Removal of the following standard library features

    • numeric.to_u32 (#3026)

    • set from ps_map and sorted_array (#2852)

    • All uses of thiz in numeric types (#3038)

    • Effect map_of_total_order (#2833)

    • fuzion.java.Java_Object._ignore_ (#2923)

  • Changes to the following standard library features

    • Any.as_string is no longer an intrinsic but implemented in Fuzion directly(#2893)

    • Rename option.get default to option.or default (#2925)

    • For sets, maps and lists, renamed type.from_sequence to type.new (#2873)

    • Split up file.write and make dir effect (#2982)

    • In spawn change args from array to Sequence (#2972)

    • memoize accepts custom mutable maps as args (#2832)

    • Make it easier to handle a network request (#2883)

    • Make Print_Handler.println public (#3032)

    • In Mutable_Array, inherit from Buffer instead of Sequence (#2870)

  • Fix code of potentially uninitialized access (#2866)

• Parser

  • Performance improvements

    • Lexer performance optimizations (#2943, #2944, #2942)

    • Parse .this as part of callTail or typeTail (#2980)

    • Avoid repeated parsing of actual args in a call, instead parse actual as expr and convert to type as needed (#2953)

    • Minor performance improvement when parsing operatorExpr (#2981)

    • Create second fork in skipOneType a little less eagerly (#2952)

    • When parsing name and the result is dumped, do not create ParsedName (#2948)

  • Clean up parser rules (#2974, #2994, #2976)

  • Move parsing of .env and .type to callTail (#2979)

  • For better error messages, set source range for Expr (#2995)

• AST

  • Remove Types.intern (#2454)

  • Remove state from abstract interpreter (#2933)

  • Loop: various improvements (#2956, #2908, #2858, #2843, #2859)

  • fix Feature.toString() when used very early in frontend (#2868)

  • fix Empty Stack during DFA (#2768)

  • fix destructuring where with field name reuse (#2920)

  • show warning if -> is used in operator (#2884)

  • improved error handling (#3033, #3006, #3014)

  • type inference for arguments for feature with generics (#3008)

  • fix dynamic_type used on features defined inside of type features (#2792)

• Front End

  • add logic evaluating visibility when inheriting (#3028)

  • turn If into match expression early (#2661)

  • mark fields as final, improve precondition (#2837)

  • merge logic of addInheritedFeature and addToDeclaredOrInherited (#3019)

  • For better error messages, source ranges are not stored in Fuziom module files instead of source position (#2844)

  • The universe is not written to a fum-file (#2846)

• Middle End

  • bugfix: Implicitly instantiate type features (#2987)

  • air: add !t.isOpenGeneric() to preconditions (#2968)

• Fuzion Intermediate Representation

  • fix mixture of endianess for constant data (#2839)

  • Code cleanup and simplifications (#2888, #2927, #2907, #2924, #2917, #2886)

  • IR simplifications: remove ExprKind.AdrOf (#2880) and ExprKind.Unit (#2887)

• Data Flow Analysis

  • Instance: fix toString for NO_SITE (#2957)

  • in fuzion.java.call_v0, add third argument to readFields (#2830)

  • improve error for target not found (#2847)

• all backends

  • java intrinsics, add parameter: signature (#2935)

  • java intrinsics: fix creation and access of java arrays of none-primitive values (#2998)

• JVM back end

  • fix issue in precondition of drop (#2963)

  • fix showing elapsed time stats (-verbose > 1) (#2848)

• C back end

  • fix field access on ref and value targets (#2928)

  • fix nanosleep interruption by signal (#2885)

  • initial work for cross compilation (#2906)

• interpreter back end

  • remove dependency on AST (#2861, #2862, #2874)

  • remove air, base on fuir only (#2894)

  • fix java intrinsics, wrap result in outcome (#2840)

  • fix position in error Intrinsic feature not supported (#2954)

  • use the fuir of DFA (#2986)

  • getField performance (#2929)

• util

  • Avoid repeated output of warning statistics (#2988)

  • Improve parser performance by

    • pre-calculating results of SourceFile.codePointInLine (#2940)

    • Caching line numbers (#2941)

  • Respect codepoint width for correct error position display with codepoints that have non-standard width (#3030)

• fz and fzjava tools

  • Add option -frontend-only change -no-backend (#2970)

  • Show time in ms for building module (#2849)

  • fzjava: issue with colon in path, illegal character in opaque (#2951)

• tests

  • disable tests as workaround for #3000 (#3001)

  • fix run_tests scripts in case of test failure (#2891)

  • add test for #122, #1055, #1031, #2321, #2380, #2346 (#2973, #2863, #3031, #2921)

  • record time (#2872)

  • use set_exit_code (#2964)

• Overall Code

  • Added @SuppressWarnings annotations for some unchecked and rawtypes warnings (#2869)

Cheers,

--The Fuzion Team.