[cwn] Attn: Development Editor, Latest Caml Weekly News
Alan Schmitt
alan.schmitt at polytechnique.org
Tue Sep 5 02:43:47 PDT 2006
Hello,
Here is the latest Caml Weekly News, for the week of August 29 to
September 05, 2006.
1) native values in objects from c
2) 3.09.3 release candidate 1
3) Continuations
4) can ocamldep order .cmo files?
5) offre d'emploi OCAML bioinformatique chef de projet/développeur
6) Eliminating array bounds check
====================================
1) native values in objects from c
Archive: <http://groups.google.com/group/fa.caml/browse_thread/thread/
39f89356d68f6ace/d9476057f92c314d#d9476057f92c314d>
------------------------------------------------------------------------
** Michael Wohlwend asked and Jacques Garrigue answered:
> with that code:
> class x > val name > end;;
> let ho
> how do I access the field name form C?
> The docu says it should be the third field of the block, but that
doesn't
> work for me (it has Tag 0, not 252 for strings ...)
Well, since fields start at 0, the 3rd field is number 2.
# Obj.size (Obj.repr ho);;
- : int # Obj.tag (Obj.field (Obj.repr ho) 2);;
- : int
** Michael Wohlwend then asked and Jacques Garrigue answered:
> thanks for helping; actually my fault was to think the elements
are linear
> ordered, even if the class is inherited (I want to get the first
value of
> the base). The values are ordered reverse of definition, whereas
the docu
> says:
> "Instance variables are stored in the order in which they appear
in the
> class definition"
> In the end I want to hide public methods which give you access the
the
> pointer to the c++ object and hiding an external method is easy.
Aargh, you're right. The behaviour changed between 3.08 and 3.09.
In 3.08, fields are still ordered in definition order, including
inherited ones, but in 3.09, due to an optimization, inherited fields
appear after newly defined ones. The trouble is that this being due
to an optimization, this may change again, so it is not a good idea to
depend on it.
Note also that it is pretty easy to define another object, with the
same type as the one you want to interface with C++, but with
completely different fields. I.e., accessing object fields from the C
side is always dangerous.
A better approach it to add a method which returns the field with an
abstract type, this way users cannot break the type system.
====================================
2) 3.09.3 release candidate 1
Archive: <http://groups.google.com/group/fa.caml/browse_thread/thread/
0945e1328494273d/37c90ae0c61b12a4#37c90ae0c61b12a4>
------------------------------------------------------------------------
** Damien Doligez announced:
We have a release candidate for 3.09.3. It is available from the CVS
repository < <http://camlcvs.inria.fr/cvsserver-eng.html> > under the
tag "ocaml3093rc1".
We would appreciate the help of any user who wants to test this
version and report any problem encountered (as usual, through the
BTS: < <http://caml.inria.fr/mantis/main_page.php> >).
It will become a full release in one or two weeks unless some serious
bug is reported in the meantime.
** Olivier Andrieu then added:
Here's the Changelog by the way:
,----[ Changes ]
| Objective Caml 3.09.3:
| ----------------------
|
| Bug fixes:
| - ocamldoc: -using modtype constraint to filter module elements
displayed
| in doc PR#4016
| - ocamldoc: error in merging of top dependencies of modules PR#4007
| - ocamldoc: -dot-colors has no effect PR#3981
| - ocamdloc: missing crossref in text from intro files PR#4066
| - compilers: segfault with recursive modules PR#4008
| - compilers: infinite loop when compiling objects PR#4018
| - compilers: bad error message when signature mismatch PR#4001
| - compilers: infinite loop with -rectypes PR#3999
| - compilers: contravariance bug in private rows
| - compilers: unsafe cast with polymorphic exception PR#4002
| - native compiler: bad assembly code generated for AMD64 PR#4067
| - native compiler: stack alignment problems on MacOSX/i386 PR#4036
| - stdlib: crash in marshalling PR#4030
| - stdlib: crash when closing a channel twice PR#4039
| - stdlib: memory leak in Sys.readdir PR#4093
| - C interface: better definition of CAMLreturn PR#4068
| - otherlibs/unix: crash in gethostbyname PR#3043
| - tools: subtle problem with unset in makefile PR#4048
|
| New features:
| - ocamldoc: name resolution in cross-referencing {!name}: if name
is not
| found, then it is searched in the parent module/class, and in
the parent
| of the parent, and so on until it is found.
| - ocamldoc: new option -short-functors to use a short form to display
| functors in html generator PR#4017
| - ocamlprof: added "-version" option
`----
====================================
3) Continuations
Archive: <http://groups.google.com/group/fa.caml/browse_thread/thread/
cabde087446087e3/37852870d9f92153#37852870d9f92153>
------------------------------------------------------------------------
** Tom asked and Jacques Carette answered:
> Has anyone implemented continuations in pure, dirty OCaml yet?
> (pure
It can be done in pure, clean Ocaml. See
<http://caml.inria.fr/pub/ml-archives/caml-list/
2006/07/530ba0e13ce88fab8ee0e981d65b70b1.en.html>
as well as
<http://caml.inria.fr/pub/ml-archives/caml-list/
2006/02/8fc9c1a56c497b9743515a5e3432d704.en.html>
If you want delimited continuations, see
<http://caml.inria.fr/cgi-bin/hump.en.cgi?contribP8>
====================================
4) can ocamldep order .cmo files?
Archive: <http://groups.google.com/group/fa.caml/browse_thread/thread/
7bd6ac21b330fd27/a894391df56a788b#a894391df56a788b>
------------------------------------------------------------------------
** Continuing a thread, Jean-Baptiste Rouquier answered Nathan Mishra
Linger:
> I'm a new OCaml user and quite a fan so far (most of my functional
> programming experience has been in Haskell up to this point).
> I know that .cmo arguments to ocamlc must be in order of dependency.
> I also know that ocamldep can detect such dependencies and spit them
> out in a format that makefiles can include.
> But can ocamldep spit out the dependency ordering of a list of .cmo
> files in such a way that these can be input to ocamlc? If not, it
> seems like it would be a useful thing for ocamldep to be able to do
> this. Or do people have other solutions to this problem.
For a tiny script (sed+tsort) that does only this, you might want to
have a
look at
<http://jb.rouquier.free.fr/programmation/ocamldep2moduleList.zip>
** Henry Bigelow also suggested:
also, look at ocamldsort from
<http://dimitri.mutu.net/ocaml.html>
this link is from another post. i just downloaded it today though, and
it works fine
====================================
5) offre d'emploi OCAML bioinformatique chef de projet/développeur
Archive: <http://groups.google.com/group/fa.caml/browse_thread/thread/
80d6342632f9329c/4088c1ddefffe902#4088c1ddefffe902>
------------------------------------------------------------------------
** Fabrice Moriaud announced:
Nous profitions de cette liste de diffusion pour toucher les
programmeurs en
caml/ocaml. Nous sommes désolés d?avoir utilisé ce canal de
diffusion pour
tous ceux qui ne seraient pas du tout intéressés par ce genre d?offre
d?emploi.
Nous avons un code innovant de bioinformatique écrit en OCAML et nous
cherchons à recruter dans les prochaines semaines une personne
capable de
reprendre un code existant, de l?optimiser et de développer de nouvelles
fonctionnalités. Idéalement le candidat sera très à l?aise en OCAML
et sera
expérimenté dans notre domaine bioinformatique/modélisation moléculaire.
Pour plus de précisions, le texte de l?annonce, en anglais est dans
la suite
de ce mail,
N?hésitez pas à nous contacter pour tout renseignement ou candidature,
Merci d?avance pour les candidatures qui proviendront de cette liste de
diffusion,
Cordialement,
F. Moriaud
THREE SOFTWARE DEVELOPERS in MOLECULAR MODELING
MEDIT SA is a French start-up providing highly specialized software and
services in Molecular Modeling and Cheminformatics. Our leading edge
technology is based on fast 3D protein-ligand structure comparison.
MEDIT SA is looking for 3 software developers and molecular modeling
experts
to develop current and new software components for structure-based drug
design.
The successful candidates will possess the following skills along with a
passion for innovative environment:
- confirmed expertise in software development
- background in protein-ligand interactions and molecular modeling
- MS in science plus experience or PhD level
Additional background in OpenGL or OCAML or MS-VisualStudio.Net would
be a
decisive advantage.
MEDIT offers to qualified applicants a competitive package including
Stock
Options. The position is based in Palaiseau (closed to Paris)
Motivated applicants should contact François Delfaud at:
fdelfaud at medit.fr (cc fmoriaud at medit.fr)
For further information:
<http://www.medit.fr/>
====================================
6) Eliminating array bounds check
Archive: <http://groups.google.com/group/fa.caml/browse_thread/thread/
078940042cc3edd6/a7a409cf54eb694e#a7a409cf54eb694e>
------------------------------------------------------------------------
** John Skaller said and Oleg answered:
> Typing is always an abbreviation (abstraction) and sometimes
> stronger or weaker than desired: for example array bounds
> checks at run time, because the type system doesn't cope
> with array sizes as part of the type.
Although that is true that making the type system track the size of a
(dynamically allocated) array is too much of a hassle, array bounds
checks at run-time can be entirely and safely avoided, in OCaml as it
is.
For example:
<http://pobox.com/~oleg/ftp/ML/eliminating-array-bound-check-
literally.ml>
shows how to implement the bsearch (the standard Dependent ML example
from the famous Xi and Pfenning's PLDI98 paper) in the current
OCaml. The above code has exactly the same number of checks as the DML
code; there are no array bound checks -- and yet the code has the same
static assurances of the absence of out-of-bounds array access
errors. The code (given at the end of that file) even looks quite like
the original DML code (quoted at the beginning of that file), only
without any type annotations.
A more interesting example is the textbook KMP string search, which
uses mutable arrays, general recursion, and creative index expressions
(with mutable arrays storing array indices).
<http://pobox.com/~oleg/ftp/Computation/lightweight-dependent-
typing.html>
(well, the referenced code is actually in Haskell, but it is easy to
re-write it in OCaml; I can do that if called to).
The above page points to the PLPV talk that contains formalization and
the proof method (as well some proofs in Twelf). Briefly, we rely on
the type system to propagate assurances made in a small `security
kernel' through the rest of the code. The security kernel does have to
be verified. Our examples show that the kernel is far simpler than the
rest of the code: the KMP kernel, for example, is made of
non-recursive functions performing additions and subtraction of
integers.
** Alain Frisch suggested:
> For example:
> <http://pobox.com/~oleg/ftp/ML/eliminating-array-bound-check-
literally.ml>
>From your code:
===================(* First, we, on off-chance, check if we can obtain type
eigen-variables via the module system.
*)
module GenT : sig type t val v : t end struct type t ;;
let module M1 let module M2 M1.v ;;
(* Alas, the latter succeeds and reports no type error. What did we
expect: OCaml functors are applicative.
Fortunately, OCaml supports higher-rank types.
*)
===================
What about making GenT a functor and passing it unnamed structures as
arguments? (Ok, you must then trust the client not to apply GenT with
named structures.)
module GenT(X:sig end) : sig type t val v : t end struct type t ;;
let module M1 let module M2 M1.v ;;
You could then simplify the TrustedKernel so as not to use polymorphic
record fields (and also to use a direct style instead of a continuation
style for brand).
** Alain Frisch then added:
> What about making GenT a functor and passing it unnamed structures as
> arguments? (Ok, you must then trust the client not to apply GenT with
> named structures.)
Actually, GenT should be a functor anyway, since the abstract types in
the resulting structure must encode invariants which depends on the
(length of the) array. Unfortunaly, you cannot make a polymorphic
functor such as:
module GenT(A : sig val a : 'a array end) ...
As a work-around, you can take only the length of the array as an
argument:
module TrustedKernel(L: sig val len: int end) : sig
type 'a barray
type bindex
val unbi : bindex -> int
type bindexL
type bindexH
...
end let brand a assert(Array.length a (a,0,L.len - 1)
end
On the one hand, this adds one run-time check, but on the other hand it
makes the abstract index types depend only on the length (so the trusted
kernel could be used in algorithms which work with several arrays of the
same size simultaneously).
====================================
Using folding to read the cwn in vim 6+
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Here is a quick trick to help you read this CWN if you are viewing it
using
vim (version 6 or greater).
:set foldmethod=expr
:set foldexpr=getline(v:lnum)=~'^=\\{78}$'?'<1':1
zM
If you know of a better way, please let me know.
====================================
Old cwn
------------------------------------------------------------------------
If you happen to miss a CWN, you can send me a message
(alan.schmitt at polytechnique.org) and I'll mail it to you, or go take
a look at
the archive (<http://alan.petitepomme.net/cwn/>) or the RSS feed of the
archives (<http://alan.petitepomme.net/cwn/cwn.rss>). If you also wish
to receive it every week by mail, you may subscribe online at
<http://lists.idyll.org/listinfo/caml-news-weekly/> .
====================================
--
Alan Schmitt <http://alan.petitepomme.net/>
The hacker: someone who figured things out and made something cool
happen.
.O.
..O
OOO
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: PGP.sig
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 186 bytes
Desc: This is a digitally signed message part
Url : http://lists.idyll.org/pipermail/caml-news-weekly/attachments/20060905/947a231b/attachment.pgp
More information about the caml-news-weekly
mailing list