[cwn] Attn: Development Editor, Latest Caml Weekly News
Alan Schmitt
alan.schmitt at polytechnique.org
Tue Sep 25 01:07:46 PDT 2007
Hello,
Here is the latest Caml Weekly News, for the week of September 18 to
25, 2007.
1) coThreads 0.10
2) backtrace patch
3) poll for ocamldbi users
4) Recherche d'un expert en TAO
5) OCaml NAE releases cf-0.9
6) new journal announcement
7) New Vim annot plugin
8) Reference on the OCaml VM
========================================================================
1) coThreads 0.10
Archive: <http://groups.google.com/group/fa.caml/browse_frm/thread/
c0bb621b9d3c91ad/34ffa30420633f18>
------------------------------------------------------------------------
** Continuing the thread from last week, Erik de Castro Lopo said:
What wasn't mentioned in this announcement was the existance of a
mailing list. I posted to the mailing list:
<http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/forum.php?
forum_name=cothreads-discuss>
but I suspect that I may be the only person on the list :-).
** Vu Ngoc San asked and Zheng Li answered:
> this looks like something I'd be very happy to use. Have you tried
compiling
> lablgtk2 with it ?
> (so that I could get rid of the following:)
> [
> The files /usr/lib/ocaml/3.10.0/process/thread.cmi
> and /usr/lib/ocaml/3.10.0/lablgtk2/gtkThread.cmi
> make inconsistent assumptions over interface Thread
> ]
I'm not sure what you're trying to do, but the reason of error seems
obvious:
lablgtk2 seems to have been compiled with the Thread module of system
threads
or VM thread (both come with OCaml's standard distribution), while
you're
linking them with other modules compiled against the Thread module of
process
engine.
The Thread module interfaces from the three engines differ with each
other! Note that this is not the problem from coThreads, it's a
problem of
standard Threads library:
- The Thread interfaces of system threads and VM threads coming with the
standard distribution *already* differ with each other, so that
the objects
compiled with system Thread won't be able to mix with objects
compiled with
VM thread, vice versa. (The problem is the same as in your case)
- We have no way to unify the three of them without modifying the
files from
original distribution, which is exactly what we manage to avoid.
On the other hand, the Cothread module (a super set of the Thread
interface) is
provided to achieve object-level compatibility, so that the objects
compiled
with different engines can mix. All other modules from Threads and
coThreads,
e.g. Mutex, Event, don't have this problem.
You'd like to read the compatibility page for more explanation:
<http://cothreads.sourceforge.net/doc/compatibility>
** skaller asked and Zheng Li answered:
First note that the naming convention follows the standard threads
library in
OCaml: Threads and coThreads (both with 's') refer to the library
(*.cm(x)a);
Thread and Cothread (neither with 's') are modules (*.cm[ox]) inside.
> > The Thread module interfaces from the three engines differ with
each
> > other! Note that this is not the problem from coThreads, it's a
problem of
> > standard Threads library:
> Why don't you just use a different module name?
The different module name *is* Cothread, a compatible super set of
Thread
module. Use this module instead if you want to have object-level
compatibility. In short, all the three engines have the two libraries
with
isomorphic structures (quite simple) :
<code>
threads.cm(x)a = threads.cm[ox], mutex.cm[ox], condition.cm[ox],
event.cm[ox]
cothreads.cm(x)a = threads.cm[ox], mutex.cm[ox], condition.cm[ox],
event.cm[ox], cothread.cm[ox], stm.cm[ox]
</code>
See, we also provide the compatible "threads.cm(x)a" for the process
engine. Think about the following scenario:
- If you're working on legacy code, you don't care STM and don't care
object-level compatibility, the only thing you're interested is
to running
your code with process to speedup, then the only thing to change
in your
Makefile is the include path e.g. "-I +threads" -> "-I +process",
you can
still using Thread module and "threads.cma", they are present in
process
engine.
- You have several projects, some of them using traditional Threads,
some
using coThreads, you don't want to bother to remember that. So
simply
changing all linking library from threads.cma to cothreads.cma is
fine,
because coThreads library contains every modules in Threads library.
- You have some legacy code written in standard Threads, and you'd
like to
have it run with processes. Though you don't care about the newly
introduced
modules of coThreads, you do want to have a single copy of object
files for
each engines. In such case, you need to add one line to any
source code
which makes use of the Thread module:
module Thread = Cothread
because Thread module (the only module in Threads and coThreads)
don't have
object-level compatibility, and change any occurrence of ?
threads.cm(x)a? to
?cothreads.cm(x)a? in your Makefile.
For more explanation, see <http://cothreads.sourceforge.net/doc/
compatibility>
========================================================================
2) backtrace patch
Archive: <http://groups.google.com/group/fa.caml/browse_frm/thread/
18dbd1af12850ea6/dae67dcbbf62ee4c#dae67dcbbf62ee4c>
------------------------------------------------------------------------
** Jake Donham announced:
Here is a little patch to get access to stack traces inside a running
program, for use with long-running servers. It is like Markus Mottl's
patch but uses the standard backtrace mechanism. It works with both
bytecode and native code.
Patch and instructions here:
<http://skydeck.com/blog/programming/stack-traces-in-ocaml/>
I hope that you find it useful.
========================================================================
3) poll for ocamldbi users
Archive: <http://groups.google.com/group/fa.caml/browse_frm/thread/
c3a05db36df020f2/eb86d8c8ece9ba3c#eb86d8c8ece9ba3c>
------------------------------------------------------------------------
** Stefano Zacchiroli announced:
We are considering to remove ocamldbi [1] from Debian for various
reasons (upstream development idle for some time, not yet ported to
sqlite3, popcon score quite low). Before doing so however we are trying
to figure out how many users are still using it by other means than
popcon.
So, here it goes, if someone here is actively using ocamldbi
(preferably on Debian but not strictly necessary) can she please send me
a private mail stating so? Even mails stating thinks like «I was using
it but I stopped doing so for this and that ...» would help.
Many thanks in advance,
Cheers.
[1] <http://cvs.savannah.gnu.org/viewvc/modcaml/ocamldbi/>
========================================================================
4) Recherche d'un expert en TAO
------------------------------------------------------------------------
** Serge Leblanc (serge.leblanc at wanadoo.fr) said:
Dans le cadre d'une startup en cours de constitution, nous
recherchons une
personne compétente en TAO (Traduction Assistée par Ordinateur) et en
Ocaml.
Elle devra être ne mesure de mener à terme un projet de création d'un
service
Internet d'aide à la traduction utilisant OcamlDuce, et Ocsigen.
En plus des compétences requises (dans les grammaires et l'analyse
des langues
naturelles), pour la réalisation des traducteurs "langue native <->
pivot
linguistique", elle devra être capable de maintenir et poursuivre les
travaux
d'Alain Frisch réalisés dans OcamlDuce.
Je me tiens à votre disposition pour tous compléments d'information
sur ce
projet pour lequel nous souhaitons regrouper les meilleurs talents.
========================================================================
5) OCaml NAE releases cf-0.9
Archive: <http://groups.google.com/group/fa.caml/browse_frm/thread/
c032c177dd934688/762a355e5fa8cd16#762a355e5fa8cd16>
------------------------------------------------------------------------
** james woodyatt announced:
This is to announce the release of the OCaml Network Application
Environment (OCaml NAE) Core Foundation library version 0.9 (cf-0.9).
Download the source and ocamldoc output from the project page on
SourceForge:
<http://sourceforge.net/projects/ocnae>
This is a maintenance release to fix bugs and improve compatibility
with OCaml-3.10.0.
===== OCaml NAE Core Foundation (cf) library =====
This distribution is the Objective Caml Network Application
Environment (NAE)
Core Foundation library, which is a collection of miscellaneous
extensions to
the Objective Caml standard library.
Highlighted features include:
- Functional streams and stream processors (extended).
- Functional bootstrapped skew-binomial heap.
- Functional red-black binary tree (associative array).
- Functional sets based on red-black binary tree.
- Functional real-time catenable deque.
- Functional LL(x) parsing using state-exception monad.
- Functional lazy deterministic finite automaton (DFA).
- Functional lexical analyzer (using lazy DFA and monadic parser).
- Functional substring list manipulation (message buffer chains).
- Gregorian calendar date manipulation.
- Standard time manipulation.
- System time in Temps Atomique International (TAI).
- Unicode transcoding.
- Universal resource identifier (URI) manipulation.
Additionally, the following noteworthy features are provided for
compatibility
with earlier versions of this library. Further developments to these
features
are expected to move to a new, separate [Nx] library. These features
are not
expected to improve in the [Cf] library for the version 0.x series,
and they
will be removed in the 1.x series.
- Extended socket interface (supports more options, and UDP w/
multicast).
- I/O event multiplexing (with Unix.select).
Note: see the ISSUES file for a list of open problems in this release.
===== Version 0.9 =====
Highlights of the changes:
+ Compatibility with OCaml-3.10+beta.
+ Fix bug in Cf_rbtree.nearest_(incr|decr) functions.
+ Minor performance improvement.
+ Minor bugs in tests fixed.
+ Noted that socket extensions and event multiplexing are moving to the
forthcoming Nx library.
===== Required Components =====
This library requires the following external components:
- Objective Caml (v3.10.0 or newer)
- Findlib (tested with v1.1.2p1)
Principal development was on Mac OS X 10.4 w/ XCode 2.4.1 using GCC
4.0. Other
platforms with POSIX-like environments should require a minimal
porting effort.
One major open issue: the extended socket interface is broken under
WIN32.
(The author invites help porting the library to other environments.)
========================================================================
6) new journal announcement
Archive: <http://groups.google.com/group/fa.caml/browse_frm/thread/
53134f3d53d0ec73/66411582eb0b0e05#66411582eb0b0e05>
------------------------------------------------------------------------
** Andrea Asperti announced:
JOURNAL OF FORMALIZED REASONING
<http://jfr.cib.unibo.it/>
ISSN: 1972-5787
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Charter and Scope:
The journal encourages submission of papers describing significant
formalization efforts in any area, including classical math,
constructive math, formal algorithms, and program verification.
The emphasis of the journal is on proof techniques and methodologies
and their impact on the formalization process. In particular, the
journal provides a forum for comparing alternative approaches,
enhancing reusability of solutions and offering a clear view of the
current state of the field.
------------------------------------------------------------------
Editorial Board:
Andrea Asperti, University of Bologna
Jeremy Avigad, Carnegie Mellon University
Michael Beeson, San Jose State University
Thierry Coquand, Chalmers University
Herman Geuvers, Radboud University
Georges Gonthier, Microsoft reasearch
John Harrison, Intel Corporation
Xavier Leroy, INRIA Paris
Cesar Munoz, NASA LaRC
Christine Paulin-Morhing, INRIA Saclay and Universite Paris-Sud
Natarajan Shankar, SRI International
Peter Sewell, University of Cambridge
Carlos Simpson, Nice University
Andrzej Trybulec, University of Bialystok
Freek Wiedijk, Radboud University
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Editorial Policy:
The Journal of Formalized Reasoning is a purely electronic publication.
The Journal provides immediate open access to its content on the
principle that making research freely available to the public supports
a greater global exchange of knowledge.
The Journal encourages the submission of interesting, insightful, and
informative papers, preferably accompanied by formal scripts. Although
the journal is not meant to become a repository for proof scripts, an
effort will be made to ensure that the "experimental data" backing
formalisation papers will remain accessible.
Each new contribution must be original, and not submitted before
different
journals for consideration.
Detailed instructions can be found at the journal home page
<http://jfr.cib.unibo.it/>.
========================================================================
7) New Vim annot plugin
Archive: <http://groups.google.com/group/fa.caml/browse_frm/thread/
b8606628519fafbc/15439280d8a1b896#15439280d8a1b896>
------------------------------------------------------------------------
** Vincent Aravantinos announced:
A new vim plugin to handle annot files is available at:
<http://www.vim.org/scripts/script.php?script_id=2025>
Differences with previous plugins:
- ocamlbuild is handled (even if you change the '_build' to another
name, but cross fingers in this case)
- no more need for python support, only vim inside
- little bonus : handling of latin1 accents, of parenthesized
expressions, lists, arrays (no need for visual mode)
see details on the page.
========================================================================
8) Reference on the OCaml VM
Archive: <http://groups.google.com/group/fa.caml/browse_frm/thread/
eb4d052bf88a0c33/edb538137ceadd54#edb538137ceadd54>
------------------------------------------------------------------------
** Mathias Kende asked and Xavier answered:
> I would like to know if there are references on the OCaml VM other
> than
> the source code of bytecomp/byterun, I found none on the OCaml
> website.
> My aim would be to write a small compiler that would target the OCaml
> runtime systems.
While developping OCaml-Java, I had to reverse-engineer this
information.
I produced two pdf files available at <http://cadmium.x9c.fr/>
downloads.html :
- caml-formats.pdf describes both the marshalled data format
and the
bytecode file format;
- caml-instructions.pdf describes all the instructions used
by the
OCaml VM.
Hope this helps,
Xavier
PS: I would be happy to hear about every mistake you find in these
documents
========================================================================
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/20070925/0f4d6292/attachment.pgp
More information about the caml-news-weekly
mailing list