[cwn] Attn: Development Editor, Latest Caml Weekly News
Alan Schmitt
alan.schmitt at polytechnique.org
Tue Apr 8 00:39:29 PDT 2008
Hello,
Here is the latest Caml Weekly News, for the week of April 01 to 08,
2008.
1) CamlPy 0.1
2) ocaml bitmatch (Erlang-style bitstrings for OCaml)
3) Ocsigen 1.0.0
4) DEFUN08: Call for Talks & Tutorials (co-located w/ ICFP08)
5) tophide 1.0.0 announcement
========================================================================
1) CamlPy 0.1
Archive: <http://groups.google.com/group/fa.caml/browse_thread/thread/38e1b7cccdff6e96#
>
------------------------------------------------------------------------
** John Whitington announced:
I've just uploaded the first version of a library for communicating
between
python and OCaml, together with a little proof-of-concept interface to
WxPython, as a first step towards a better GUI tool for OCaml.
These two blog posts explain:
Background:
<http://coherentgraphics.blogspot.com/2008/03/proper-gui-for-ocaml-part-one.html
>
Release:
<http://coherentgraphics.blogspot.com/2008/04/proper-gui-for-ocaml-part-two.html
>
========================================================================
2) ocaml bitmatch (Erlang-style bitstrings for OCaml)
Archive: <http://groups.google.com/group/fa.caml/browse_thread/thread/c72e028d0248aada#
>
------------------------------------------------------------------------
** Richard Jones:
In the finest tradition of version 0.1 announcements, this is the
first announcement of a highly experimental camlp4 syntax extension
which implements Erlang-style bitstrings, matching over bitstrings,
and construction of bitstrings.
Source: <http://www.annexia.org/tmp/ocaml-bitmatch-0.1.tar.gz>
License: LGPLv2+ with OCaml linking exception
Erlang has a "byte-oriented" data type which can be treated as a
stream of bits, and provides rather elegant features for creating and
matching over such streams. This is a key feature of Erlang and was
developed because of its history in telecommunications. (More about
the feature in this paper:
<http://user.it.uu.se/~kostis/Papers/padl07.pdf>)
I have written a camlp4 syntax extension which does much the same in
OCaml. For example, you can now effortlessly parse IP packets:
let display pkt =
bitmatch pkt with
(* IPv4 packet header from RFC 791:
0 1 2 3
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
|Version| IHL |Type of Service| Total Length |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Identification |Flags| Fragment Offset |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Time to Live | Protocol | Header Checksum |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Source Address |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Destination Address |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Options | Padding |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
*)
| 4 : 4; hdrlen : 4; tos : 8; length : 16; (* same as above in
OCaml *)
identification : 16; flags : 3; fragoffset : 13;
ttl : 8; protocol : 8; checksum : 16;
source : 32;
dest : 32;
options : (hdrlen-5)*32 : bitstring; (* NB computed length *)
payload : -1 : bitstring ->
printf "IPv4:\n";
printf " header length: %d * 32 bit words\n" hdrlen;
printf " type of service: %d\n" tos;
printf " packet length: %d bytes\n" length;
(* etc *)
(* IPv6 packet header *)
| 6 : 4; tclass : 8; flow : 20;
length : 16; nexthdr : 8; ttl : 8;
source : 128 : bitstring;
dest : 128 : bitstring;
payload : -1 : bitstring ->
printf "IPv6:\n";
printf " traffic class: %d\n" tclass;
printf " flow label: %d\n" flow;
printf " packet (payload) length: %d bytes\n" length;
printf " next header: %d\n" nexthdr;
printf " ttl: %d\n" ttl;
(* etc *)
| version : 4 ->
eprintf "unknown IP version %d\n" version;
exit 1
| _ as pkt ->
eprintf "data is smaller than one nibble:\n";
Bitmatch.hexdump_bitstring stderr pkt;
exit 1
Or filesystems, as in this parser for Linux EXT3 superblocks:
let bits = Bitmatch.bitstring_of_file "tests/ext3_sb"
let () =
bitmatch bits with
| s_inodes_count : 32 : littleendian; (* Inodes count *)
s_blocks_count : 32 : littleendian; (* Blocks count *)
s_r_blocks_count : 32 : littleendian; (* Reserved blocks count *)
s_free_blocks_count : 32 : littleendian; (* Free blocks count *)
s_free_inodes_count : 32 : littleendian; (* Free inodes count *)
s_first_data_block : 32 : littleendian; (* First Data Block *)
s_log_block_size : 32 : littleendian; (* Block size *)
s_log_frag_size : 32 : littleendian; (* Fragment size *)
s_blocks_per_group : 32 : littleendian; (* # Blocks per group *)
s_frags_per_group : 32 : littleendian; (* # Fragments per group *)
s_inodes_per_group : 32 : littleendian; (* # Inodes per group *)
s_mtime : 32 : littleendian; (* Mount time *)
s_wtime : 32 : littleendian; (* Write time *)
s_mnt_count : 16 : littleendian; (* Mount count *)
s_max_mnt_count : 16 : littleendian; (* Maximal mount count *)
0xef53 : 16 : littleendian -> (* Magic signature *)
printf "ext3 superblock:\n";
printf " s_inodes_count = %ld\n" s_inodes_count;
printf " s_blocks_count = %ld\n" s_blocks_count;
printf " s_free_inodes_count = %ld\n" s_free_inodes_count;
printf " s_free_blocks_count = %ld\n" s_free_blocks_count
| _ ->
eprintf "not an ext3 superblock!\n%!";
exit 2
There is also a similar syntax for contructing bitstrings.
Please let me know if you are interested in using this. I may change
the syntax a little before the next release.
Thanks to several people on #ocaml for answering my questions when I
was writing this.
** Later on, Richard Jones added:
Since a few people thought that this was an elaborate April Fool's
joke, it's not, there is a version 0.2 which includes a lot more
documentation:
<http://et.redhat.com/~rjones/bitmatch/>
<http://et.redhat.com/~rjones/bitmatch/html/Bitmatch.html>
========================================================================
3) Ocsigen 1.0.0
Archive: <http://groups.google.com/group/fa.caml/browse_thread/thread/fe8518b05d0ebe74#
>
------------------------------------------------------------------------
** Vincent Balat announced:
After more than 3 years of development, we are pleased to announce that
Ocsigen has now reached version 1.0.0!
Ocsigen is a research project aimed at developing new programming
techniques
for the Web. It contains:
- a fully featured Web server, with lots of extensions,
- a programming framework, called Eliom, providing an innovative way to
create dynamic Websites in OCaml.
The Web server has all the features required to be used as a
replacement for
Apache (or others). It is very easy to implement extensions to it in
OCaml.
Among the features that come with Ocsigen are:
- a CGI module to use Web sites written as CGI scripts (for example
trac on
ocsigen.org, or even PHP pages through CGI),
- a reverse proxy module (with pipelined requests) to use Ocsigen
together
with another Web server,
- a powerful, findlib-aware, configuration file with access control and
authentication,
- a content deflation module
- user configuration files (beta)
Eliom is the most innovative part of the project. It is a programming
framework for dynamic Web programming in OCaml which introduces high-
level
concepts that make programming very concise and safe. The goal is to
make
large pieces of code easy to maintain and evolve. For example:
- it is possible to check statically the types of html fragments so as
to
guarantee the validity of pages (with respect to W3C recommendations).
Type
checking is done either using polymorphic variants or with OCamlDuce,
- pages are generated by OCaml functions with an abstract notion
of "service". This ensures that there will be no broken links, and no
wrong
parameter names,
- the full taxonomy of services closely matches the needs of Web
developers,
- it uses continuation-based Web programming for handling the "back
button",
- it provides a powerful session mechanism,
- etc.
Eliom is not a Content Management System, but is intended to be the
basis for
such higher-level tools. Several projects have already been initiated
by the
community, like Nurpawiki (by Janne Hellsten), Litiom and Lambdium (by
Dario
Teixeira), or Ocsimore (by Piero Furiesi and Jaap Boender). We think
that the
project is now mature enough for wider dissemination and we hope some
of you
will be interested in joining the community to develop new sites with
Eliom!
Version 1.0.0 is only the beginning of Ocsigen's story. We have many
things in
mind for the future. We have already been working, for the last few
months,
on a version 2 which will make it very easy to write Web sites that are
highly dynamic on both client and server side.
Ocsigen is developed as a collaborative open source project. If you
need any
features that are not implemented, please feel free to contribute!
Ocsigen is a research project of the PPS laboratory (CNRS, université
Paris-Diderot). It is developed by Vincent Balat, Jérôme Vouillon,
Gabriel
Kerneis, Stéphane Glondu, Denis Berthod, Jaap Boender, Piero Furiesi,
Thorsten Ohl, Nataliya Guts, Jérôme Velleine and Pierre Clairambault. I
really want to thank all of them, and also the whole community of
beta-testers for their very interesting contributions.
We hope that you'll enjoy this version, and we wish you happy
programming with
Eliom!
** He later added:
Obviously I forgot the URL, but it is easy to find:
<http://www.ocsigen.org>
========================================================================
4) DEFUN08: Call for Talks & Tutorials (co-located w/ ICFP08)
Archive: <http://groups.google.com/group/fa.caml/browse_thread/thread/0eee71a7e2379edb#
>
------------------------------------------------------------------------
** Matthew Fluet announced:
Call for Talks and Tutorials
ACM SIGPLAN 2008 Developer Tracks on Functional Programming
<http://www.deinprogramm.de/defun-2008/>
Victoria, BC, Canada, 25, 27 September, 2008
The workshop will be held in conjunction with ICFP 2008.
<http://www.icfpconference.org/icfp2008/>
Important dates
Proposal Deadline: June 27, 2008, 0:00 UTC
Notification: July 14, 2008
DEFUN 2008 invites functional programmers who know how to solve
problems with functional prorgamming to give talks and lead tutorials
at the The ICFP Developer Tracks.
We want to know about your favorite programming techniques, powerful
libraries, and engineering approaches you've used that the world
should know about and apply to other projects. We want to know how to
be productive using functional programming, write better code, and
avoid common pitfals.
We invite proposals for presentations in the following categories:
How-to talks: 45-minute "how-to" talks that provide specific
information on how to solve specific problems using functional
programming. These talks focus on concrete examples, but provide
useful information for developers working on different projects or in
different contexts.
Examples:
- "How I made Haskell an extension language for SAP R/3."
- "How I replaced /sbin/init by a Scheme program."
- "How I hooked up my home appliances to an Erlang control system."
- "How I got an SML program to drive my BMW."
General language tutorials
Half-day general language tutorials for specific functional
languages, given by recognized experts for the respective languages.
Technology tutorials Half-day tutorials on techniques, technologies,
or solving specific problems in functional programming
such as:
- how to make the best use of specific FP programming techniques
- how to inject FP into a development team used to more conventional
technologies
- how to connect FP to existing libraries / frameworks / platforms
- how to deliver high-performance systems with FP
- how to deliver high-reliability systems with FP
Remember that your audience will include computing professionals who
are not academics and who may not already be experts on functional
programming.
Presenters of tutorials will receive free registration to ICFP 2008.
Submission guidelines
Submit a proposal of 150 words or less for either a 45-minute talk
with a short Q&A session at the end, or a 300-word-or-less proposal
for a 3-hour tutorial, where you present your material, but also give
participants a chance to practice it on their own laptops.
Some advice:
- Give it a simple and straightforward title or name; avoid fancy
titles or puns that would make it harder for attendees to figure out
what you'll be talking about.
- Clearly identify the level of the talk: What knowledge should people
have when they come to the presentation or tutorial?
- Explain why people will want to attend:
is the language or library useful for a wide range of attendees? Is
the pitfall you're identifying common enough that a wide range of
attendees is likely to encounter it?
- Explain what benefits attendees are expected to take home to their
own projects.
- For a tutorial, explain how you want to structure the time, and what
you expect to have attendees to do on their laptops. List what
software you'll expect attendees to have installed prior to coming.
Submit your proposal in plain text electronically to
defun-2008-submission-AT-deinprogramm.de by the beginning of Friday,
June 27, Universal Coordinated Time.
Organizers
Kathleen Fisher AT&T Labs
Simon Peyton Jones Microsoft Research
Mike Sperber (co-chair) DeinProgramm
Don Stewart (co-chair) Galois
========================================================================
5) tophide 1.0.0 announcement
Archive: <http://groups.google.com/group/fa.caml/browse_thread/thread/fd59f2f05cd31a45#
>
------------------------------------------------------------------------
** Martin Jambon announced:
Tophide is a tool for the toplevel. It hides value identifiers
starting with
an underscore, just like ls hides files that start with a period:
# let x = 1;;
val x : int = 1
# let _y = 2;; (* great, no output! *)
#
The only purpose is to allow Camlp4 syntax extensions to produce lots of
global identifiers for their own needs and yet keep the toplevel
sessions as
beautiful as always.
2 directives are provided:
#hide;; (* implied on startup *)
#show;; (* back to normal *)
URL: <http://martin.jambon.free.fr/ocaml.html#tophide>
** He later added:
There's a GODI package too!
========================================================================
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
------------------------------------------------------------------------
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========================================================================
--
Alan Schmitt <http://alan.petitepomme.net/>
The hacker: someone who figured things out and made something cool
happen.
.O.
..O
OOO
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