History of changes

Lastest version last. For a note on version numbering, see the SmallEiffel FAQ.

Release - 1.00 - July 1995

The very first bootstrap. SmallEiffel is born.

Release - 0.99 - Saturday February 17^th, 1996

The first version available on the net. Before being made available, the very first SmallEiffel had been tested since September 1995 by students of the University Henri Poincaré

Release - 0.98 - Friday March 15^th, 1996

Command pretty added.
Implements Eiffel expanded clause.

Release - 0.97 - Thursday May 2^nd, 1996

Inside of compiler cleaned.
Pre-Computing of some once functions.
Added class COLLECTION, LINK_LIST and FIXED_ARRAY in lib_std.

Release - 0.96 - Friday May 10^th, 1996

Internal renaming to suppress some warning messages and for a smooth integration with C++ software.
DOS and Macintosh better portability.

Release - 0.95 - Thursday May 30^th, 1996

It is now possible to inherit ARRAY.
It is now possible to inherit STRING.
Flag -cc of compile_to_c has changed.
The PLATFORM class is now conform to ELKS95.
Added feature twin (like the one of TowerEiffel) in GENERAL.
Added features to_external and from_external in class STRING.
Fixed some bugs in once pre-computed routines.

Release - 0.94 - Friday July 5^th, 1996

Fixed some bugs with conformance rule VNCG.
Static expressions are used to detect pre-computable once routines.
Added features to_external and from_external both in classes ARRAY and FIXED_ARRAY.
Fixed a bug for inheritance of ARRAY or FIXED_ARRAY.
Contents of end of class comment checked.
Added documentation file for external calls (see help file man/external ).

Release - 0.93 - Thursday July 18^th, 1996

Fixed some more bugs with conformance rule VNCG.
Type BIT is now implemented.
Added ELKS 95 STRING.left_adjust and STRING.right_adjust.

Release - 0.92 - Saturday July 20^th, 1996

Fixed some more bugs with conformance rule VNCG.
Added math functions in DOUBLE/REAL (sin, cos, tan, asin, acos, atan, ... ANSI C names).

Release - 0.91 - Wednesday July 24^th, 1996

Incremental C compiling mode implemented (see option -c_code in help file man/compile) .
Added command clean in help file man/clean .
Added class FILE_TOOLS.
No more empty C struct in generated C code (to avoid problems with Microsoft Windows C compiler).
Fixed one more bug with conformance rule VNCG.

Release - 0.90 - Friday August 23^rd, 1996

Added random number generator library (SmallEiffel/lib_rand).
Added checking of assertions for external "CSE" features.
Anchoring on expanded types are now allowed.
Multiple level of anchoring definition allowed.
Fixed a bug in STRING.from_external.
Fixed a bug with mixed rename/redefine.
Inheritance loop detection.
Anchoring loop detection.
Fixed a bug with renaming infix/prefix.
Command clean also use the make suffix.
Added ELKS95 sign in INTEGER/REAL/DOUBLE.
Feature make is the default root feature name for compile.
Optimized ARRAY.add_last and STRING.extend.
Changed STRING.out (no more enclosing %" printed).
Remove warning gcc messages for 64 bits machine (alpha/DECK).
Added option -no_split for a better finalization (see man/compile_to_c) file).

Release - 0.89 - Sunday September 15^th, 1996

Calling Eiffel from C is now implemented (see man/cecil) file).
Object creation uses C calloc instead malloc+memset.
Object creation is inlined.
ARRAY/FIXED_ARRAY put and item are now inlined (-boost only).
Added feature capacity and resize in FIXED_ARRAY.
Added some classes in std_lib: LINK2_LIST (two way linked list), COLLECTION2 (deferred), ARRAYED_COLLECTION (deferred), LINKED_COLLECTION (deferred) and FIXED_ARRAY2 in std_lib.
More user's routines are inlined (-boost only).

Release - 0.88 - Wednesday October 30^th, 1996

Fixed bugs dealing with inherit/rename/select.
Added warning for missing colon in actual arguments list.
Warning : INSTALL procedure has changed and you have to set manually the default loading path (see misc/INSTALL for details).
Added some VMS customization.
Fixed bugs when printing run-time stack.
Warning added for missing colon in actual parameter list.
Added flush in class STD_FILE_WRITE.
No more left hand side cast in C code (because some C compilers don't like them).

Release - 0.87 - Tuesday January 7^th, 1997

Added a new flag -trace to ease debug (see man/compile_to_c file).
More inlining at Eiffel level (-boost mode only).
Class BIT_N completely revisited. It may be as fast as C.
Added class C_ARRAY[E] to deal directly with C arrays at Eiffel level. Thus there are no more external "CSE" or c_inline_c in classes STRING/ARRAY/FIXED_ARRAY (only full Eiffel). Eiffel code is nice and STRING/ARRAY/FIXED_ARRAY may run faster.
Fixed a bug in STD_FILE_READ.read_double.
Ordering of C output to increase gcc inlining.
According to man/compile_to_c) , flag -debug_check now works (debug instructions are no longer generated in mode -all_check).
Unused local variables removed at Eiffel level (warning added for -debug_check mode only).
Default class ANY now inherits PLATFORM (as in ETL).
Fixed a bug in floating-point constants.
Added directory sys to customize default C compiler, default C linker and default loading path.
Fixed some bugs with outside expanded types.
Fixed a bug with rename/select.
Redefinition of once routine is now allowed.
Feature GENERAL.conforms_to is now implemented.
Rule VFFD.7 is now enforced.
Feature force implemented for all COLLECTION.
Added conversions features CHARACTER.to_bit, INTEGER.to_bit, BIT_N.to_character and BIT_N.to_integer.

Release - 0.86 - Sunday April 13^rd, 1997

All reported bugs at this time have been fixed.
Added flag -verbose to commands: compile, compile_to_c and clean. When this new flag is not present, commands now work silently unless some error (or warning) occurs.
Features BOOLEAN.infix "or" and BOOLEAN.infix "and" are now written in pure Eiffel. As a consequence, it is very important for the SmallEiffel programmer to make the distinction between BOOLEAN.infix "and then" and BOOLEAN.infix "and" (respectively for BOOLEAN.infix "or else" and BOOLEAN.infix "or"). When left-hand-side argument produces no side effect, the semi-strict operator (BOOLEAN.infix"and then"/"or else") may run faster.
Fixed REAL.sin (the old one was calling sqrt :-).
Fixed a bug in INTEGER.append_in (you can now print Minimum_integer).
Added feature in_range in class COMPARABLE.
Result type of REAL.infix "^" is now DOUBLE for ELKS compatibility.
Feature remove is now implemented in all subclasses of COLLECTION (i.e. ARRAY, FIXED_ARRAY, LINK_LIST and LINK2_LIST).
Added feature add for all subclasses of COLLECTION.
Conversion DOUBLE/STRING : ANSI C sscanf and sprintf is now used to avoid loss of precision.
Added some more class invariant code generation when compiling in -invariant_check mode. Class invariant is now also checked before exit of a routine.
Added feature file_tools in class GENERAL to ease access to class FILE_TOOLS.
Changed printing format for basic *_REF classes. For example, instruction print(1); now prints 1.
Feature truncated_to_integer of DOUBLE is now ELKS compatible (added feature rounded in class DOUBLE to replace the old truncated_to_integer). Same changes in class REAL.

Release - 0.85 - Thursday July 3^rd, 1997

First beta-release of commands compile_to_jvm and print_jvm_class !
The new name for class C_ARRAY is now NATIVE_ARRAY (because it works both with Java and C). The old C_ARRAY name is temporarily accepted with a warning from the compiler.
For readability and to avoid confusion with Java names, external tags have changed (see for new names in man/external file). Old names are temporarily accepted with a warning giving the new name to use.
Added feature to_hexadecimal and feature to_hexadecimal_in in class CHARACTER.
Feature io, std_input, std_output and std_error of class GENERAL are no longer frozen.
Some changes in STD_FILE_READ for features read_integer, read_double and read_real (added comments, precondition and solved the problem with the trailing separator).
Feature die_with_code of GENERAL now accepts any INTEGER code (not just predefined exit_success_code and exit_failure_code).
Fixed a bug in STRING. The following expression is now true: ("a%/0/b").count = 3

Many changes in basic input/output in order to be compatible with Java: No more class STD_FILE (the name is now free for an ELKS implementation). Two new classes: INPUT_STREAM and OUTPUT_STREAM.
Feature unread_character of class INPUT_STREAM is now implemented in Eiffel.
Added OUTPUT_STREAM.put_pointer to view a POINTER.

Release - 0.84 - Monday August 18^th, 1997

Class BIT is now implemented in Java bytecode (command compile_to_jvm).
Added external specification to call Java code (when using compile_to_jvm).
To fit on a single 3.5 inches disk, unsplitted C code for large commands (compile_to_c and compile_to_jvm) is no longer in the distribution as well as the old lib_test directory.
Changed the algorithm to load classes in order to allow upper case letters in files names (priority is always given to lower case file names).
Added STRING.substring_index (from ELKS written by Fridtjof SIEBERT).
Added one more file in SmallEiffel/sys/ directory in order to customize object files suffix (thus, using Borland C compiler on Windows is now possible).
Changed the behavior of end_of_input of INPUT_STREAM (this flag is true _after_ last character has been read).
Fixed a bug in manifest arrays (mixed objects including Void).
Fixed a bug dealing with some statically computed expressions.
Fixed a bug in repeated inheritance.

Release - 0.83 - Friday September 19^th, 1997

Added command short to the distribution.
Added directory contrib in the distribution. This directory contains some scripts to use gdb as source level debugger for SmallEiffel.
Added flag -no_warning to commands: compile_to_c, pretty, and compile_to_jvm.
Added flag -case_insensitive to command compile_to_c.
Fixed a bug for inherit/select.
Fixed a bug for some pre-computed once function.

Release - 0.82 - Friday January 16^th, 1998

Became the official GNU Eiffel compiler.
Added first HTML mode to command short . Flag -html1. Thanks to Matthias Klause.
Fixed bugs in command pretty .
It is now possible to rename/redefine external "SmallEiffel" features.
Files *.hlp of directory SmallEiffel/man no longer exists. All the documentation is now in *.html files plus corresponding automatically generated *.txt files.
Manifest arrays creation has been optimized.
Validity rule VHRC.2 is now enforced.
Fixed bugs about export clause.
Feature GENERAL.hash_code no longer exists. Added ELKS class HASHABLE in order to be compatible with others compilers/libraries.
Fixed a bug in pre-computed once functions.
Fixed a bug in REAL/DOUBLE keybord input.
Reintroduced left hand side cast in C code for better performances (allowed by the C ANSI standard).
Obsolete features (obsolete keyword) now generate a Warning.

Release - 0.81 - Thursday April 9^th, 1998

First finalized version of the garbage collector. Currently supported architectures are SPARC Solaris, HP-UX, Linux, MacOS, Windows 95 and NT (see file SmallEiffel/sys/gc for details). Added flag -no_gc to suppress the GC (see man/compile_to_c).
Changed the default for the generation of C code. Now, the C code and object files are kept by default. (This previously required using option -c_code, which becomes obsolete.)
Added flag -clean which removes all the C and object files of the system. (This corresponds to the old default behavior.)
Fixed a bug related to buffered input under Windows/MS VC.
Fixed a bug in misc/INSTALL.SH script.
Added require is_connected for all features put_* of class OUTPUT_STREAM.
Fixed a bug in command short (require/ensure assertion of deferred routines are now printed).
Added one useful hook for mode -html1 in command short (see hook Mcn).
Added directory SmallEiffel/sys/runtime which contains the C runtime.
Fixed a bug about instanciation of class ANY itself (not so common !).
Fixed a bug about inlining of operator $.
Fixed a bug about cyclic anchored definitions.

Release - 0.80 - Thursday July 9^th, 1998.

Exception handling implemented. Class EXCEPTIONS added in lib_std.
Execution trace stack implementation completely revisited: more comprehensive information is now available, and the overhead incurred by this stack is greatly reduced (executables are about 3 times faster when running in -all_check mode).
Added option -no_main in command compile_to_c to avoid generation of the C main function. This is useful when one wants to start execution from outside before calling some Eiffel routines via the cecil interface.
Behavior of compilation flag -trace of command compile_to_c changed to allow step-by-step execution (embryo of Eiffel source code debugger).
Feature ARRAY.resize completely revisited (added two features in class NATIVE_ARRAY: clear and move).
Garbage Collector optimized (the GC should be more agressive and some benchmarks are included in directory SmallEiffel/misc/benchmarks/gc/*/bench.e).
Associativity of infix operator "^" is now correctly handled.
Fixed bugs in PLATFORM for Minimum_double, Minimum_real and Minimum_character_code.
Fixed some others bugs about export rules, about expanded objects with expanded attributes.
Fixed bugs in pretty.

Release - 0.79 - Work in progress.

Multithreading.
Files and directories library.
Eiffel source code debugger.
Implementation of the new Eiffel construct Precursor.
Fixed a bug related to calls of the form f.g.h; on expanded objects.
Implementation of the Eiffel expression strip.