Visual Prolog 7.3 New Features

From wiki.visual-prolog.com

Template:Preliminary Documentation

Language

  • Generic Interfaces and Classes
    • Conversion to generic type
  • Monitors with guards
  • New operator == (must-unify)
  • Universal term type any and the predicate toAny/1->
  • The precedence of unary minus is changed (so that power operator has higher precedence)
  • New built-in predicate fromEllipsis : (...) -> any* Terms
  • Runtime distinction between privately and publicly supported interfaces is removed
  • Preparations for supporting 64bit systems: built-in types integerNative and unsignedNative
  • Extended versions of built-in predicates toTerm/2-> and tryToTerm/2-> (type as the first parameter).
  • Native interfaces support (attributes):
    • inline: Inline structures and strings.
    • union: Functor-less unions.
    • byVal: Passing parameters by value.
  • Other new attributes retired, noDefaultConstructorused
  • External resolution is default for predicates declared with apicall calling convention.
    • They cannot have clauses
    • explicit externally resolution is only legal when a DLL is stated

New warnings

  • Local object predicates which do not use This (and therefore can be declared as class predicates)
  • Unused local constants
  • Condition of foreach statement which has no backtrack point (i.e. mode is not multi<vp/> or <vp>nondeterm<vp/>)
    * <vp>unheckedConversion    's that would be illegal on 64 bit platforms (e.g. pointer -> integer)

IDE

  • Project tree is redesigned and reimplemented
  • IncludedIn and Includes windows is moved to preview pane of project window
  • Browse dialog is improved (automatically jump to the 1st occurrence of search entity on locate, save the last dialog position, etc.)
  • Find In Files dialog is improved (one result window, F8 for next, mixed case sensitive search mode, state is saved, etc.)
  • Namespaces support is improved (it’s possible to put forms, etc. in a namespace)
  • IntelliSense feature is strongly improved for typing speed and convenience of work
  • Improved tab navigation dialog, use ALT button for filtering [ReadOnly] windows and Del for closing windows
  • Simplify project creation: Project Kinds (Console application, GUI application and DLL) instead of UI Strategy and Target Type
  • Dump view improvements (Shift+F2)
  • Sorting feature in Errors Window, Break points Window, etc
  • Optimal Set of Includes improved (output, local scopes, etc.)

Debugger

  • Marking a particular variable in the variable window.
  • View of long lists improvement
  • Speed of restarting is improved
  • Memory break points and fact access (for some types)
  • Multi-threaded application debugging is improved (thread names, break points handling)
  • Multi-line tool tips

PFC

New packages

  • Collection library
    • Algebraic: redBlackSet, leftistPriorityQueue
    • Modifiable: mapM_redBlack, priorityQueueM_leftist, queueM_fact, setM_redBlack
    • Persistent: mapP_redBlack, priorityQueueP_leftist, queueP_fact, setP_redBlack
  • varM modifiable variable
  • linkControl PFC version of the Link common control
  • richEditControl PFC version of the RichEdit common control
  • treeControl PFC model based version of the TreeView common control
  • gdiplus PFC version of GDI+
  • cryptography hash, sha1, md5 & base64
  • eventSource generalization of event notification/listening
  • monitorQueue thread safe queue class based on the monitor facility
  • reflection basic functionalty for code reflection
  • inputStream_null & outputStream_null media-less streams (input is exhausted; outpt throws away)
  • lZ_fileSystem_native Interface to Lempel-Ziv Decompression API functionality
  • shell_api Api level interface to the Windows Shell
  • winsock2_native native bindings to Windows Sockets 2

Extensions and improvements of existing packages

  • List package was improved for speed (predicates sort, removeDuplicate, drop, max/min etc.) and functionality (predicate isMemberEq (and similar predicates) that uses a deterministic predicate as test)
  • GUI: listControl with owner-drawing capabilities
  • Extend Windows API functionality (expand uxTheme_native with the rest of the functions and the constants from vsStyle.h, etc.)
  • Add moving listener/responder to splitTwoControl
  • Add the fraction handling from format to formatTime
  • Improve speed for some packages (string, fileName, listViewControl)
  • string::rear/2-> returns the rear part of a string
  • Math package: predicates roundToInteger64/1-> and roundToUnsigned64/1->
  • Better handling of default button size
  • msXLM_api update to version 6.0 of diverse COMponent classes

Others

  • More efficient memory handling (using typed memory allocation for compound terms and internal facts chains)
  • A lot of optimizations for speed and size of generated code
  • Some new Demo Examples had been added (Parser Generator, LZDecompression and TreeControlDemo (CE only)).
  • VipBuilder: extra option to ignore all required statements.
  • Help on built-in entities.
  • Extend Win32 library (with more names from MS libraries).
  • Provide more context to consult exceptions.
  • Linker: speed was improved.
  • Vault Integration was updated to version 4.1.4
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