CHANGES in Release 5.0 of the Mjølner System

• New features in r5.0
  • General new features
  • Tool specific new features
  • Library specific new features
  • Platform specific new features
• Behind the scenes

Elimination of version numbers in paths

There are no longer version numbers in the paths to libraries. This menas much easier upgrade to new releases, since no version numbers have to be changed. E.g. betaenv is now refered as ~beta/basiclib/betaenv.

Support for string-literal concatenation

String literals, e.g. 'Hello, World!' can now be written as multiple string literals with whitespace between them e.g.

'Hello, '
'World!' -> putline

which will make Hello, World! print out. This will allow long string literals to be written en a more readable fashing in the source code
Notice that this removes the old feature of using double ticks ('') in a string literal when a single tick is wanted in the output. Use backslash-tick (\') instead.

Implementation of MainPart SLOTs

MainPart SLOTs are now fully implemented. This means that the following is now possible:

foobar.bet

ORIGIN ... BODY 'foo' ... foo: bar<<SLOT foo:MainPart>> ...

foo.bet

ORIGIN 'foobar' -- foo: MainPart -- (# ... #)

Preliminary COM support

Microsoft COM technology is now partly supported by BETA. See library comlib. Notice that these features are currently not documented.

New basic patterns

The following basic patterns have been introduced

int8	signed 8-bit integer
int8u	unsigned 8-bit integer
int16	signed 16-bit integer
int16u	unsigned 8-bit integers (replaces pattern shortInt)
int32	signed 32-bit integer (identical to pattern integer)
int32u	unsigned 32-bit integer
int64	signed 64-bit integer
int64u	unsigned 64-bit integer

For the 64 bit integers, limitations exists on their possible usage. See [MIA 90-02].

16-bit characters

Support has been added for 16-bit characters. The library basiclib/wtext.bet defines patterns wstream and wtext that are 16-bit versions of stream and text.
Operations supporting conversion between stream/text and wstream/wtext are available. In future version, wstream and wtext will replace stream/text. Currently most of the Mjølner system is still based on stream/text.

Documentation in HTML

The documentation of the Mjølner System is now primarily in HTML, which in more convenient online than the PDF format used in previous releases. The page you are currently watching is part of this documentation. The main entry to this documentation can be found by clicking here. The latest version of this documentation may always be found at

http://www.mjolner.com/mjolner-system/documentation/

Mjolner tool

A new tool called mjolner integrates the previously stand alone tools sif (source browser and editor), freja (CASE tool), frigg (interface builder), beta (compiler), and valhalla (debugger). Among the mentioned, only the compiler is kept as a stand alone tool.

Valhalla

Valhalla is now integrated into the mjolner tool. This means that the long-wanted edit-run-debug-edit-rerun... cycle is now possible.
A new feature in the valhalla part of mjolner is dynamic evaluators, which allows you to open a code editor in the context of an object view, type in a BETA pattern, get the pattern compiled in the context of the object being displayed, and finally running the code. This allows for unlimited inspection of objects and their surroundings without learning another query-language, and also for modification of objects before continuing the program being debugged.

freja tool

Freja, which is now integrated in the mjolner tool, is now available on all platforms.

OpenGL library

Using guienv/openGL one can now program OpenGL programs in BETA.

guienv

A number of useful features have been added, most of them to the utils directory.

comlib library

A new library with preliminary support for Microsoft COM in BETA.

bifrost

Support for zooming of BifrostCanvas added.

Elimination of SDK environment variable

The user no longer have to do a lot of manual setup of e.g. SDK environment variable.

Borland no longer supported

Using the tools from Borland as SDK is no longer supported in the Mjølner System. Use the Microsoft or GNU SDKs instead.

GNU implementation completed

The Mjølner System using the GNU SDK is now comparable with the version using Microsoft as SDK.

valhalla now works under Windows 95

The previous version of valhalla failed to continue after having hit a breakpoint when running under Win95. This error has been fixed.

Execution scripts eliminated

Most of the scripts for invoking the compiler etc. in %BETALIB%\bin has been eliminated. Instead the EXE files are invoked directly. The EXE files are placed in %BETALIB%\bin\<target>, where <target> is one of nti_ms or nti_gnu, depending on whether the Microsoft or GNU SDK is used.

Argument expansion

Arguments given on the command line are now expanded in a UNIX like manner. See pattern Argument in betaenv.