Again: new alpha GPC on agnes

Sat, 15 Feb 1997 22:16:19 +0100 (MET)

Hello, GPC testers!  ;-)

Here is the next alpha version of GPC.  You can download it at

  ftp://agnes.dida.physik.uni-essen.de/gnu-pascal/alpha/gpc-2.0-970215.diff.gz

Although the changes since gpc-970207 are crucial they are almost
invisible.  What I did was to "sort" the different language dialects
and to implement options which allow a clear distinction between them.

For example, GPC now defaults to allow nested comments { like this one
(* you see? *) }, whereas ISO Standard allows comments starting with
`(*' and ending with '}'.

For example, GPC now understands Borland-style character constants like
`#10' (* as an alternative to `chr ( 10 )'; the notation `^J' is *not*
yet implemented *).  Data type like `Word' or `Pointer' are built into
GPC now, but you still cannot `writeln' them.

If you specify one of `--standard-pascal·level-0', `--standard-pascal',
`--extended-pascal', or `--object-pascal', nested comments are switched
off by default { does anybody really use comments starting with `(*'
and ending with `}'? *), and all Borland extensions (including the `#'
character constants and the above data types) which contradict ISO are
switched off.  When you combine the above switches with `--pedantic',
even those extensions which do not contradict the standard trigger
warnings, with `--pedantic-errors' they trigger error messages.

To make things more symmetric, `--borland-pascal' yields the opposite
effect.  With this switch, warnings about a missing program header or
misuse of "typed constants" are omitted; together with `--pedantic'
you get warnings about Extended Pascal features not in Borland Pascal,
and so on.

I heavily modified the parsing of String-related stuff.  Now everything
is prepared for the implementation of general Schema types ...

Now it's your turn:  I would like to know how much is broken due to the
above improvements.

  * Please try to recompile all your GNU Pascal programs with this
    alpha compiler.  There should be no problems.

  * Please try to compile your Standard Pascal programs with GPC
    with and without the switches `--standard-pascal' and/or `--pedantic'.
    There should be less problems than before, and there should be less
    problems with `--standard-pascal' than without.

  * The same for not too sophisticated Extended Pascal programs.
    (For example, Schema types are still not implemented.)

  * The same for not too sophisticated Borland Pascal programs.  There
    should be less problems with `--borland-pascal' than without.

That's it.  Please post your "everything works" reports to this list.
(* But bug reports are welcome, too. :*)

Yours,

    Peter

  Dipl.-Phys. Peter Gerwinski, Essen, Germany, free physicist and programmer
peter.gerwinski@uni-essen.de - http://home.pages.de/~peter.gerwinski/ [970201]
       maintainer GNU Pascal - http://home.pages.de/~gnu-pascal/ [970125]


Peter Gerwinski (peter@agnes.dida.physik.uni-essen.de)