CHANGELOG.md

Truffle Changelog

This changelog summarizes major changes between Truffle versions relevant to languages implementors building upon the Truffle framework. The main focus is on APIs exported by Truffle.

Version 0.15

1-Jul-2016

• Source shall be constructed via its newBuilder methods. The other ways to construct or modify source objects are now deprecated.
• RootNode.getName to provide name of a method or function it represents.
• Instruments are now loaded eagerly - which has been reported as an observable behavioral change.
• The Instrumenter now allows one to observe when sources and source sections are being loaded via attaching a listener.
• Control the way loops are exploded with a new LoopExplosionKind enum.
• SuspendedEvent provides a way to convert any value on stack to its string representation.
• TruffleTCK checks whether languages properly support being interrupted after a time out
• Language implementations are encouraged to mark their internal sources as internal

Version 0.14

2-Jun-2016

• Source has been rewritten to be more immutable. Once (part of) content of a source is loaded, it cannot be changed.
• Methods fromNamedAppendableText, fromNamedText and setFileCaching of Source has been deprecated as useless or not well defined
• New method Source.getURI() has been introduced and should be used as a persistent identification of Source rather than existing getName() & co. methods. Debugger is using the URI to attach breakpoints to not yet loaded sources
• Debugger introduces new halt tag to make it easier to simulate concepts like JavaScript's debugger statement
• Debugger can be paused via the Debugger.pause method
• @CompilationFinal annotation can now specify whether the finality applies to array elements as well
• TruffleTCK has been enhanced to test behavior of languages with respect to foreign array objects

Version 0.13

22-Apr-2016

• AcceptMessage has been deprecated, replaced by MessageResolution & co. annotations. Now all message-oriented annotations need to be placed in a single source file. That simplifies readability as well as improves incremental compilation in certain systems.
• Deprecated Node.assignSourceSection removed. This reduces the amount of memory occupied by Node instance.
• PolyglotEngine.Value.execute is now as fast as direct CallTarget.call. Using the PolyglotEngine abstraction now comes with no overhead. Just JPDA debuggers need to turn debugging on explicitly.
• Sharing of efficient code/AST between multiple instances of PolyglotEngine is possible. Using more than one PolyglotEngine resulted in code de-opt previously. That isn't the case anymore. Future version of the API will provide explicit control over the set of engines that share the code.
• Simple language JAR no longer contains test classes. There is a separate simple language tests distribution.

Version 0.12

• The Instrumentation Framework has been revised and has new APIs that are integrated into the PolyglotEngine.
• Instrumentation support required of language implementations is specified as abstract methods on TruffleLanguage.
• Clients access instrumentation services via an instance of Instrumenter, provided by the Polyglot framework.
• TruffleRuntime#iterateFrames now starts at the current frame.

Version 0.11

28-Jan-2016

• Improved interop API
• PolyglotEngine.Builder.getConfig
• TruffleLanguage.Env.isMimeTypeSupported

Version 0.10

18-Dec-2015

• Profile API classes moved into its own com.oracle.truffle.api.profiles package

Version 0.9

21-Oct-2015

• Debugger API

Version 0.8

17-Jul-2015, Repository Revision

• The Truffle repository no longer contains Graal
• PolyglotEngine is an entry point for creating, building and running multi language Truffle systems
• Implement TruffleLanguage and use @Registration to register your language into the Truffle polyglot system
• Include Truffle TCK (test compatibility kit) into your test cases to verify your language implementation is compliant enough
• Interoperability API polished
• Cleanup of Source related API

Version 0.7

29-Apr-2015, Repository Revision

• New, faster partial evaluation (no more TruffleCache).
• If a method is annotated with @ExplodeLoop and contains a loop that can not be exploded, partial evaluation will fail.
• Truffle background compilation is now multi-threaded.
• Experimental merge=true flag for @ExplodeLoop allows building bytecode-based interpreters (see BytecodeInterpreterPartialEvaluationTest).
• Added Node#deepCopy as primary method to copy ASTs.
• Disable inlining across Truffle boundary by default. New option TruffleInlineAcrossTruffleBoundary default false.
• Node.replace(Node) now guards against non-assignable replacement, and Node.isReplacementSafe(Node) checks in advance.
• Instrumentation: AST "probing" is now safe and implemented by Node.probe(); language implementors need only implement Node.isInstrumentable() and Node.createWrapperNode().
• Instrumentation: A new framework defines a category of simple "instrumentation tools" that can be created, configured, and installed, after which they autonomously collect execution data of some kind.
• Instrumentation: A new example "instrumentation tool" is a language-agnostic collector of code coverage information (CoverageTracker); there are two other examples.
• Removed unsafe compiler directives; use sun.misc.Unsafe instead.
• Removed Node#onAdopt().
• Implemented a new generated code layout that reduces the code size.
• Changed all methods enclosed in a @TypeSystem must now be static.
• Changed all methods enclosed in generated type system classes are now static.
• Deprecated the type system constant used in the generated type system classes.
• Changed NodeFactory implementations are no longer generated by default. Use {Node}Gen#create instead of {Node}Factory#create to create new instances of nodes.
• Added @GenerateNodeFactory to generate NodeFactory implementations for this node and its subclasses.
• Deprecated @NodeAssumptions for removal in the next release.
• Deprecated experimental @Implies for removal in the next release.
• Added new package c.o.t.api.dsl.examples to the c.o.t.api.dsl project containing documented and debug-able Truffle-DSL use cases.
• Changed "typed execute methods" are no longer required for use as specialization return type or parameter. It is now sufficient to declare them in the @TypeSystem.
• Added @Cached annotation to express specialization local state.
• Added Specialization#limit to declare a limit expression for the maximum number of specialization instantiations.
• Changed syntax and semantics of Specialization#assumptions and Specialization#guards. They now use a Java like expression syntax.
• Changed guard expressions that do not bind any dynamic parameter are invoked just once per specialization instantiation. They are now asserted to be true on the fast path.
• Renamed @ImportGuards to @ImportStatic.
• Changed declaring a @TypeSystemReference for a node that contains specializations is not mandatory anymore.
• Changed types used in specializations are not restricted on types declared in the type system anymore.
• Changed nodes that declare all execute methods with the same number of evaluated arguments as specialization arguments do not require @NodeChild annotations anymore.
• Changed types used in checks and casts are not mandatory to be declared in the type system.

Version 0.6

19-Dec-2014, Repository Revision

• Instrumentation: add Instrumentable API for language implementors, with most details automated (see package com.oracle.truffle.api.instrument).
• The BranchProfile constructor is now private. Use BranchProfile#create() instead.
• Renamed @CompilerDirectives.SlowPath to @CompilerDirectives.TruffleBoundary
• Renamed RootNode#isSplittable to RootNode#isCloningAllowed
• Removed RootNode#split. Cloning ASTs for splitting is now an implementation detail of the Truffle runtime implementation.
• Renamed DirectCallNode#isSplittable to DirectCallNode#isCallTargetCloningAllowed
• Renamed DirectCallNode#split to DirectCallNode#cloneCallTarget
• Renamed DirectCallNode#isSplit to DirectCallNode#isCallTargetCloned
• Added PrimitiveValueProfile.
• Added -G:TruffleTimeThreshold=5000 option to defer compilation for call targets
• Added RootNode#getExecutionContext to identify nodes with languages
• Removed FrameTypeConversion interface and changed the corresponding FrameDescriptor constructor to have a default value parameter instead.
• Removed CompilerDirectives.unsafeFrameCast (equivalent to a (MaterializedFrame) cast).
• Added TruffleRuntime#getCapability API method.
• Added NodeInterface and allowed child field to be declared with interfaces that extend it.
• Added CompilerOptions and allowed it to be set for ExecutionContext and RootNode.
• Added experimental object API (see new project com.oracle.truffle.api.object).

Version 0.5

23-Sep-2014, Repository Revision

• Added TruffleRuntime#getCallTargets() to get all call targets that were created and are still referenced.
• Added NeverValidAssumption to complement AlwaysValidAssumption.
• Fixed a bug in AssumedValue that may not invalidate correctly.
• New option, -G:+/-TruffleCompilationExceptionsAreThrown, that will throw an OptimizationFailedException for compiler errors.

Version 0.4

19-Aug-2014, Repository Revision

Truffle

• Change API for stack walking to a visitor: TruffleRuntime#iterateFrames replaces TruffleRuntime#getStackTrace
• New flag -G:+TraceTruffleCompilationCallTree to print the tree of inlined calls before compilation.
• truffle.jar: strip out build-time only dependency into a seperated JAR file (truffle-dsl-processor.jar)
• New flag -G:+TraceTruffleCompilationAST to print the AST before compilation.
• New experimental TypedObject interface added.
• Added isVisited method for BranchProfile.
• Added new ConditionProfile, BinaryConditionProfile and CountingConditionProfile utility classes to profile if conditions.

Version 0.3

9-May-2014, Repository Revision

• The method CallTarget#call takes now a variable number of Object arguments.
• Support for collecting stack traces and for accessing the current frame in slow paths (see TruffleRuntime#getStackTrace).
• Renamed CallNode to DirectCallNode.
• Renamed TruffleRuntime#createCallNode to TruffleRuntime#createDirectCallNode.
• Added IndirectCallNode for calls with a changing CallTarget.
• Added TruffleRuntime#createIndirectCallNode to create an IndirectCallNode.
• DirectCallNode#inline was renamed to DirectCallNode#forceInlining().
• Removed deprecated Node#adoptChild.

Version 0.2

25-Mar-2014, Repository Revision

• New API TruffleRuntime#createCallNode to create call nodes and to give the runtime system control over its implementation.
• New API RootNode#getCachedCallNodes to get a weak set of CallNodes that have registered to call the RootNode.
• New API to split the AST of a call-site context sensitively. CallNode#split, CallNode#isSplittable, CallNode#getSplitCallTarget, CallNode#getCurrentCallTarget, RootNode#isSplittable, RootNode#split.
• New API to inline a call-site into the call-graph. CallNode#isInlinable, CallNode#inline, CallNode#isInlined.
• New API for the runtime environment to register CallTargets as caller to the RootNode. CallNode#registerCallTarget.
• Improved API for counting nodes in Truffle ASTs. NodeUtil#countNodes can be used with a NodeFilter.
• New API to declare the cost of a Node for use in runtime environment specific heuristics. See NodeCost, Node#getCost and NodeInfo#cost.
• Changed Node#replace reason parameter type to CharSequence (to enable lazy string building)
• New Node#insert method for inserting new nodes into the tree (formerly adoptChild)
• New Node#adoptChildren helper method that adopts all (direct and indirect) children of a node
• New API Node#atomic for atomic tree operations
• Made Node#replace thread-safe

Version 0.1

5-Feb-2014, Repository Revision

• Initial version of a multi-language framework on top of Graal.