- Nhc-users - Haskell.org

Re: [nhc-users] ANNOUNCE: Hat and nhc98 version 1.08
by Malcolm Wallace 26 Sep '01

26 Sep '01

> I haven't been able to get hold of a copy of NHC > (ftp does not seem to work). Can you possibly put > a copy (scources, x86) on the web page? Ok, try http://www.cs.york.ac.uk/fp/nhc98/nhc98src-1.08.tar.gz for the source, and http://www.cs.york.ac.uk/fp/nhc98/nhc98-1.08-ix86-Linux.tar.gz for a ready-built linux executable. Regards, Malcolm

1 0

ANNOUNCE: Hat and nhc98 version 1.08
by Malcolm Wallace 25 Sep '01

25 Sep '01

Hat + nhc98 version 1.08 ======================== We are pleased to announce a new release of Hat and the nhc98 compiler. This is a stable release, containing many bugfixes in both the compiler and the Hat tracing and debugging tools. If you have not yet tried out the Hat tracing system, this is a good opportunity to give it a workout. New features of note in release 1.08 are: * There are "tunnels" between hat-observe, hat-detect, and hat-trail, enabling the user to jump directly from one view to another at exactly the point of interest. * You can now have multiple copies of hat-trail running simultaneously. * The nhc98 compiler implements the recent revisions of the Haskell'98 Report. nhc98 is a full compiler for Haskell'98, with extensive support for space profiling, time profiling, and tracing your programs. The system is available as source code, which can be built with the Gnu C compiler on any 32-bit platform, or with any already-installed Haskell compiler. Binary packages are also currently available for ix86-Linux and sparc-solaris2. http://www.cs.york.ac.uk/fp/nhc98/ Further information about Hat is available at http://www.cs.york.ac.uk/fp/hat/ Happy tracing, The ART team in York (Malcolm Wallace, Olaf Chitil, Thorsten Brehm, Colin Runciman)

1 0

Hat error message
by Amanda Clare 02 Aug '01

02 Aug '01

Hi Hat-team, What does this error mean when running a program compiled with -T? How can I increase it? Exceeded size of SAT stack Amanda -- Amanda Clare http://users.aber.ac.uk/ajc99/ Tel: +44 (0)1970 621922 Fax: +44 (0)1970 622455 Dept. of Computer Science, University of Wales, Aberystwyth, SY23 3DB

2 1

ANNOUNCE: nhc98 1.06, incorporating Hat 1.06.
by Malcolm Wallace 08 Jun '01

08 Jun '01

----------- nhc98 v1.06 =========== This message announces a new release of the nhc98 compiler and the Hat (Haskell Tracing) system. Version 1.06 is primarily a bugfix release, correcting minor bugs and build problems with 1.04. See http://www.cs.york.ac.uk/fp/nhc98/ for downloads. However there are a couple of new features worth noting: * The Prelude/Libraries have been updated to match the newly revised Haskell'98 Report. * Building 'make all' with gcc now really does build everything directly with gcc, including profiling and tracing. This is much faster, reducing the complete build time to around 20 minutes on a 500MHz Pentium. * The default build target is now basic + tracer (was previously just basic). If you haven't already tried out the Hat tracing system, now is a good time to have a go! Regards, The Hat team at York (Colin Runciman, Olaf Chitil, Malcolm Wallace, Thorsten Brehm, Phil Hassall)

1 0

FW: Debian Packages
by Brent Fulgham 04 Jun '01

04 Jun '01

For any interested parties, preliminary Debian packages of nhc98 are available from: http://people.debian.org/~bfulgham/nhc98 Note that they must be installed using "--force-overwrite" since the installation script incorrectly attempts to include all manpages in every package. This will be fixed in a future update, but the packages are otherwise fine as far as I can tell. 'hi' works correctly in this binary package. Thanks, -Brent

1 0

Re: porting nhc98
by Malcolm Wallace 01 Jun '01

01 Jun '01

> I am writing to ask about ports or porting of a Haskell compiler to > machines that have C int's (and unsigned) that are bigger than 32 bits. > My employer produces several CPU types where the C compiler has > type int that is bigger than 32 bits (e.g. 46 or 64 bits). This > breaks several assumptions that are deeply embedded in various > Haskell compilers and runtime systems. > Do you know anyone who is thinking about removing this assumption > from from the Haskell compilers and runtime systems? How hard would > it be for me to produce a 64 bit version of nhc98? Would I be better > off trying another compiler (my first impression is nhc98 might be > the easiest to port and to convert to a cross-compiler)? And who is > the best person to talk to about massively parallel implementation > of Haskell? > regards > Robert (Bob) Buckley > Senior Systems Engineer > Cray Australia Pty Ltd Dear Bob, I have long wanted to port nhc98 to a 64-bit architecture, but as always it is difficult to find the time alongside my real research tasks. There are publically available compute-farms of Alpha and Itanium servers on the net which can be used for porting and testing software, and I intend to try this avenue when I can. At one time, an earlier version of the nhc compiler did run happily on an Alpha processor, but since that time (five or more years ago), there have been quite a few additions to the compiler and runtime system that have not taken care to be word-size independent. Because these additions are distributed in many places around the system, I guess it would be hard for someone who does not already know the system to find them all. Nhc98's internal documentation is unfortunately very sparse. But although nhc98 is currently fixed to a 32-bit architecture, I believe that the ghc compiler already works just fine on 64-bit Sparc and Alpha machines. However you are right that, even so, it may be quite some work to port ghc to a new machine architecture. Ghc needs, at the very least, some help to understand the assembly language format (because ghc `mangles' assembly code textually to achieve better performance when compiling via C), and rather more help if you decide to go the native code route. Ghc does have the advantage of documentation to help those attempting a port, and Simon Marlow can help you further if you get stuck. Finally, regarding parallel implementations of Haskell, the best people to ask are: Kevin Hammond (does parallel Haskell experiments on a Beowulf cluster) Hans-Wolfgang Loidl (main current implementer of GpH - Glasgow parallel Haskell) Rita Loogen (develops Eden, another parallel system based on Haskell) Simon Peyton Jones (ghc supremo, has worked on the GRIP parallel Haskell machine in the past) All of them can be found from the "people" page on haskell.org. Regards, Malcolm

1 0

ANNOUNCE: nhc98 1.04 and Hat 1.04
by Malcolm Wallace 22 May '01

22 May '01

We are pleased to announce a new release of the nhc98 compiler, and in particular its facilities (both brand new and improved old stuff) for tracing and debugging Haskell programs - the Hat system. The basic nhc98 compiler version 1.04 is mostly a bugfix release (details listed at the bottom of this announcement). http://www.cs.york.ac.uk/fp/nhc98/ However, the stuff we are really excited about is Hat - our Haskell tracer. A full user guide to these new tools is available on the website. http://www.cs.york.ac.uk/fp/hat/ Hat 1.04 ======== * Lots more tools for tracing! hat-stack - Displays a "virtual" stack-trace for any program that failed with a runtime error. hat-detect - Algorithmic bug detection, based on a textual question-and-answer session. hat-trail - The original graphical trail browser, now with several presentation enhancements. hat-observe - Examine the inputs and outputs of any named function, in the style of HOOD. * Tracing with Hat is now based on a completely new architecture (although still within the nhc98 compilation system). A program compiled for tracing now builds its "redex trails" in file, not in the heap. This has some performance consequences: (1) you no longer need to allocate large amounts of heap memory for tracing; (2) but you will probably need large amounts of disk space instead - remember disk space is cheap; (3) and traced programs still run somewhat slowly. * However, there are a couple of major benefits in return: (1) A trace is persistent, so after running your program once, you can examine many different aspects of the trace without re-computation. (2) Traces are now first-class objects, so you can examine and manipulate them in far more detail - hence the variety of new tracing tools. * Greater Haskell'98 compatibility. Almost all language features are now supported: named fields and better handling of pattern bindings are the main additions. All standard libraries except Time and Locale are now supported. nhc98 1.04 ========== * New: Improved (more accurate) time profiling now provided. * New: Support for extended module namespaces of the form Long.Hierarchical.Module.Name is now provided in both nhc98 and hmake. * Bugfix: An identifier hidden on import and redefined in the current module, then exported, but also imported qualified and used qualified in the current module, led to an incorrect interface file being generated. * Bugfix: hmake issued an unnecessary -cpp flag on some literate files. * Bugfix: Type of IO.hSetPosn :: Handle -> HandlePosn -> IO () was incorrect. * Bugfix: Compile-time error in <tt>src/tracer/runtime/ident.c</tt> on RedHat 7 and other systems using the new ISO C standard for <tt>fpos_t</tt>. * Bugfix: A file opened in ReadMode or WriteMode was actually opened in ReadWriteMode, so if the file had strict permissions the correct opening command would fail. Conversely, opening in ReadWriteMode actually gave ReadMode instead, and file updates silently failed. * Bugfix: Operator sections suffered from priority inversion, for example (^2*3) was incorrectly parsed as (^(2*3)), even though ^ binds more tightly than *. * Bugfix: The library function Directory.createDirectory gave strange permissions to the new directory. (Mode was in hex, but should have been octal!) * New: Improved printing of I/O error messages. Happy tracing! The Hat team at York (Colin Runciman, Olaf Chitil, Malcolm Wallace, Thorsten Brehm, Phil Hassall)

2 2