[slang-users] slirp 1.9.4 released

[Michael Noble <mnoble@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I am pleased to announce that SLIRP 1.9.4 has been released to

	http://space.mit.edu/cxc/slirp

SLIRP is a vectorizing code generator, aimed primarily at simplifying
the process of creating modules for the S-Lang scripting language. It
can dramatically reduce the time and effort required to make C, C++,
and Fortran code callable directly from the S-Lang interpreter,
automatically vectorize functions to take advantage of the powerful
numerical and array capabilities native to S-Lang, and even generate
Makefiles to automate the build process.  Another distinguishing feature,
of special interest as multiprocessor and multicore desktops become
more prevalent, is that SLIRP can generate parallelizable wrappers for
OpenMP-aware compilers.

Details of the changes in v1.9.4 are appended below.

Regards,
Michael S. Noble


------------------------------------

Changes in v1.9.4

 1.	Provide S-Lang access to Fortran COMMON block variables, via:
	  get_commblock_list:	gives names of all common blocks in module
	  get_commblock:	retrieves a CommBlock handle to a given block
	  get_commblock_value:  retrieves value of named variable in block
	  set_commblock_value:  assigns value to named variable in block
	Common block variables may also be set/get with struct.field
	notation, such as
		variable com1 = get_commblock("com1");
		print(com1.energy);
		com1.energy = 1.1F;
 2.	Support passing CHARACTER arrays to/from Fortran calls.
 3.	New -fortran_strlen option, to customize where hidden string length
	args s/be placed in wrappers of Fortran calls accepting CHARACTER args
	As a result, the internal FTN_STR_LEN argmap has been removed.
 4.	Allow object code(s) to be specified at slirp invocation ... they
	will be treated as if they were part of an -ldflags specification
	and added as link dependencies to the generated module.
 5.	Improve Makefile distclean: target (Rafael Laboissiere, at, Debian)
 6.	Generated makefiles:
	. Now show SLIRP wrapper command used to create them
 	. Have corrected .SUFFIX rule
	. Fortran compiler FC variable now includes path for disambiguation
	. If <modname>.sl is found at generation time then 'make install'
	  will install it to the S-Lang/slsh subdirectory in $prefix/share
 7.	Modified some internal usages of array/function dereferencing, for
	compatibility with SLang 2.1.x.
 8.	New verbose help (-vh/-vhelp/--vhelp) option, so that rarely used
        options do not clutter normal -help output
 9.	Fortran parameter() statements now recognized for array dimensions.
10.	Arguments passed to Fortran routines for array dimensions are now
        automatically made optional from S-Lang scope.
11.	OUT annotations now have precedence over IN when both match a pattern.
12.	All Fortran function wrappers now emitted to a single .f file, instead
	of one output .f file for each input .f file wrapped.
13.	Search for .dylib shared libs when establishing S-Lang installation
	location on Darwin, and .dll.a libs on cygwin.
14.	Improved documentation on installation, including a README with
	explicit tips on using configure options to find S-Lang, etc.