Gardens Point Modula - IBM PC & compatibles version of 15 Jul 94 ---------------------------------------------------------------- Further notes: (1) Other editors, and the interactive (-I) interface from gpm: PC-Write 2.55 offers reasonable program editing and word processing facilities; it has few options to control startup. Thus, in interactive mode, you must respond to the "make backup?" request, and then position to the line in error (Alt-F9). Later versions of PC-Write will give enhanced editing and word-processing capabilities, and better startup control for interactive mode, at the cost of greater disk usage; they will need to be compressed by LZEXE (see notes on LZEXE below). For PC-Write (vers. 3.0 and later) use set GPMEDITOR=ed % /#e or set GPMEDITOR=lite % /#e to omit the backup request and automatically position to the line where the error was detected (as in Unix versions of gpm). Note that in batch files, the '%' must be escaped, e.g. set GPMEDITOR=lite %% /#e QEdit 3.00 (also shareware) offers enhanced editing (particularly multiple files in split screens), limited startup control, and reduced disk usage, especially when compressed. QEdit 3.00 also allows you to go direct to a line number on entry. Use set GPMEDITOR=q % -n# (2) Other documentation: The definition files of all standard libraries are in the $M2SYM directory. Detailed documentation on gpm, the draft standard language definition, detailed error message interpretation, and the standard library definition files are in the gpm Users Guide & Reference Manual. Separate Release Notes give details of changes incorporated in the latest version. Printed copies of the documentation will be available from the University Bookshop, at cost-recovery prices. (3) Recommended options: You are STRONGLY recommended to use either the -I (interactive), -v (verbose), -V (super verbose), or X (explain) option, so that error message text is displayed. These options have the following enhancements: The X option displays the full diagnosis of the error (as in the Gpm User Manual). The I option allows the response "m" for "more" - this displays first the full diagnosis as for X, and then the types involved if the error was a type conflict. The full diagnosis facility is an experimental implementation, and currently the X option should not be used in conjunction with either I or V. That is, if you want a listing file, use just X; if you want interactive debugging, use I and/or V and respond "more" for more details. (4) LZEXE.EXE: This public domain program achieves impressive compression of .EXE files; without it, gpm would not fit on two floppy disks. You can use it to compress your executable files and conserve disk space. It will also give you practice in French ... (5) Installing the new release: While it is possible to identify only changed files and copy them selectively, it is STRONGLY recommended that you install the whole new release over the top of any previous release. THe installation program with version 2/95 of GPM will do this automatically. The changes in the new release do not affect symbol file contents, so DEFINITION modules need not be recompiled. However, all IMPLEMENTATION & program modules should be recompiled, and all executables re-built. When reporting problems, use the bug report form available from the labs and be sure to verify that you are using the latest version (by gpm -V). (7) Stack unwind on runtime error The stack unwind (or backtrace) facility now outputs procedure names and (IF the -g option has been used in compilation) line numbers. (8) gpmake gpmake is an intelligent make utility. If you have a program module Thing in file THING.MOD, gpmake thing will recompile only those compilation units of Thing which have been changed since last compilation (or need to be recompiled due to definition module changes), and build a new executable THING.EXE. See the manuals for further details. (9) Libraries The gpm-pc libraries are near copies of the gpm-Unix libraries. Differences are: - ShellPipes is Unix-specific and is not offered on gpm-pc - PCProcesses replaces UxProcesses - Wildcards is pc-specific since the Unix shell provides this facility - GR_xxxx and Mouse are pc-specific graphics interfaces. These are | the result of two excellent 3rd year projects. See the further notes | below. |