Changes Introduced in Version 3.8.5

Version 3.8.5 is mainly a bugfix release. New features:

• copy_term/2 and call_residue/2 now support finite domain variables.
• Representation errors due to illegal usage of finite domain variables have been replaced by more useful exceptions.
• The new exported predicate terms:term_variables_bag/2 is like terms:term_variables/2, but its output argument is a list of variables in order of first occurrence.
• bdb:db_open/5 is generalized so that a cache size can be provided.
• clpfd:fd_neighbors/2 is a new exported predicates. It is the relation that clpfd:fd_closure/2 is the transitive closure of.
• The Java interface has been improved; see below for new features.

Bug fixes:

• current_atom/1 now terminates correctly.
• once/1 is now handled correctly in ISO mode.
• predicate_property/2 now handles built-ins correctly.
• prolog_flag/2 alias current_prolog_flag/2 now behave as pure relations in SICStus execution mode.
• read/[1,2] now handle character code 0 correctly.
• save_files/2, save_predicates/2, and save_modules/2 do not replace given output file extensions. A .po extension will be added if none is given. Note, however, that load_files/[1,2] will only recognize files with a .po extension as .po files.
• statistics(trail,L) and statistics(choice,L) are more accurate.
• stream_code/2 now handles errors correctly.
• stream_interrupt/3 raises an existence error under Windows.
• stream_property/2 now handles alias/1 property for standard streams correctly.
• stream_select/3 now returns a valid list of streams, and raises an existence error under Windows.
• The tokenizer now does not read too far ahead on non-float tokens that start like floats.
• The s answer to redefinition queries is now handled correctly.
• Worked around a C compiler bug affecting garbage collection under Windows (MS bug Q263609).
• A compiler bug fixed.
• Repeated restoring caused a memory leak, now sealed.
• SP_pred_refs cannot become dangling.
• Calls from C to Prolog now undergo module name expansion and goal expansion, just like calls to call/1.
• Bug fixes in SP_cons_list and SP_cons_functor.
• Memory overflows after SP_open_query() are safe.
• Stream position terms now preserve after end of stream conditions.
• Cyclic terms are detected in arithmetic function arguments.
• Predicates defined by goal expansion only can be exported.
• The character_escapes flag is obeyed in ISO execution mode.
• Debugger bugs fixed: showing source code in Emacs; the a, o, and r commands.
• The Emacs interface function prolog-comment-region now uses triple percent signs, to cater for indent-region.
• The clpfd:full_answer functionality has been repaired, affecting frozen/2, clpfd:attribute_goal/2 and clpfd:fd_copy_term/3. clpfd:fd_global/3 is now a meta-predicate.
• sockets:socket_select/[5,6] are now steadfast; better error handling.
• sockets:socket_select/[5,6] now work correctly with non-socket streams that use file descriptors on systems where sockets and file descriptors are treated the same (i.e. not Windows).
• system:working_directory/2 is now insensitive to any loads in progress. Its arguments are not subject to absolute_file_name/2 processing--that was never intended.
• timeout:time_out/3 now cleans up properly after abort.
• library(bdb) now handles wide characters, e.g. in error messages.
• library(clpfd) now cleans up properly after integer overflows, and does not assume a 32-bit architecture.
• clpfd:cumulative/[4,5] now check that the resource limit is not exceeded by any single task.
• Glue code generated for foreign resources (C and Java) did the wrong thing for [-term]. The problem occurred if the foreign function did many calls to SP_term_ref() or if it raised an exception.
• Fixed a problem with spld and splfr on Windows 95/98.
• On AIX spld and splfr tried to use a nonexisting file. The file (sprt.exp) is now included in the distribution.
• halt/0 and abort/0 are handled better in runtime systems of type --main=load and --main=restore.
• The Java interface (library(jasper) and se/sics/jasper/SICStus etc.) has been improved:
  • Fixed lots of bugs.
  • The Prolog runtime system is no longer de-initialized at random by the Java garbage collector.
  • All Java methods now properly synchronize with the Prolog runtime system to ensure thread safety.
  • There are no longer any known memory leaks when calling Java from Prolog or vice versa.
  • SPTerm and SPQuery now properly detect improper usage and raise exceptions instead of crashing in the Prolog runtime system.
  • Enhanced meta-call interface jasper_call/4 makes foreign resources and splfr strictly optional when calling Java from Prolog.
  • The constructor SPTerm() is no longer public, it was always documented as "should really have been private". Use the contructor SPTerm(SICStus) instead.
  • The exception IllegalCallerException is no longer used. You should change your code to reflect this. One possible change is to change throws IllegalCallerException into throws SPException, this works for the 3.8.4 version as well.
  • The exception IllegalTermException is new. It is signalled when attempting to use a SPTerm where the corresponding term ref is no longer valid. You need to update your code (typically adding throws IllegalTermException). One possible change is to use the less specific throws SPException instead of throws IllegalTermException, this should work for the 3.8.4 version as well.
  • It is now possible to create terms and queries by reading from a string. See SICStus.readFromString() and new versions of SICStus.openQuery() etc.
  • SPPredicate is now deprecated. The preferred method is to supply module and predicate name explicitly.
  • All calls to Prolog now behave as if wrapped in call(M:Goal) where M is the module specified when creating the query. This makes goal expansion and meta argument expansion do the right thing, i.e. behave as if entered interactively.
  • It is now possible to explicitly delete a SPTerm object, making the Prolog side term-ref available for re-use. See SPTerm.delete().
  • The documentation has been improved and expanded.
  • The examples have been updated and new examples added, notably a Swing demo with a Prolog top-level. The Prolog top-level is useful when debugging applications where Java is the top-level application.
  • JavaServer etc. is now more clearly marked as unsupported example code. It represents an unfinished sockets based Jasper interface. It does not belong in the se.sics.jasper package and will be removed at a later date.
• library(tcltk). When Tcl/Tk calls Prolog, it now ignores the returned values of all unbound variables and variables with names starting with underscore _. In 3.8.4, it used to ignore only anonymous variables.