Release notes. What’s new in version 1.4.6

 

 

 

Changes in semantics

 

We started the migration to MC# 2.0 grammar. The first changes deal with the way how the channels are being transferred from one location to another one as a part of more complex objects. From now on channels are not recreated in a new locations anymore, but their proxies are passed instead. This gives big advantages in writing object-oriented distributed programs. To demonstrate these advantages we’ve implemented in MC# language quite famous “99 bottles of beer” example. You can find its description on site http://www.99-bottles-of-beer.net/. MC# source code you can find here.

 

Those changes in the semantics required changes in several existing examples, including our favourite Fib. They could be demonstrated by the following code:

 

Old code:

 

movable Compute( long n, Channel( long ) c ) {  Console.WriteLine( "Compute: n=" + n );    if ( n < 30 )   c.Send( cfib( n ) );  else  {   Compute( n-1, c1 );   Compute( n-2, c2 );  } }

 

New code:

 

movable Compute( long n, Channel( long ) c ) {  Console.WriteLine( "Compute: n=" + n );    if ( n < 30 )   c.Send( cfib( n ) );  else  {   Fib f = new Fib();   Compute( n-1, f.c1 );   Compute( n-2, f.c2 );   c.Send( f.Get2() );  } }

 

Changes in the compiler

 

MC# compiler (mcsc.exe) now can handle a special option ‘/translateonly’. When this option is specified only translation from MC# code to C# code is performed and compiler doesn’t generate exe or dll files. With the help of this option you can configure the compilation of MC# files with .mcs extension in standard C# projects in Visual Studio 2005. All you need to do is to modify the Pre-Build Action property in project properties (this is a temporary solution until we have a real integration with Visual Studio, which is on the way). Here you can find an example of solution file which shows how to compile Fib.mcs in Visual Studio.

 

MC# syntax highlighting in Scintilla Text Editor

 

Petrov Alexander shared with us configuration files for Scintilla Text Editor, with the help of which you can enable syntax highlighting for MC# files with .mcs extension. After the editor installation is completed you need to copy files SciTEGlobal.properties and mc_sharp.properties into the folder where executable file scite.exe is located.