BaCon 3.0 is out!

[Pjot]

All,

The latest BaCon version 3.0 is ready for consumption and can be obtained from the BaCon website.

This is a major step towards an efficient transcompiler, containing huge changes and improvements in the overall design:

• Previously, BaCon included its complete library with all functions in each program. Now, a new compile scheme has been implemented where only the functions actually being used in a program will be taken from a generic BaCon archive. This reduces compile speed and the size of the resulting binary.
• The variable type detection mechanism has been re-implemented from scratch. Instead of a plain file search it is now based on in-memory detection. This also improves the overall conversion performance, which now is approx. 70% faster.

Next to this there are some other highlights:

• CMDLINE function to conveniently parse command line parameters
• correct detection and automatic casting in floating point assignments
• copying of indexed arrays using COPY
• lots of code cleaning and improvements

See the full list of changes for more details.

BaCon releases are made available after testing on several platforms, including Tru64Unix, Solaris, MacOSX and several flavors of Linux.

Thanks to the BaCon community for notifying issues, reporting bugs and suggesting improvements!

For long time users, please pay attention to the following remarks:


Installing BaCon 3.0

(1) To install BaCon on your system, start by running the configure
script:

# ./configure

(2) This script checks the requirements on your system and should
finish successfully. A Makefile will be generated.

Then start building the BaCon binary by executing:

# make

(3) This will create a static archive containing BaCon functions.
Also the BaCon console version and GUI version are created.

To install BaCon, simply execute:

# make install


Compatibility with earlier BaCon versions

Though the BASIC syntax and API has not changed, it occasionally may
happen that older programs cannot be converted. The following hints
should help to troubleshoot such problems.

(1) Starting from 3.0, BaCon uses a new and optimized variable detection
mechanism. This mechanism is faster and more precise. Now global variables
with a certain name cannot be used in combination with local variables
using the same name.

Solution: either change the name of the global variable, or consistently
declare variables using LOCAL.

(2) The IF/THEN/ELSE statement can be used in two ways. The first way
is an IF/THEN/ELSE which contains a body with statements, ending with an
ENDIF. The second way is an IF/THEN/ELSE containing one single statement
on the same line, where no ENDIF is needed.

The problem is that it cannot be detected which ELSE belongs to which IF
in case of nested IF/THEN/ELSE statements.

Solution: combinations of IF/THEN/ELSE with a body and without a body
are not allowed anymore. Such combinations of IF/THEN/ELSE have to be
rewritten. Either use IF/THEN/ELSE each with a body, or use IF/THEN/ELSE
each with a single line.


A note to beta testers

Before installing BaCon 3.0, please make sure that old beta versions of
the BaCon archive are removed from your system. This archive can have the
name 'bacon.a' or 'libbacon.a'.


Regards and happy converting!
Peter

[alexfish]

Thanks Peter.

also looks like if using Firefox the one may have to clear the cache

Firefox - Clear Cache

in FireFox From Menu /File/ set to Work_Offline Then clear the Cache

reset to work on line Then reboot Firefox

BR
Alex

[bigbass]

If you need it prepackaged

32 bit debian packaged bacon 3.0 stable (compiled on LMDE linux mint debian base )

sourceforge.net/projects/baconproto/files/latest/download?source=files

[Pjot]

Thanks Alex and bigbass,

I needed to adapt some programs on the BaCon website also, please update your local copies if you run into problems.

BR
Peter

[aurel]

Very well Peter !
When new SliTaz 5.0 go out i will try new version...

[Deleted]

Just installed a new version and it works very well. Conversion speed and the size of created executables are amazing! Great work, Peter! There is only one thing - now, when -d <tmpdir> option is used, the final executable is placed in <tmpdir> instead of the folder where the source is. Is there any special reason for it? I can't see any advantage of this new solution.

[Pjot]

Thanks Tomaaz,

There is only one thing - now, when -d <tmpdir> option is used, the final executable is placed in <tmpdir> instead of the folder where the source is.

This is a side effect of the new compile scheme. All temporary files are put in that <tmpdir> including the Makefile. Then 'make' (and the C compiler) have to be in that directory to compile the binary. The result is that the produced binary also ends up in the same <tmpdir>.

(Technically, it can be changed by leaving the Makefile in the current directory, and changing its contents in such a way that it points to each individual sourcefile with a complete path.)

But it has good and bad sides. It is more consequent to leave all files in <tmpdir> when this was defined as a working directory. Because the user explicitly points to that path and BaCon therefore knows for sure it is writeable. But on the other hand, it breaks with the previous situation.

To be honest I'm not sure which situation is best. If you have some other argument I am happy to hear it!

BR
Peter

[Deleted]

Peter, if there is a reason for this change then there is no need to do anything about it. This is a minor issue that can be a bit annoying at the beginning but after some time everyone (or maybe it's just me? ) will get used to it.

Once again - thanx for a great work you've done!

[konaexpress]

Just got back from Mexico and found this! Looking forward to playing with it.

Have never used Make or Make Install before but will try and update Bacon Bits with new info. Any help with how this works would be grateful.

Just flew in an hour ago, off to bed now.

John

[alexfish]

Hi Peter

Have been putting Latest BaCon3 to task with the PROTO feature , now a Joy to use , esp in the libs @ GUI department.

combined with the speed of the compile makes developing applications much more enjoyable , esp when compare to the 1* series

Many Thanks again + BR

Alex

[chrisjournoud]

Hi,

I am new to bacon. Thank you for this good job for old basic lovers (and young ones perhaps !).
Please let me tell you some words on my testings :
1 - When I try to compile the sample program "glade-demo.bac" from bacongui, sometimes it hangs and the dialogbox "convertion done !" stays on screen. Sometimes all is going well. When it hangs I have to kill the program to quit. I have had this problem with cc or clang as compiler. I never have this issue when compiling "glade-demo.bac" from the command line with both compilers (bacon ./glade-demo.bac or bacon -c clang ./gade-demo.bac). The same occurs with another source code.
2 - Another issue is that bacongui hangs at every time on launching "Documentation" if no source file is open, even after updating it successfully. When a source file is open, it can still hang but not at every time. Looks strange isn't it ?

Thank you for your time.

[Pjot]

Hi Chris,

Well I have seen the same problem, it looks like both issues have the same cause, and it has to do with GTK2.

Can you run the GUI in GTK3 mode? E.g.:

# bacongui -gtk3

This hopefully should solve those issues.

To run the GUI in GTK3 permanently, you can create a file in your local BaCon configuration directory, as follows:

# touch $HOME/.bacon/use.gtk3

HTH
Peter

[chrisjournoud]

Hi Peter,

Thank you very much for your answer. Bacongui runs now flawessly.

Chris

[bigbass]

Hey Peter

The beta 3.0.1 works with the shared lib now!

A step by step feedback report test provided
save these two files to test with
Note that bacon is installed


program.bac

PROTO bla
x = 5
result = bla(x)
PRINT result



libdemo.bac

FUNCTION bla (NUMBER n)
LOCAL i
i = 5 * n
RETURN i
END FUNCTION


===============================

#create the shared lib *.so

bacon -f libdemo.bac


#copy file to lib path
sudo cp libdemo.so /usr/lib


#link the libdemo.so with program.bac
bacon -l demo program.bac

#run the program
./program

#the result is

25

[bitvast]

Hi guys,

Love the new BaCon version 3.0.

Slight problem: I'd like to use hug_imports so I downloaded it from the main site and created a shared object hug.so from hug.bac which I put in my BaCon folder. Now instead of INCLUDE "hug.bac" I use INCLUDE "hug_imports.bac". My program compiles ok but I get an error when executing: "Could not open library ./hug.so: cannot dynamically load executable".

I'm assuming this is a path error - should I put the shared object in /usr/local/lib?

Edit: I just did that and it made no difference. Probably something simple I've overlooked but for now I can't figure it out.