LASS

We’re proud to announce a new stable release: lass 1.6.0. Notable changes and additions since 1.4 are:

• library is now split into lass and lass_python. The former is Python free, and the latter contains the Python export libary. You need to link to both to keep all functionality as before, but if you don’t need the Python export you can drop the latter.
• Seamless integration of the pylass build, with delivery of a bdist_wininst installer on windows.
• OSX support
• Solaris/Sparc/SunPro support
• Python: bulk export of integer constants

Cocamware proudly presents a new stable release: lass 1.4.0. Most of the changes since 1.2 are located in the python export library. Class definitions are now fully contained in a single object, simplifying a lot of the export functions. Some utility functions have be added to execute Python code from C++. MultiCallbacks have been added, with a nice Python export too. And much more …

We’re proud to announce our thousandth commit to the subversion repository. More than enough reason for a party, and we are celebrating the event with a special release: lass-r1000.

As an intermediate release, this is in fact version 1.3.8 of our trunk, and as such it is to be considered as a work in progress. However, we’re closing in on lass 1.4 and this release is a good preview. Most notable changes since lass 1.2 are:

• Python:
  • Shadow classes have been refurnished using template techniques. The pointer type to the shadowee is pluggable to define ownership rules (by default util::SharedPtr). Tracked and weak shadow classes are get rid of, and downcasting happens automatically now. ShadoweeTraits have been introduced to help identifying the shadow class of a C++ type.
  • Multicallback as your powertool for callbacks between Python and C++
  • PyMap and PySequence have gotten new ownership rules: by default you get copies, to share ownership used util::SharedPtr.
  • PyExportTraits have been streamlined and are now more consistent and modular
  • Introduction of ModuleDefinition and ClassDefinition as a first class citizen to define Python modules and types. Although ClassDefinition is still hidden beneath the macros, ModuleDefinition can easily be manipulated directly.
  • Compatibility with Python 3.0
• Restructuring of the directory layout of the source code
• Ported to OpenSolaris

We’ve made a maintenance release of the 1.2 branch: lass-1.2.1. It contains a few bug and build fixes discovered in the 1.2 branch:

• Python:
  • CallMethod::set: make class of method a template parameter
  • RichCompare: const char* symbols to fix build warning
  • PyExportTraits: adding missing static specifier.
• NumTraits:
  • default NumTraits is empty, so you get compiler errors for missing specialisations instead of linker errors.
  • add specialisation for ‘long long’.
• CrashDump:
  • fix opcodes for x64 platform.
• IdGenerator:
  • qualify as volatile to fix bug on some platforms.
• Tests:
  • introduce tolerances for some floating point comparisons that were failing.
• Others:
  • included , headers where necessary.

We’re proud to announce that we’ve made our second official release: lass-1.2.0. It does not yet contain the file shuffling changes as previously explained. As the trunk is undergoing a few larger (somewhat unstable) changes, this release is a snapshot of the last known stable state of the trunk before this work has started.

Today, we’ve restructured the file hierarchy of lass a bit. Here’s what has been done:

• The directory src has been renamed to lass. This allows you to include the headers from your working copy into other projects using the #include <lass/foo/bar.h> way. It used to be that you either had to install lass, or had to copy the headers from src to a directory lass. But not any longer.
• The directory containing the test suite has been moved one level up, next to the new directory lass, and is now called test_suite. This agrees with how lass is build, with two build targets: the library lass and the executable test_suite.
• All Python related headers and source files have been given their own directory lass/python, instead of hiding within the util directory and other places. So now you will have to use #include <lass/python/python_api.h> instead of #include <lass/util/python_api.h>. This will allow us to better organize the Python code.

We’re proud to announce that LASS now uses CMake as (meta) build system. From a single set of cross-platform configuration files, it generates makefiles and workspaces, suitable for the native build tools available to the individual builder: GNU make, nmake, different flavours of Visual Studio, KDevelop, … The only dependency introduced is an installation of CMake on the local build system, whether installed from binaries or build from source.

I’ve been experimenting with it for a while an a feature branch, but now it has officially been committed to the trunk. Gone are all the old visual studio projects, build scripts and automake-file-generator-scripts. Their replacement consists of a shiny new CMakeLists.txt file in the top directory, and some of its kin.

The test suite has been reformatted as it is now driven by CTest, which is also part of CMake. As an upshot, it is now easier to run individual tests. Test and build results can also be uploaded to our very own CDash dashboard!

And as last but not least, source or binary distributions or installers can be created using CPack, which is as you might guess also part of CMake.

There’s still some work left to optimize the usage of this new build system – it is a completely different way of thinking – but the main functionality is already in place.

We’re proud to announce we’ve made a first official source code release: lass-1.0.0. Until now, we’ve never felt the need of explicit tarball releases as the CVS repository was a sufficient way of distributing the code. But this has changed a little, so here it is. Meanwhile, we’ll continue working on Lass 1.1 in the code repository =)

As the first news message since a very long time, we are pleased to announce that we have finally made the jump from CVS to Subversion (SVN).

Welcome to LASS …