ROBOTC 3.54 available now!

After a slight delay after my initial 3.1 Driver Suite release, ROBITC 3.54 is finally available!  There have been so many changes and fixes to make ROBOTC even better than before.  This version also includes version 3.1 of my driver suite.  We’re currently working on collaborating even more with regards to the inclusion and updating of my Suite as part of ROBOTC.  You’ll have to stay tuned for that.

The fine folks of Robomatter were kind enough to split the changes up a little, but it is still a long list.  If you’re keen to read it all, grab yourself a cup of coffee first.  Oh and if’ you’re only interested in downloading it, just pop over here: [LINK].

I will work on a post about what ROBOTC 3.5x and all the new features mean for you as a programmer such as some changes you might consider making to your code to better leverage all these new features.

LEGO/TETRIX:

• Support for MATRIX Robotics “Move to Encoder” in NXT firmware using the nMotorEncoderTarget functionality.
• Fix TETRIX motor control. “Move to encoder position” functionality was not working correctly.
• New functionality for I2C test program to optionally create message log traces for I2C ‘write’ and ‘read’.
• TETRIX user defined servo names were not being properly setup by compiler. Fixed.
• nxtDisplayRicFile intrinsic was broken. Auto downloading of files from PC was disabled. Both are fixed.
• Xander’s 3^rd Party Sensor Drivers (from BotBench.com) are now updated and compatible with ROBOTC 3.54. The new driver are included in the NXT Sample Program’s directory. (w00t!)

VEX Cortex/PIC:

• Fix bug related to ‘char *’ and ‘string’. It was introduced with fix for “playSoundFile” not working. “playSoundFile” is now working for the Cortex.

General ROBOTC:

• Support for “Classic Mode” – This mode will disable the “variable stack” and treat all variable as “Global Variables” like ROBOTC used to before version 3.50. This setting is under “view – preferences”.
• Enhance directories for “Sound” files. There are now three possible choices — “common files” directory, “platform specific” directory and “user specified” directory. Implemented separate “Preferences” tab for “sounds”.
• Add new “Motors and Sensors Property Page” to configure size of “datalog” and “debug stream” buffers. Applicable to super user level only.
• Clear highlighted execution line when “Debugger” closes. Previously the line of current execution was left highlighted.
• Add support for “mouse wheel” with “Debug Stream Window”.
• Add command to “compile all source files in specified directory. Add separate pane to retain the new “multi-file compilation” errors. The normal error window is erased on next compile and you’ll likely want the multi-file results to hang around.
• Support for multiple user defined directories for compiler include files. Split “Detailed Preferences” into multiple property sheets when not menu basic and multiple tabs to display.
• Instead of hiding command for invalid debugger pane during Emulator/Virtual Worlds, the command is shown – When opened a message box will display indicating that window is not supported under emulator/virtual worlds.

ROBOTC Compiler and Other Fixes:

• Incorrect calculation of expression type of form <condition> ? true : false. Expression type was incorrectly calculated as a “integer type” rather than a “boolean type”. Fixed.
• Fix type in calculating binary expression numeric type.
• Fix incorrect calculation of expression types involving float constants. They were being set to “integer” type.
• Changed a few intrinsic procedure parameters from ‘int’ to ‘short’.
• Incorrect calculation of compile time constant code was resulting in unnecessary code generation for a complex, but constant value, expression.
• “Terminate expression parsing priority” comparison was effectively  “>=” instead of “>”.  Priority was being screwed up so that expressions “A + B – C” was generating code for “A – (B + C)”
• A few cases of “compile time constant” expressions values were not detected by compiler resulting in run-time code calculation for constant expressions. Specifically “0 / XX” is always zero regardless of ‘XX’ value. Also, constant expression of form AA = <numeric one> – <numeric two>” was generating code for run-time calculation even though could be calculated at compile time. Fixed.
• VM opcode uses 16-bit unsigned constant. But compiler was checking if 16-bit SIGNED value was in range.
• Incorrect compiler error message about array index out of bounds is possible when index is expression like “<constantVar> + numeric constant>”. The code for checking array bound range was only looking at “<constantVar>” and not including the <numeric constant>”. This is fixed.
• Fixed an error that did not mark precompiled headers as invalid if the precompiled source file had any errors from the previous compile attempt.
• Created separate Sample Program Root folders when in Virtual Worlds mode.
• Benign. Better support for type checking “void” and “void *” expressions to eliminate incorrect compiler warnings.
• Fix code generation for ‘string’ types. There were issues with “const string” variables having improper memory allocated. Improve code generation for assignment of “&” (address of) operator to avoid an unnecessary temporary.
• Eliminate legacy code that re-ordered syntax tress to optimize code generation for numeric. This was not “standard C” compliant because it re-ordered the order of how expressions were evaluated. Code generation is nearly as optimal except something like “X = 5 + y +6″ will separately generate instructions to add ’5′ and ’6′ rather than a single add of ’11′
• Better implementation of “type checking on string expressions”. Old implementation was occasionally generating incorrect compiler errors.
• Add support (in emulator only) for invalid pointer calculation in “get address of parameter” opcodes. It performs a range check to ensure calculated values are in range. This is not a complete check for invalid pointers but will catch many occurrences of unassigned pointers.
• Code generation for “large constants” (i.e. doesn’t fit in two bytes) was broken. Fixed.
• Incorrect calculation of “assign “&’ value to variable”. Bug recently introduced with string fixes.
• Improve code generation for ‘char string constants’.
• Add error message when no parameter is specified for nMotorEncoder/Motor/SensorValue/etc.
• Fix a few small issues in Licensing System for oft-used cases.
• Add compiler error message when no “main task” is defined.
• Add compiler error message that “&” is snot supported as part of a ‘cast’ qualifier. This is a C++ feature and not found in ANSI C.
• Fix bug in code generation for “goto XXX;” statement. Compiler optimization may not emit the unconditional branch and code generation was not handling the case of  a NULL pointer that resulted.
• Fix code generation problem with large constants (i.e. >16 bits) assigned to long variable. Compiler was incorrectly trying to generate code for optimized short forms (i.e. 16-bits or smaller parm index).
• “Events” no long work. Delete the sample program that illustrates them.
• Incorrect calculation of operator parsing priority for “&” (address of unary op) which should be ’3′. Instead it was using the priority for ‘&’ (bit and) which is priority ’10′.
• Fix incorrect code generation when assigning ‘float’ expressions to ‘int’ (char, short or long) variables.
• Fix compiler code generation for expressions using pointer subtraction — “<pointer> – <pointer”. also fix “<pointer> – <number>”
• Fixing an issue when a license is in the “clock rolled back” state and needs to be reset using a 30-day reset key – previously was not updating the “clock rolled back” state.
• Compiler does not handle ‘const string kConfigName = “FTCConfig.txt”;’ properly. Changed to ‘string kConfigName = “FTCConfig.txt”;’.
• Fix recent bug where “*” in declaration of type “typedef OBJ *POBJ” was being discarded. Extend typedef parsing to support declaration like “typedef unsigned char ubyte, *PUbyte”; i.e. change single declaration to a comma separated list.
• Debugger window for NXT Remote Screen in emulator was not properly recognizing the remote buttons. The message sent to emulator should have been a mask of buttons and instead was a index of a single button. Fixed.
• NULL char in middle of char string constant — e.g. “abc\0def” — resulted in incorrect storage by compiler into constant pool. Only the chars up to the NULL were being stored. Fixed.
• Char arrays whose array dimensions were initialized with empty bounds were incorrectly assigned one byte too large. The trailing NULL on the end of the char string constant was being included in the array dimension.
• Token scanner was not properly handling ‘\ddd’ special chars where ‘d’ is octal digit. This is now fixed and the standardized format for hex digits of ‘\xhh’ is also accepted.
• Complete implementation of new registry toggle to optionally automatically close start page on first user compiler. Also added as a command to the menu “View -> Preferences -> Close Start Page on First Compile”.
• Compiler was not parsing postfix “++” and “–” properly when they followed an expression. It worked fine on expressions with simple variables — “structVar.NN++” or “pStructVar->NN++” but didn’t work for more complicated expressions like “((TStruct *) &strucVar)->NN++”. It now handles the complicated expressions.
• Fix incorrect calculation of “useless expressions” for binary opcodes. Compiler detects ‘useless’ expressions and does not generate code for these. It was incorrectly flagging binary “+”, “-”, … operations as useless which is incorrect if one of the parameters has side effects like being a procedure call or an expression like “++” or an expression containing a “=” operator.
• Compiler crash when “++” or “==” were to expressions that didn’t immediately resolve to a symbol. e.g. “++((&g_obj)->n2);”.
• Fix code generation for expression like “(&OBJ)->n1″. Was throwing compiler error and generating incorrect code.
• Clear Debugger “Local Variables” pane when user program is finished or executing (vs suspended). When executing, don’t know which local variables (on stack) are valid.
• Expanded declaration support for statements like “int A, * B, *C, D;” where A and D are “int” and B and C are “int *”
• Signed / Unsigned type fixes for pointer variables. Allow “const string” procedure parameters to be matched by char constants (e.g. “ABC”).
• Fix issue with compiler indicating reference variables are only “read” but not “written”.
• Compiler was incorrectly assigning the ‘signed’ type of pointer variables to “unsigned” (i.e. the signed value of a pointer) rather than the desired type. Formatting routine for this was also broken.
• Ignore “find best procedure fit” parameter array checking when “void *”. “Void *” will match any pointer regardless of arrays.
• Improved calculation of expression result types for binary opcodes.
• Intermediate expressions were always converted to ‘signed’. Now if both operands (e.g. A + B” are unsigned then the expression result is also unsigned.
• Calculating best fit procedure was not checking array bounds of parameters for matching indices when the parameter was a pointer variable and an array variable. Fixed.
• “cast” operator now preserves signed type of typedefs that it references. Previously this information was lost.
• ‘signed’ and ‘unsigned’ now work properly when used in a “cast”.
• ‘char strings’ when used as arguments to ‘sprintf’ were broken. Fixed.
• This item wasn’t in the original list, but if you read it, leave a (bad) pun in the comments.
• Eliminate some overly aggressive warning messages about mixed expressions of numeric and ‘enums’. Standard C does not perform this level of checking and allows much more liberal mixed mode without warnings/errors.
• Better support for arrays. Allow variable to be declared with arrays that is based on a typedef that also specifies arrays. Previously arrays could only be declared in one “item”. Array bounds were not checked for integrity (i.e. the bounds match) when validating procedure parameters and calculating best fit procedure when multiple procedure overloads.
• Improved generation of “&” (address of) code.
• Improved type checking to allow equivalent but differently declared operand types to match. Previously had to be exact match.
• Generate compiler error for ‘&’ operator applied to a “property” (motor, servo, encoder, sensor) variable.
• Generate compiler error for ‘&’ operator applied to a numeric constant.
• Fix code generation for expressions like “char *ptr2 = buffer;” where ‘buffer’ is a implied pointer (e.g. a array of char). Previously code generation was assigning the contents of the first element of the array to “ptr2″ rather than the address of “buffer”.
• If the previous line triggered an “indent” — like a “if (xxx)” or “else” statement then next line was auto indented and when “{” is entered want to “undent” the auto indent. Add check for this case.
• Minor bug in calculation constant expression with unary ‘-’ with a constant numeric parm. Fixed.
• Code optimization for conditional branches with trinary opcodes where the trinary condition is a compile time constant.

I hope your coffee isn’t cold by the time you’ve reached this list.  Go download your copy of the new ROBOTC here: [LINK].