Changelog

Not in any release yet

  • Changes to existing behaviour

Version 4.0.0

  • New features

    • The clang engine of release 3.0.0 has been renamed to templight. Note that there is a new engine called clang (see Changes to existing behaviour).
    • New engine: null
    • New engine: gcc. Note that only preprocessor shell is supported. (No template metaprogram evaluation or debugging)
    • New engine: msvc. Note that only preprocessor shell is supported. (No template metaprogram evaluation or debugging)
    • New engine: pure_wave adding Boost.Wave support. Note that by default it has an empty sysinclude path (which means it has no access to standard headers).
    • New engine: wave adding Boost.Wave support with the standard headers of the Templight (shipped with Metashell) on the system include path and the macros of Templight defined by default.
    • pdb, the macro debugger
    • Support for using different configs in Metashell.
    • Caching of the metaprogram execution can be disabled in mdb and pdb with -nocache

  • Fixes

    • The templight_metashell executable is found even if the metashell executable is behind a symlink on macOS and OpenBSD systems. This also broke the Homebrew version of metashell.

  • Changes to existing behaviour

    • Breaking change The point_of_instantiation fields of the objects of the JSON interface have been renamed to point_of_event. (The purpose is to share the interface between template and macro debugging frames).
    • The command-line options displaying Markdown documentation (--show_pragma_help and --show_mdb_help) have been removed. They have been moved to another utility, which is used internally and are not part of the interface any longer.
    • The clang engine uses the YAML template instantiation dump for template debugging instead of the Templight dump. This makes it possible to work with a Clang binary (patched with Templight) and does not require a Templight binary. Note that profiling is not supported.
    • The input events are read lazily in the debugger.

Version 3.0.0

  • New features

    • Add pager for MDB commands which tend to have long output
    • Experimental support for profiling metaprograms in MDB
    • Experimental support for traversing the whole environment in MDB
    • New MDB command: finish
    • New MDB command: break
    • MDB now shows DeducedTemplateArgumentSubstitution events, which helps you to debug expressions involving SFINAE.
    • Support for displaying preprocessed code (#msh pp)
    • Support for displaying the preprocessed version of the shell commands (#msh preprocessed echo)
    • Support for hiding C++ errors (#msh show cpp_errors)
    • Support for disabling the evaluation of metaprograms (#msh metaprogram evaluation)
    • Add command to set the shell to preprocessor mode (#msh preprocessor mode)
    • Add command to set the shell to metaprogramming mode (#msh metaprogram mode)
    • Add command to display a comment in the shell (#msh echo)
    • Add command to display macro definitions (#msh macros)
    • Add command to display macro names (#msh macro names)
    • Add commands to display include paths (#msh sysincludes and #msh quoteincludes)
    • Add command to search for include files (#msh which)
    • Add command to list included headers (#msh included headers)
    • Add command to list available headers with given prefixes (#msh ls)

  • Changes to existing behaviour

    • File sections displayed by MDB now shows the source location of the instantiated template instead of the point of instantiation.
    • Breaking change Compiler-dependent command line arguments (eg. -I, -D, etc) are accepted as compiler arguments only (after the --) and are not allowed as "normal" Metashell arguments.
    • Breaking change --clang <clang path> is not supported. To use a custom Clang, one has to use --engine clang -- <clang path> -std=c++0x -ftemplate-depth=256 -Wfatal-errors. On Windows the -fno-ms-compatibility -U_MSC_VER arguments also need to be added.
    • Breaking change Environment saving is enabled by default and can be disabled by using --disable_saving.
    • Reduced temporary directory creation: one shell creates one temporary directory only and uses that (and its subdirectories)
    • New document type in the JSON interface: filename_list
    • New document type in the JSON interface: filename_set
    • The -nostdinc and -nosdtinc++ arguments remove the path of the headers shipped with Metashell from the system include path.

  • Fixes

    • The temporary code_complete.cpp has been removed from the include path.
    • Leaving MDB does not crash when included file becomes invalid before returning to the normal shell.

  • Documentation updates

    • New "How to..." section about debugging SFINAE.

Version 2.1.0

  • New features

    • Support different shell modes (plain, readline, JSON)
    • Optional logging of what Metashell is doing in the background.
    • New MDB command: step out
    • New MDB command: next, alias for step over
    • New MDB command: frame
    • MDB now can debug metaprograms which fail to compile
    • MDB now prints the relevant sections of the source code for movement commands
    • Significantly improved MDB performance for large metaprograms
    • New command-line arguments:
      • --console for choosing shell mode
      • --log for enabling logging
      • --nosplash for disabling the splash at (sub)shell startup

  • Fixes

    • Detect environment setup commands that are expanded from a macro call

  • Documentation updates

    • New section about step over in Getting started.

Version 2.0.0

  • New features

    • mdb, the template metaprogram debugger. (Andras Kucsma's contribution)
    • Support for precompiled header usage. It is based on Marshall Clow's advice and is a major speed improvement.
    • Pragmas controlling the shell
    • More flexible environment management
      • Environment stack (with push and pop operations) for trying temporary definitions out
      • Environment reset to avoid restarting the shell
      • Saving the environment in a file for code developed in the shell
    • Multi-line input in the shell
    • New command-line arguments:
      • -D for defining macros
      • -w for suppressing warnings
      • --no_precompiled_headers for disabling precompiled header support
      • --clang for specifying which clang binary to use
      • -ftemplate-depth for specifying the maximum template depth
      • --enable_saving for enabling saving the environment in a file

  • Fixes

    • The shell accepts the following on the command prompt:
      • macro definitions
      • empty command
      • type alias definitions when typedef is not the first token
      • comment
      • constexpr function definition
    • Don't store empty lines in history
    • Store repeated commands only once in history

Version 1.0.0

  • First release