ANN: Tao Scripting Language 0.9.0 beta released!

[Limin Fu]

Dear all,

I am glad to announce in this mailing list that the
lastest version of Tao scripting language has come
out.

Welcome to try it out!

=======================
Here are some details:
=======================

Summary:
Tao is an object-oriented scripting language with dynamic typing
variables supporting complex data
structures. It has powerful text processing ability such
as string regular expression matching. It provides
built-in numerical data types such as complex number
and multi-dimensional numeric array, and their
corresponding operations and computations are very
convenient in Tao. It can be easily extended with C++,
through a simple and transparent interface.

Key Features:
1. Object-oriented ( syntax slightly similar to C++ ).
2. String regular expression with syntax support
( similar to Perl ).
3. Numeric types and their operations
( slightly similar to Matlab ).
4. Extendable with C++ through a simple and
transparent interface.

ChangeLog:
+ : added
! : changed
* : fixed
- : removed

Release: tao_0.9.0_beta:
! Matrix type is generalized to numeric array supporting
arbitrary dimensions and different precisions including
byte, short, int, float and double. Many operations are
also provided for numeric array.
+ Some convenient and powerful built-in functions are
implemented to manipulate numeric arrays, including
numarray(), apply(), noapply() and which() etc. Basic
mathematical functions are also supported for numeric
arrays.
+ A feature called transient variable is implemented for
convenient parameter passing in some situations.
+ Some "magic" functions which may take expressions
with transient variables as parameters to do some
computions on arrays and numeric arrays without
explicit looping and subindexing. These functions
include numarray(), apply() and noapply() for numeric
array; iterate() and iterget() for normal array;
and which() for both.
+ Some C++ types are provided for transparent passing
Tao types to C++ modules, so that only two C++
header files("taoCpptype.h" & "taoPlugin.h") are
required to develop C++ modules loadable by Tao
without linking to any additional libraries.
! The base class for TaoPlugin is changed from TaoBase
to TcBase, so that the developing of Tao plugins only
requires another header file "taoCpptype.h".
+ Basic string operations such as substring, insert,
replace and erase by subindexing. And a few functions
are added such as number(), pack() and unpack().
+ Added string regular expression matching for alternate
and grouping such as /(\d|\w)(@1:\D|\c)/.
+ Substring substitution by regular expressions.
! Embedding expression in regular expressions is changed.
+ More convenient subindexing is supported for array and hash.
+ Local variables.
+ yield statement to use routine as generator.
+ Many operators such composite assignment (+=, -=,
*=, /=,etc.), type comparision operators(=?,!?),
right operators( .#,.@,.%, etc.)
+ eval(): evaluate a block of codes represented as a string.
+ Loop control: for(e1,e2,e3), logic control: e1 ? e1:e2;
+ Other functions such as repeat(), about(), import(),
load(), time(), astime() and asctime() etc.
! Many changes including keywords: sub->routine,
continue->skip. commenting symbols are also changed.
* Some bugs.

Download:
http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/taoscript/tao_0_9_0_beta.tar.gz?download

Document:
http://taoscript.sourceforge.net/An_Introduction_to_Tao_Language.pdf

HomePage:
http://taoscript.sourceforge.net

Contact:
Limin Fu: fu [dot] limin [dot] tao [at] gmail [dot] com


--

FU Limin

Homepage for Tao Language:
http://taoscript.sourceforge.net

Tao Language project at sourceforge.net:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/taoscript