Changelog

Not in any release yet

  • New features

    • New engine: auto. It chooses the engine to use based on the compiler specified in the engine arguments.
    • Support for displaying the currently used engine (#msh engine show)
    • Support loading compilation flags from compile_commands.json generated by CMake.
    • Support -iquote arguments in the Wave engine adding elements to the quote include path only.
    • Support -idirafter arguments in the Wave engine adding elements to the include path after the system header locations.
    • Support -U arguments in the Wave engine undefining macros.
    • Support for switching between engines from the shell. This makes it possible to switch to a different compiler without leaving the shell. (The #msh engine switch pragma)
    • Make it possible to override the working directory for each config.

  • Fixes

    • When multiple shell configs use the same engine with different engine arguments, Metashell can now use the correct arguments for each config instead of using the arguments the shell config had, which was loaded first.
    • . is not on the sysinclude path in the Wave engine
    • Display all -I arguments with #msh sysincludes path in the Wave engine

  • Changes to existing behaviour

    • Breaking change Regular expression syntax for breakpoints changes from Perl syntax to ECMAScript.
    • The default engine is auto.
    • Improved error messages for invalid mdb commands.
    • Improved input validation
    • Display the name of the underlying engine in error messages about missing features while using the auto engine
    • Breaking change When shell configs have path separators (\\ or /) in their name, #msh config treats them as directories and behaves similar to the ls command. The old behvaiour of #msh config is available using the #msh all config pragma.
    • The default C++ standard version of the internal engine is C++14.
    • Using the Visual C++ system headers on Windows instead of the MinGW ones.
    • Use the relative order of user provided and system include directories in the wave engine, that GCC is using.

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