Various patches

I've fixed a few more bugs in my Git repository. Let me know if you want
any of these things committed to svn:

http://gitorious.org/~tal-itinnov/repo-roscidus/it-innovation/commits/proposed


("general-fixes" branch)

commit 1c829562d3bcad2fba5c7ccec9b8a98353c7a666
Author: Thomas Leonard <tal-v5nx5w6akNyLE8xUarVfuPLx9OUvmyODWmv/[email protected]>
Date:   Thu Feb 4 14:30:28 2010 +0000

    Fixed "make tarballs" (unknown .at extension)

commit 656d9f9fc5c5bced8bddf617b14eb525abb432f2
Author: Thomas Leonard <tal-v5nx5w6akNyLE8xUarVfuPLx9OUvmyODWmv/[email protected]>
Date:   Tue Mar 9 11:45:03 2010 +0000

    Avoid Java 6 IOException constructor

commit a4599b1a23ec52ce4e43ce094079087f41977891
Author: Thomas Leonard <tal-v5nx5w6akNyLE8xUarVfuPLx9OUvmyODWmv/[email protected]>
Date:   Thu Mar 18 13:00:54 2010 +0000

    Preserve source span information when building quasi-literal expressions
    
    Before, the error produced by `$missingVariable` didn't say where the
    error was (though it did work for `${missingVariable}`).

commit 88e0102730954fcaec3662a9e285112e69512b0f
Author: Thomas Leonard <tal-v5nx5w6akNyLE8xUarVfuPLx9OUvmyODWmv/[email protected]>
Date:   Mon Mar 15 12:21:51 2010 +0000

    Show stack trace when updoc gets an unexpected exception

commit eb36d7ac64ea0f9529c0f010f6156dfee06a9771
Author: Thomas Leonard <tal-v5nx5w6akNyLE8xUarVfuPLx9OUvmyODWmv/[email protected]>
Date:   Mon Mar 15 11:00:11 2010 +0000

    Improved error message when trying to call a named method on a verb facet
      foo.bar.baz()
    used to give the error:
      problem: Prefix doesn't match: __getAllegedType
    Not it says:
      problem: <calling "bar" facet>.baz/0: can only call "run" on a verb facet


I've also extended the SQL quasi-parser with Kevin's suggestions ("sql"
branch):

commit 50327b447b14803bb83cae12ebdea45832134a40
Author: Thomas Leonard <tal-v5nx5w6akNyLE8xUarVfuPLx9OUvmyODWmv/[email protected]>
Date:   Thu Mar 18 14:19:43 2010 +0000

    Ensure that reusing an SQL result set always fails
    
    Suggested by Kevin Reid.

commit 295b291d52e8dc1c056b434dbdaa1b4ebe4c50ed
Author: Thomas Leonard <tal-v5nx5w6akNyLE8xUarVfuPLx9OUvmyODWmv/[email protected]>
Date:   Thu Mar 18 14:13:41 2010 +0000

    Added asList/0 to get SQL results as a list
    
    Suggested by Kevin Reid.


The "eloader" branch now adds a "getRoot/0" method to loaders, which
returns a read-only file object for the module's root directory:

commit b7e88a21429448aa8694f313f4b314f3ddf34eec
Author: Thomas Leonard <tal-v5nx5w6akNyLE8xUarVfuPLx9OUvmyODWmv/[email protected]>
Date:   Thu Mar 18 16:08:27 2010 +0000

    Added getRoot/0 to E loaders
    
    This is useful for loading icons, documentation, etc.


The repository also contains a number of commits which I've already
mentioned here before:

      Added Java VatSeeder class to avoid thread-safely problems with Vat.seed
      Use makeSeedVat to make the parsing vat
      Use seedVat to create eval vat too
      Added SQL quasi-parser
      Clarifications for NOTICE.txt.
      Added <elang:interp.ELoaderAuthor>
      Added seedVat/3 to give a <this> loader to the new scope
      When running (unconfined) code with rune, give it a <this> loader by default


It would be good to get some decision on the issue with the NOTICE.txt
file. I really think E needs to say something about licensing in its
documentation. Business users are nervous about using products which
appear to have a careless approach to IPR issues, so being as clear as
possible here would be good, and publicly-funded bodies (like ours) that
contribute are likely to want their contributions recorded somewhere in
some lawyer-approved format.

Thanks,


-- 
Dr Thomas Leonard
IT Innovation Centre
2 Venture Road
Southampton
Hampshire SO16 7NP

Tel: +44 0 23 8076 0834
Fax: +44 0 23 8076 0833
mailto:tal-v5nx5w6akNyLE8xUarVfuPLx9OUvmyODWmv/[email protected]
http://www.it-innovation.soton.ac.uk