whatsnew.txt

2.1-release (30 Apr 09) [update 4]
===========
- Sleep semaphores use notifyAll() instead of notify() to wake up threads.
  Was experiencing deadlock on a multicore box due to the single woken 
  thread waiting on something else and no other threads being awoken.
- fork() now copies script environment from parent env and creates fresh 
  copies of all named closures.  This prevents unsynchronized saved state and
  closure scope variables from leaking into the forked environment.  
- overloaded in operator to check if a key is in a %hash in a read only way.
  i.e. "x" in %hash.  Why does this matter?  Read-only operations on hashes
  are thread safe.  %hash["unknownKey"] is a write operation when "unknownKey"
  is not in the hash.  This is because Sleep adds "unknownKey" to the hash
  with a value of $null.  In a multithreaded context this will corrupt you.
- added a sum(@a|&iter, ...) function to sum the products of all specified
  arrays or iterators:  (@a[0] * @b[0] * ...) + (@a[1] * @b[1] * ...) + ...
- added -isupper and -islower to check the case of a string. 
- putAll(@a, @b) now puts all elements of @b onto @a.
- extended values(%hash, [@|&iter]) to accept an array or iterator of keys to
  pull from the specified hash.  i.e. values(%hash, @("key1", "key2", ...))
- values(...) makes copies of the scalar containers taken from the hash

2.1-release (25 Sept 08) [update 3]
===========
- fixed a problem with setField not accessing fields declared in a parent
  class for an object.
- [$obj field] can now get protected members declared within the parent of
  $obj.  This does not extend to protected members declared up the class 
  hierarchy.
- added exponent operator as an assignment op i.e. $x **= 2; 
- fixed a bug with cast preventing the creation of empty arrays.
- ordered hash now makes a copy of value returned by miss policy.  This
  prevents a situation where all members of a hash share reference to same
  default value (and are thus changeable in place).
- ohash now longer serializes miss and removal policies.  be warned when
  you deserialize these hashes you'll want to readd the policy functions

  [previous behavior resulted in a null error and corrupted the Sleep
  stack, so if this affected you, you already knew and weren't happy with
  with it].
- proxy instances now have a more detailed string representation.  also the
  string description of a proxy instance no longer calls the underlying
  closure requesting toString.
- rewrote <=> to return solely 1, 0, or -1 depending on how values compare.
  this replaces the old method which subtracted the left value from the right
  one.  avoids issues with overflowed bits this way.

2.1-release  (7 Aug 08) [update 2.5]
===========
- made a sanity check with inline function execution to keep jIRCii
  compatability
- fixed &sublist only front elements of read-only arrays. (another
  find from the jIRCii scripting community)

2.1-release  (5 Aug 08) [update 2]
===========
- modified import from to add jar file to system classpath.  This
  uses a reflection hack but it now means you can add multiple jars
  and they can find resources from eachother, all at runtime.

  This hack came from Ralph Becker's Classpath extension for Sleep.  
- Sleep 2.1 default implementation no longer manages cleanup of
  subroutines from unloaded scripts.  The old mechanism for this
  was complex and resulted in an unnecessary memory leak in 
  shared environments with no awareness of this feature.  jIRCii
  depends on this behavior and so I am moving the code for this
  to the jIRCii source tree (where it manages similar cleanup
  for events, aliases, and other things).
- include(...) now sets $__INCLUDE__ to the file included.  
  use this to allow modules to find resources that are located
  relative to themselves.
- hacked <=> to compare doubles with a BigDecimal, gets around
  processor floating point issues when comparing doubles
- foreach on a hash now skips over keys with $null values
  (a $null value is removed at the first convienence from a
  Sleep hash--usually by keys() or values() functions)
- Fixed bug causing -exists "" to return true..  turns out
  toSleepFile evaluated "" to the current working directory
- Sleep functions (map, reduce, filter, etc.) that support 
  iterating over a closure or array and foreach loops can now
  iterate over Java iterators.  
- fixed a bug with taintAll causing a class cast exception with
  hash scalars
- foreach now reports undeclared key/value variables when strict
  mode is enabled.
- &local, &this, and &global now throw an exception if a malformed
  variable name is passed to them.  

2.1-release  (1 Jul 08) [update 1]
===========
- splice() no longer corrupts sublists.
- values(%hash) now omits $null values.  
- sped up scope functions: &local, &global, and &this by cacheing 
  the regex pattern used to split up the var names
- added a compile time check for %(a => ... b => ...) errors
  [notice the missing comma between the key/value pairs]

2.1-release  (16 Jun 08)
===========
- SleepUtils#runCode(SleepClosure, ...) now accepts a null value
  for the ScriptInstance parameter.
- eliminated unnecessary frame creation within the Index operator
- added a check to cleanup the current frame when a bad index 
  error occurs.

2.1-beta 27  (30 May 08)
===========
- Virtual machine errors (stack overflow, out of memory) etc.
  are now caught within the interpreter and used to coerce
  a printout of the location of each Sleep stack frame.
- SleepClosure now implements the Runnable interface.
- fixed a null pointer exception for assertions triggered
  with no preceeding statements.
- created a java.util.List compatible data structure to back
  Sleep arrays.  this data structure is similar to LinkedList
  except it creates sublists with more desired performance
  characteristics
- added better error messages for ConcurrentModificationException's
  thrown by Java
- foreach loops now break if a ConcurrentModificationException
  is thrown.
- reimplemented regex pattern and hasmatch state cacheing to 
  prevent memory leaks.  Sleep will cache 128 patterns globally 
  and up to 16 hasmatch contexts per closure.  Remember that 
  hasmatch will remove its state after returning false.  These
  measures are in place to help prevent runaway uses of 
  hasmatch from eating all of the memory.
- bad index errors (IndexOutOfBoundsException) are now more
  descriptive in some cases.
- sublists are now serializable
- function("blah") will now throw an error if argument does not
  begin with &
- empty functions now retain proper line number information 
  (compiler introduces a NOP into the body of an empty function)
- reworked how Sleep handles &function literals--the compiler
  transforms these into a call against function('&function')--
  this has the benefit of providing more debug info in a trace
  and simplifying bridges that expect to receive a function as
  a parameter.
- BridgeUtilities.getIterator() throws an exception if the 
  value on the stack is not an iterator.
- BridgeUtilities.getFunction() throws an exception if the  
  value on the stack is not a closure.
- Backtick expressions now use an IOObject to read in process
  output. 
- improved JSR223 support:
  -- ENGINE_SCOPE bindings are now supported and marshalled in
     as local variables
  -- $__SCRIPT__ and @ARGV are now available to Sleep scripts
     executed with jrunscript.
  -- better handling of \r, \n, and \r\n in eval()
- sleep lexer now ignores "\r" as whitespace

2.1-beta 26  (15 May 08)
===========
- removed extra key string conversion within ordered hashes.  
  may offer a performance speedup in some cases.
- changed default capacity of ordered hashes to 11 (previous
  value was 16 which is bad for random distribution of values)
- TaintUtils.taintAll now handles KeyValuePair objects
- added TaintUtils.taint(Stack) as another shortcut for bridge
  writers / integrators.
- BACKWARDS COMPAT WARNING: updated &indexOf and &lindexOf to
  return $null when no match is found.  This is a change from
  their original return value of -1.  $null is == to 0.  However
  this does enable a cleaner means for iterating with indexOf.

  $index = -1;
  while $index (indexOf($string, "token", $index + 1))
  {
     # ...
  }
  # do something with substr($string, $start + 1) 

- added &find("string", "regex", n) which returns the index of
  the substring matching the specified regex beginning at n.
  &matched() works to retrieve the matched groups from the
  substring.
- conducted a 3am cleanup of the RegexBridge--you know what 
  that means.
- updated array implementation to use a LinkedList in lieu of
  a Stack.  This offers better performance characteristics for
  most array operations.  The only real losing operation is
  random access which now has a worst case of O(n)
- inline functions now restore anonymous arguments and @_ prior
  to returning control to the parent function.
- renamed &subarray to &sublist(@array, n, m).  Updates to the
  returned &sublist will affect the parent list.
- updated &splice to use new ScalarArray sublist API... this
  new implementation scales better
- &clear now clears each element from the array rather than
  creating a new array and returning it.
- added &concat(@a, @b, ...) to concatenate multiple arrays
- split('pattern', 'text', [limit]) now accepts a limit 
  parameter to allow partial splits of text.
- added function inline({ .. }) to invoke the specified block
  inline
- added JSR223/javax.script API support.  sleep.jar is now a 
  service provider for this API.  See jsr223/readme-jsr223.txt
  for more information.
- Reworked the ScriptLoader compiled code cache.  It works mostly
  as before except now an unloaded script will not delete the 
  entire cache.  This was put in place to account for &include'd
  scripts.  Now &include validates its last modified timestamp
  with the ScriptLoader prior to (re)loading.  
- fixed bug in SleepUtils.getArgumentStack(Map)
- added a hasChanged() method to ScriptInstance to help apps
  determine if a script (or any script it has included) has
  changed.
   
2.1-beta 25  (8 May 08) [will this beta process ever end?]
===========
- added &chdir() to change the current working directory of the
  active script instance.  This value is inherited by fork().  
  All I/O and File System bridge functions that manipulate files 
  (including exec) utilize the current working directory.  Use 
  &cwd() to obtain the current working directory value.
- &readb($handle, -1) will attempt to read all bytes from the 
  specified handle.  
- I/O functions are now smarter about checking their arguments.
- replaced test.pl regression tester with a Sleep version.
  The Sleep version is much faster and it is forgiving of 
  address and installation path differences.  
- implemented taint wrappers for the Map->Hash and Collection to
  Array wrappers obtain with SleepUtils.  The TaintUtils.taintAll
  method is intelligent enough to employ these against wrapped
  data structures when necessary.
- changed implementation of foreach to more efficiently iterate
  over hashes.  remove() w/i a foreach loop now works with hashes.
- removed sleeplang.html from the repository and added a .url
  file pointing to the Sleep Manual.  When the manual is complete
  I will create a .pdf and distribute it with the Sleep source.
- &warn no longer shows as a function call in debug traces
- fixed line number skew with the else if and else blocks of 
  if statements.

2.1-beta 24  (30 Apr 08)
===========
- refactored Parser/CodeGenerator to use a factory pattern for
  generating atomic steps. 
- changed implementation of PLiteral to precalculate all values
  onto the current frame... the atomic step itself joins the
  frame values together.  No change from scripter perspective.
- removed the %BACKQUOTE% and Evaluation bridge.  The backquote
  behavior can still be overriden using a Function object
  keyed to __EXEC__.
- added taint mode similar to Perl.  taint mode allows bridges
  to flag scalars as having come from an external source.  All
  scalars touching said scalar are considered tainted until
  &detaint is called on the tainted scalar.  Certain functions
  will check for the presence of tainted variables and refuse
  to process if a tainted value is present.  Examples include:
  exec, `...`, eval, expr, compile_closure, and any HOES call.
  Bridges may optionally check for this taint mode on their
  inputs.  i.e. Slumber is a good candidate for this.

  This mechanism can help you build a more secure app by
  forcing you to sanitize external values before using them
  in dangerous contexts.

  This property is enabled with -Dsleep.debug=true on the 
  command line.

  Bridge writers--see sleep.taint.TaintUtils for information on
  how to add taint checking to your app.  The mechanism is
  very easy and just involves calling a function on your
  Function, Operator object that will wrap it based on where 
  it falls.

  Scripters use &taint($scalar) to explicitly taint a value and
  &untaint($scalar) to untaint a value.  And -istainted to 
  check if a scalar is tainted or not.
- added debug level 128 for tracing the spread of tainted values
- SleepUtils.describe does better cycle detection allowing Sleep
  to better print circular data structures.  %n and @n refer to 
  the n'th data structure starting from the outermost working
  in to the inner most.

2.1-beta 23  (23 Apr 08)
===========
- removed a Java 1.5 API call in CodeGenerator (thanks to 
  Ralph Becker for catching this one).
- API CHANGE: Loadable interface methods now have a return 
  type of void instead of boolean.  This is an API wart I
  couldn't live with any longer.  
- added command line option -p/--profile to collect and print
  profiler statistics for the specified script.  
- added command line option -t/--time to print out the total
  running time of the specified script
- ordered hash miss policy now receives the passed in key
  as-is prior to the string conversion.
- Sleep now parses command line arguments in a more flexible
  manner allowing different orders/combinations of switches.
- sleep.classpath value accepts either a ; or : as the path
  separator.
- moved the %RANDOM% object to the ScriptInstance metadata 
  with key __RANDOM__ (used to store random number seed)
- SleepUtils.describe(...) makes some attempt to detect
  cycles (i.e. data structures that reference themselves)
  when printing out the data.  An ellipse is used to indicate
  the data structure references itself.

2.1-beta 22  (17 Apr 08)
===========
- added a new API to SleepUtils to generate a variable stack 
  from a java.util.Map.
- I/O bridge now reports a better error when a I/O handle is 
  expected as an argument but not received.
- added -Dsleep.assert property to enable/disable assertion
  statements.  
- updated SleepClosure#callClosure to use the current preferred
  function calling methods.  This enables closure calls from
  map, reduce, search, etc. to be traced and to count against
  the profiler statistics
- SleepUtils.runCode(Block, ...) now creates (and assumes the 
  responsibility for destroying) a local scope if none currently
  exists.
- extended the ordered hash (&ohash) concept to allow the
  implementation of a cache with a Sleep hash interface:

  -- &ohash orders keys in insertion order (no surprise here)
  -- added &ohasha to create a hash with keys kept in access order
  -- added setRemovalPolicy(%hash, &closure) to set a closure that
     determines wether the last element of the specified hash
     should be removed or not.  Arguments to the closure are:
     $1 = the hash, $2 = the key, and $3 = the value.
  -- added setMissPolicy(%hash, &closure) to a set closure that
     determines what value to use when a hash access misses.
     The closure is called with $1 = the hash and $2 = the key

  These features should enable better management of massive data 
  structures within Sleep.  Someone *cough*Marty*cough* will
  benefit greatly from this.
- sleep.runtime.ScalarHash implementations are now responsible 
  for creating their own toString representation.  This is 
  necessary as some hash implementations (i.e. &ohasha) are
  sensitive to access order.  Added a helper function to assist
  with creating a String representation from a java.util.Set of
  java.util.Map$Entry.  SleepUtils.describeEntries(String, Set)
- profiler now reflects time spent in current function sans
  child function calls.  avoids numbers getting out of whack
  due to recursion.
- created a new means for storing script metadata information.
  the java.util.Map obtained by ScriptInstance.getMetadata()
  is stored in the global variables for a script and it is 
  passed on to child forks.   The script "environment" where
  functions and such are stored should not be used for 
  keeping state.

  This breaks backwards compatability if you install a new
  Sleep console as %console% or if you manipulate script
  statistics directly by accessing %statistics%

  To set the Sleep console use the static method in
  sleep.bridges.io.IOObject#setConsole(ScriptEnvironment, IOObject)

2.1-beta 21  (28 Mar 08)
===========
- assignment loops now record proper line number information for
  error reporting purposes.
- added a ? command to evaluate predicates in the Sleep console.
- index operator can now be applied to backtick expressions
- collapsed implementation of &skip and &consume; they now refer 
  to the same function.
- added &readAsObject and &writeAsObject to read/write serialized
  Java objects (in lieu of sleep.runtime.Scalar objects)
- updated &copy to also copy scalars and hashes.
- added &pushl and &popl for creating and removing local scope, 
  arguments to these functions are used to pass data between the
  current and resulting local scope.
- fork now passes copies of its arguments into the forked scope.
  this is in line with how lambda, let, etc.. work.  pass a data
  structure (such as an array or hash) to have updateable shared
  values.
- round function can now round to a desired number of places.
- replace function can now handle empty arguments, it will use
  empty strings in their place.
- added &warn to send a message to the script warning watcher 
  installed within the script environment... 
- true and false arguments are now optional in iff expressions:
  iff(3 == 3) = 1
  iff(3 != 3) = $null
- &push can now push multiple arguments
- added &scalar($object) to force object through the Sleep scalar 
  conversion process.  
- continuations now save multiple levels of local scope if 
  necessary (this makes pushl/popl safe for yield/callcc)
- inline functions will only mangle @_ if unnamed values are
  passed.  Use $var => ... to pass a named value.
- toplevel sleep scripts are now executed as a closure... this
  allows callcc to work from the top level.
- fixed a memory leak caused by stack pollution within loops.  
- callcc can now be used within fork to take control of the fork
  and eventually return a value (retrievable via &wait)
- fixed a callcc corner case that could lead to an infinite loop
  in the interpreter
- refactored the SleepUtils.runCode(...) methods to use the
  standard Sleep mechanism for evaluating functions.

2.1-beta 20  (12 Nov 07)
===========
- fix debug mode 24 error handling inconsistency bug.
- $null passed as a Java string now evaluates to null and not ""
- sleep arrays now allow $null elements when converting to Java
  arrays.
- updated fork() to use script name AND line number information
  for thread description.  will aid debugging.
- updated read-only array, hash wrappers to display a warning 
  when a script attempts a modifying operation
- updated array, hash wrappers to marshall wrapped types into
  Sleep types as appropriate.

2.1-beta 19  (24 Oct 07)
===========
- sleep interpreter now performs better stack hygeine to prevent 
  exceptions and errors from corrupting the stack inadvertently.
- $null now deserializes as its singleton value.  this fixes a lot of
  potential pitfalls for scripts that rely heavily on serializing and
  deserializing Sleep functions.  
- closure context metadata (regex matcher and iterator for foreach 
  loops) is no longer serialized with the closure...  beware of this.
- added &ohash(...) to initialize a Sleep hash that keeps track of
  key insertion order.  requested by Marty.
- updated the sleep listen(...) and connect(...) functions to accept a
  number of key/value options.  options include:
     linger  => the value of SO_LINGER (how long (ms) the socket waits 
               for a TCP reset before actually closing.
     lport   => the local port to bind to
     laddr   => the local address to bind to
     backlog => the number of connections to queue while waiting for
                a subsequent call of listen(...) to accept a 
                connection.

    for example, to listen on port 8888 of 192.168.1.1 while allowing
    only 1 connection:
 
    $handle = listen(8888, laddr => "192.168.1.1", backlog => 1)
   
    listen will only honor the extra parameters the first time the 
    port is intialized.  the extra params will have no effect on 
    subsequent calls to listen.  to fix this call closef(port) to
    unbind the specified port.
- added inline functions.  these are more like poor mans macros than 
  anything else.  an inline function is executed inline with the 
  current function, it shares all scope information and any attempt 
  to return/yield/callcc values will affect the parent directly. 

  inline return12 { return 12; }

  inline functions themselves always give back $null in an expression. 
  using an inline function within an expression is not recommended.

  callcc/yield behavior within an expression will break things.
- major refactor of Sleep's logic flow for managing function calls, debug 
  options, etc.. to one file.  please report any bugs 
- added callcc to Sleep.  callcc packages up the current function (as 
  with yield) and then it calls the specified function with the packaged
  current function as an argument.  combine this with the new inline 
  functions feature and there is all kinds of fun to be had.

2.1-beta 18  (5 Jul 07)
===========
- added scalar references: \$x is equivalent to $x => $x.  this sugar
  was added for the common case of passing a key/value pair to copy a
  scalar into the local/this environment of a function.
- added a srand(long) function for seeding the Sleep random number
  generator.   %RANDOM% in the script environment contains the random
  number generator reference.
- Sleep now evaluates text within a back ticks as an expression to
  execute.  The expression returns an array with the output printed by
  the executed command.  Execution errors and non-zero process termination
  value are available via checkError()
- Scalar hashes can now be passed to Java methods expecting an Object
  value (if desired)
- character arrays returned by Java calls will now be converted to a 
  Sleep string
- Sleep strings will now be recognized as valid matches for Java methods
  requesting a byte[] or char[] parameter.
- Sleep scalars returned by Java calls will be returned as is.
- improved performance (x3) of Sleeps internal functions to convert a 
  String to a non-mangled byte array. 
- &remove now returns data structure data was removed from
- extended &add to accept a hash and multiple key/value pairs for
  adding stuff to an existing hash.
- Sleep's set operations removeAll, retainAll, and addAll now work based
  on scalar identity in lieu of string representation
- Added "in" operator to check if a scalar with same identity is contained 
  within an iteratable data structure (generator function / array)
- Added =~ for comparing two scalars by identity (scalar that reference
  something are identical if their references match, other scalars are
  identical if their string reps match).
- fixed a bug causing import to crash parser when no package was specified
- Sleep parser now checks if a class exists when it is imported

2.1-beta 17  (17 Jun 07)
===========
- reduced number of Class.forName calls made when parsing scripts...
  should help those using Sleep in Java applets ;) 
  [p.s. sorry I wasn't able to take care of this sooner]
- added a new type of literal for resolving a Java class i.e.:
  ^java.util.LinkedList resolves to java.util.LinkedList.class
  ^Map$Entry would resolve to java.util.Map$Entry.class  etc..
- added a new predicate 'isa' for determining if an object is a 
  instance of a specific class i.e.:  "string" isa ^String
- added a better error message for class cast exceptions caught w/i
  the interpreter.
- added a $__SCRIPT__ variable to indicate the name of the executed
  script when running a Sleep script from the command line.
- added a typeOf($scalar) function to retrieve the class backing the
  specified scalars value.  
- added the ability to specify a failure message with an assert i.e.:
  assert <predicate> : <message>; 
- setField can now accept a class literal as its first argument for
  updating a static field
- &use can now accept a class literal as its first argument (safer
  than specifying bridge as a string as class literals are resolved 
  at compile time)
- updated &cast and &casti to allow a class literal to be specified
  as the type to cast to.  
- added a lindexOf function to obtain the last index of a substring
- sleep console now shares one pool of imported packages for evaluations
- added newInstance(^Class|@, &closure) for creating a proxy instance
  of a Java object backed by the specified interfaces
- try/catch is no longer dependent on putting the caught value into
  the global scope.
- returning within a try block no longer breaks Sleep's exception
  mechanism.
- &exit can now be used within a try/catch block

2.1-beta 16  (11 Jun 07)
===========
- passing a value that can not be used as a key/value pair when a kvp 
  is expected now results in an error message.   valid kvp's include:
  expressions of (key => value) and strings with the form "key=value"
- added getIOHandle(InputStream, OutputStream) to SleepUtilities class
- registered cmp operator to prevent parser confusing it with a function
- hashes/arrays can now be passed as named parameters to closures
- &size now works with hashes
- the '.' command in the console interact mode will now repeat the last
  code sequence if no new code has been specified.
- fixed a bug with &let, &lambda: when a ($this => ...) is specified
  all subsequent variable placements will be put into the shared this
  scope.
- &compile_closure now shares its implementation with &let, &lambda 
  allowing it to function as they do for settings vars, passing $this 
  scope, etc..
- &join, &flatten functions now accept either a sleep array or generator
  function.
- &readObject no longer throws an EOFException.
- added another debug mode: DEBUG_TRACE_LOGIC (64); use this to trace
  the results of all predicate evaluations
- cleaned up the code in BasicNumbers a bit to reduce the file size
- cleaned up the implementation of &remove(%|@, ...), the function now
  removes based on values (and not keys); comparisons are made as follows
  hashes, arrays, and object scalars are compared by reference, everything
  else is checked by string value.
- fixed improper uses of (<Scalar>n).getValue() throughout the Sleep codebase.
  this function builds discardable string representations of hashes/arrays.
  sometimes this behavior is desired, usually its not.  these changes will
  increase performance when using arrays/hashes extensively. 
- &removeAt can now remove elements from arrays or hashes, multiple keys
  can be specified as well.  the function no longer returns a value.

2.1-beta 15  (25 Apr 07)
===========
- fixed a potential problem that could arise when one attempts to 
  query which file is currently executing and no file is executing.
- made the ProxyInterface class in sleep.engine public.  For those of you
  looking to embed Sleep,  a Sleep closure backed instance of a  Java 
  interface may be the way to go.  Using the ProxyInterface class you
  can create these closure backed instances and you get all of the built-in
  function call tracing, profiling, error checking, etc. for free.
- the outer most frame of execution for running a Sleep script now enjoys
  the same thread safety/synrchronization that the rest of the Sleep
  functionality adheres to.
- exit() function now allows an optional string parameter which will be 
  reported to the user as a runtime warning (usually an indicator of why
  the script chose to exit?)
- added an assert command.  assert takes a predicate expression as a 
  parameter.  if the predicate expression does not evaluate to true then
  the currently running script will exit with the message "assertion
  failed".
- HOES expressions with no arguments following the : will report a 
  syntax error (originally this error was crashing the parser)
- Proxy instantiations of Java classes are now synchronized in the same
  way as the rest of Sleep's interpreter and source information is now
  installed to show calls on these classes as coming from <Java>
- fixed a bug that disallowed importing multiple packages from a single
  external jar file.  
- unloading a script through ScriptLoader now causes the entire block
  cache to be cleared.  This will ensure that external files loaded
  with include() will be purged from the cache as well.
- fixed a bug with iswm and using \ as a character literal in the match
  pattern, use \\ to specifiy a literal \
- altered HOES argument resolution for Sleep hashes and arrays; no longer
  will either of these types match to a method requiring a generic Object
  as an argument.  Collection/List/Object[]/ScalarArray for Sleep arrays
  and Map/ScalarHash for Sleep hashes.
- updated cast/casti with a new pattern character, 'o' which will create
  a java.lang.Object based on the specified scalar.
- reworked conversion of array scalars to native Java arrays and enhanced
  error messages.  In general Sleep will try its best to convert all of
  the array elements to the same type (type determined by first elements).
  Use cast(@array, "t") to cast the array to the type you really desire.

2.1-beta 14  (24 Mar 07)
===========
- added splice(@array, @insertme, position, n) for modifying an array.  
  works a lot like replaceAt, i.e. up to n elements at the specified
  position are removed and the elements of @insertme are put in their
  place.  @array is modified in place.
- array functions now normalize negative parameters as offsets from the
  total length of the array.  updated functions include:
  &add, &removeAt, &search, and &subarray.
- added a check to ensure regex pattern cache is flushed every so often.
- tracing/profiling now records Java calls on closures passed as psuedo
  objects.
- the import/from syntax now allows the jar filename to be quoted with 
  double or single quotes to specify a path with spaces.
- fixed a bug with normalized parameters (for both arrays and strings)

2.1-beta 13  (18 Mar 07)
===========
- trace debug option now reports the parameters for a HOES call even if an
  exception is thrown.
- psuedo objects now make an attempt to convert the returned scalar to the
  java type expected by the method.  (oops, oversight on my part :))
- Sleep's flag error function now accepts and returns an Object value. This
  has big implications as checkError($error) can now return the original
  error causing Object (i.e. a descendent of Throwable) that can be 
  manipulated with HOES.  But oh wait... there is more...
- added a try/catch blocks to Sleep.  try/catch blocks are used to catch
  exceptions thrown by sleep scripts and the sleep interpreter.  the
  syntax is:

  try { ... } catch $varname { ... }

  try try/catch system works as you would expect, if an exception is thrown
  Sleep will jump to the top level try and execute the corresponding catch
  block filling in $varname with the exception that was thrown.
- added a getStackTrace() method that returns an array of the sleep stack
  trace caused by the latest exception.
- added a throw keyword that works quite similiarly to return except it
  throws a message (or exception).  Any arbitrary scalar can be used with
  throw.
- added a new debug option (DEBUG_THROW_WARNINGS) to force anything flagged 
  for retrieval via checkError(...) to be thrown as an exception within Sleep.  
  The number is 34.  This is put in place to prevent breaking backwards
  compatability with older scripts that rely on the checkError() scheme. 
  With this option scripters can choose to use try/catch blocks for all run
  of the mill error handling.  (see how it all fits together now?)
- added an &exit() function to force Sleep to stop processing within the
  current script environment.
- updated sleep library to force functions to pass exceptions for consumption
  by checkError() in lieu of strings.  This means the error messages are
  somewhat less descriptive but on the other hand you can fully inspect them
  for whatever additional details you want.
- fixed a bug preventing use of increment/decrement ops in expression context
- fixed a bug causing @_ to return the same size value no matter how many
  modifications had been made to the array (thanks to Ralph Becker for 
  finding this one).
- made a small (possibly negligible) performance optimization to Sleep's
  scalar value transfer code.
- fixed frame leaks that can occur when a Java exception interrupts the 
  calling of a function.
- added yet another option to help with debugging: watch('$x $y $z')
  this function will ensure a warning is fired every time the scalar
  container held by the specified variables receives a new value.

2.1-beta 12  (11 Mar 07)
===========
- fixed yet another flurry of line number skew issues.  argh, make it stop!
- renamed &unlambda to &let, this name makes much more sense
- added APIs to the script loader class to compile a script without the
  overhead related to loading the script.  This is useful when a script is
  going to be run in the environment of another script.
- improved tracking of source file information for blocks of code.  error
  messages and closure string representations will now accurately represent
  the code's origin information.
- added an &include function for including code from other sleep scripts.
  included code is included as if it is part of the current source file.
  include(["/path-to/jar-file.jar"], "directory/filename.sl");
- SValue atomic step now returns a copy of the scalar literal and not a
  reference to the scalar.  This prevents constants from being "changed"
  on accident.
- Added a -e|--eval and -x|--expr command line options to sleep.jar; these
  options allow whole scripts/expressions to be specified on the command 
  line for evaluation.
- Updated &indexOf to accept an optional start parameter.
- Updated numerous string functions to allow negative indice parameters.
  &left, &right, &mid, &replaceAt, &strrep, &charAt, &substr, &indexOf
- added a check to &readb to see if the handle is closed prior to attempting
  a read.  If the handle is closed $null is returned.
- fixed bugs in &readb that come about when reading in the last chunk of 
  data that is usually smaller than the total buffer size.  
- added a new I/O handle type: the buffer.  this can be used to construct
  and manipulate very large strings of data in memory.  use &allocate()
  to allocate a writeable buffer.  the first time &closef is called the
  buffer will flip to a readable buffer.  the second time all the resources
  will be cleared.
- pack/unpack/bwrite/bread can now parse sleep scalars with the 'o' format
- added another form of &exec that allows the command/arguments to be
  specified as an array.  useful for including arguments with spaces in
  them.
- rewrote parsed literal parser and atomic step to fix several bugs
  ... strings ending with a $ will no longer see the $ stripped off
  ... \\\" is now \" as expected
- added a &byteAt function which works like &charAt except it returns an int

2.1-beta 11  (3 Dec 06)
===========
- multi-line parsed literals now make a more sincere effort to track which 
  line number a variable was encountered at.
- fixed a bug with multi-line parsed literals where a variable followed 
  immediately by a tab or newline was not being "terminated"
- fixed a bug with && and & followed by a HOES expression being mistaken 
  for a function reference token.
- added &unlambda function that works exactly like &lambda except it does
  not create a new closure (rather it manipulates the this scope of the
  passed in closure and returns the passed in closure).
- added a profiler to sleep...  I know, you should be scared.  Use the
  DEBUG_TRACE_CALLS (8) or DEBUG_TRACE_PROFILE_ONLY (24) debug options to
  enable it.  Profiler statistics are available in the ScriptInstance class
  with the getProfilerStatistics method.  Scripts can access their profiler
  statistics with the &profile() function which returns an array.  
- fixed a line number skew issue with multi-line tokens passed as parameters
  to a function/expression.  
- fixed a line number skew issue when approximating the line numbers where
  a closure originated.
- added a -a/--ast command line option to dump the abstract syntax tree
  for the specified script.  
- fixed a coroutine bug where consecutive yields happening within a nested
  block were not properly saving the nested context.

2.1-beta 10 (20 Nov 06)
===========
- added sizeof("data format") to return the size (in bytes) of the
  data structure represented by the specified format string. 
- attempting an invalid usage of the index op now fires a runtime
  warning notifying the scripter of what happened.
- added \x and \u escapes for parsed literal strings... \x## allows a
  char to be specified and \u#### allows a unicode char to be specified.
  # is expected to be a valid hex character.
- updated println, readln, read, readAll, and printAll to be unicode
  aware, the platform encoding is used by default.
- added &setEncoding($handle, "charset name") to set the encoding to use
  with the specified handle.
- added &readc($handle) for reading a single character from an I/O handle.
- parser no longer assumes a bareword in a expression is a function handle
  reference.  should stop some frustrating errors :)
- fixed a silly bug with tuple assignment where hash right hand side was
  being converted to a string before being assigned to the individual
  elements.
- added assignment ops i.e. +=, -=, *=, /=, &=, |=, ^=, <<=, >>=, and .=
  using these ops will assign the result of the op applied to the assignment 
  value and the right hand side.  this works as expected with normal
  and tuple assignment.
- using a tuple assignment op has a special case: expand array
  a single array value specified within a tuple will be expanded as if each 
  of its elements were specified within the expression i.e.:
  (@a) += @(3, 4, 5); is equivalent to: (@a[0], @a[1], @[2]) += @(3, 4, 5)
- fixed &consume($handle, n, [size]) to now consume up to n bytes with a 
  buffer of the specified size.  this will consume a handle without 
  keeping the whole thing in memory (useful for calculating md5 digests
  of files and other fun things).

2.1-beta 9  (6 Nov 06)
===========
- made sleep data structures and sleepclosure all serializable.
- added &readObject([$handle]) and &writeObject([$handle], $object) to
  read/write scalars to a handle.   if you think about what is possible
  with closures/coroutines and friends then you are thinking right.  this
  should scare you.
- fixed a nasty nasty (x 1000) performance issue with hashes and arrays of
  any significant size.  A null check in the Index operator was inadvertently
  converting the entire data structure to a string each time an index op
  occured.  thanks to Marty for making me aware of this one.
- added &consume($handle, n bytes) to read and discard up to n bytes from the 
  specified handle.  (differs from skip which just seeks ahead and discards
  n bytes).
- IO errors in read/write functions now uniformly close the read/write 
  portions of the IO handle.
- remove &getFilePath as the function essentially did nothing but return
  the value passed to it (I was a little over-ambitious when bridging
  java.io.File awhile back).
- ls() with no parameters now returns the listing of files/dirs in the
  current directory.
- fixed a bug with 'x' crashing the sleep console when the expression 
  had a syntax error.
- added a -c/--check option to the sleep interpreter to specify the script
  should be parsed and checked for syntax errors but not run.
- &add now behaves as documented, if no index is specified then the value
  is added to the beginning of the array (and not the end as in push).
- HOES method resolution now matches 1 character sleep strings as Java 
  characters.
- the index operator now normalizes negative array indices i.e. @array[-1]
  will return the last element of @array.
- added more descriptive error messages for out of bounds exceptions and
  null pointer exceptions.
- fork() now inherits parent scripts debug settings and error watchers,
  before if an error happened in a fork it would be silently ignored. doh!
- &use is now much more aggressive with its error reporting.  if the class
  is not found or if the specified jar file is not found a runtime warning
  is fired.

2.1-beta 8  (29 Oct 06)
===========
- when packing an unsigned integer the argument is now interpreted as a long
  (and cast to an int) rather than an int (since an unsigned integer can be
  "bigger" than a normal java integer).  
- fixed a parser ambiguity with hash literals i.e. %(...) and arithmetic
  consisting of ... % (...).  both now work as they should.
- fixed assignment loops creating an extra non-needed stack frame
- added a sanity check to the assignment step, checks for a "corrupted"
  assignment stack, most commonly caused by forgetting to terminate the 
  assigned expression with a semicolon.
- added BridgeUtilities.extractNamedParameters(Stack args) to extract all
  named parameters from a stack of arguments.
- changed string representation of closures to represent: 
  &closureX:N-M where X represents the instantiation number (i.e. closure 3)
  and N-M represents the line range where the closure was declared
- updated &invoke to accept the following named parameters:
  parameter => %() - accepts a hashmap of $scalars to send as named parameters
  $this => &closure - accepts a closure to use as $this when executing the
     function.  essentially forces the called function to share environments
     with &closure for the duration of the execution.
  message => "some string" - the message value to send to the called function
- updated the sleep console with an ehanced 'help' command and a command 'debug'
  to set the debug level of a script.
- one can now specify a $this => &closure with &lambda to force the new closure
  to use the closure scope/environment of the specified &closure
- added a &putAll(%hash, &/@, [&/@]) to populate the passed in hash from the
  passed in iterator(s).
- updated &exec to allow specification of a starting directory and environment:
  $handle = &exec("command args", [%environment], ["starting directory/"]);
- readb now returns a $null if the read failed to return any data

2.1-beta 7  (15 Oct 06)
===========
- index operator can now be applied to closures to reference the "this" scope
  of the closure i.e.

  $closure = lambda({ println("I am: " . $name); }, $name => "Burt");
  $closure['$name'] = "Joe";
  [$closure];

  Output: "I am Joe"
- added -isfunction predicate to check if a scalar contains a function or not
- added &invoke(&function, @args, [message]) to invoke a function with @args
  passed as individual arguments.
- updated &setField to accept key/value pair arguments where the key specifies
  the field to update and the argument the value, any number of args can be
  specified.  this breaks to behavor set in 2.1-b6
- added a -h/--help command line option (:
- specifying a - on the sleep command line reads the script from STDIN

2.1-beta 6  (1 Oct 06)
===========
- added named parameters for Sleep closures.  When a $key => value argument is
  passed to a sleep closure the value will be installed into the local scope of
  the function as variable $key.  This breaks the old behavior which was to 
  convert the key/value pair into a string i.e. $key=value
- improved function call traceing to detect when a function call failed and to
  indicate that such an event occured.
- coroutines are now allowed to call themselves in a recursive manner
- when yield is called, the local variable state is preserved until the 
  coroutine is called again (only when the coroutine is reset, i.e. exited w/o
  a yield is the local variable state dropped).
- added an error check for attempts to pack odd length hex strings
- parser now throws an error if a jar file specified with import * from: is not
  found.
- added a &setField(class|$object, "field", value) function for setting the 
  value of a field in a Java class or object.
- added &setf('&function', { closure }) for setting a named closure (i.e. a 
  subroutine).
- closure this scope is now associated directly with the closure itself and not
  just its script environment.  the implication of this is passing a closure
  to a fork will carry the closure this scope with it as well (and also the
  local scope in the case of a partially executed coroutine).
- added semaphore synchronization primitive to the sleep language:

  # initialize a semaphore
  $semaphore = semaphore([initial count]);

  # acquire the semaphore
  acquire($semaphore);

  # release the semaphore
  release($semaphore);

2.1-beta 5  (17 Sept 06)
===========
- fixed a bug with import [path] from: [jar] not working when a package.class
  combination was specified.
- fixed a bug where HOES was not recognizing sleep arrays as a valid argument
  for methods/constructs expecting multidimensional arrays.
- HOES mapping scalars to Java arguments is now a little bit stricter and more 
  accurate.
- added &casti(value, "t") to cast the specified value into a Java primitive type.
- altered the semtantics for how Java Object values are converted to Sleep
  scalar number values.  Essentially the Object is converted to a string and the
  string is parsed with the following meaning:
  <not a number> = 0
  "true"         = 1
  "false"        = 0
  ""             = 0
  <a number>     = <a number>

  The old semantics (object hashcode) were worthless so I doubt there will be 
  many complaints.
- added checksumming capability to sleep, the function has the following forms:

  $summer   = checksum($handle, "[[>]CRC32"|"[>]Adler32");
  $sumvalue = checksum($summer); # when I/O on $handle is complete
  or:
  $sumvalue = checksum("string of data", ["CRC32"|"Adler32"])

  The CRC32 and Adler32 algorithms are supported.  With an I/O handle specifying
  a > before the algorithm name indicates that written data should be checksummed.
- added digest capability to sleep, the function is similar to checksum except
  the function name is &digest.  The MD5 and SHA-1 algorithms are supported.
  This function returns a string of bytes (can be converted to hex using 
  unpack("H*", $digest_data)[0]).
- added H/h to the binary format templates to allow byte data to be converted
  to/from hex characters.  The H puts the high nybble first and the h puts the
  low nybble first.
- fixed a bug with &pack destroying the binary string thanks to Java's lack
  of unsigned types.
- When a Java byte array is returned by a HOES call, a sleep byte string will 
  be created from this value.
- fixed a deadlock issue with fork/wait with close being called on fork while
  in the middle of a read.
- sleep I/O now uses the IOObject stored in the environment under %console% as
  the source for stdin/stdout (this is set to System.in and System.out by 
  default).

2.1-beta 4  (11 Sept 06)
===========
- added a literal form for arrays and hashes:
  @("a", "b", "c", "d", "e", @("f", "g", "h", "i"), "j", "k")
  %(a => "apple", b => "batman", c => "cow")
- fixed a bug in the Sleep parser transforming long/int literals
  into ObjectValues rather than LongValue/IntValue.
- string form of arrays and hashes (when converted to a string) is now 
  consistent with the sleep literal form
- added another debug level (8) for function call tracing.  while this
  flag is set all function calls with their arguments and return value
  will be displayed to the user as a runtime warning.  Enable with:
  debug(debug() & 8);
- HOES will now allow sleep data structures (arrays and hashes) to be passed
  as java.util.List and java.util.Map data structures (via an expensive
  conversion process).  This conversion only applies one way i.e. a Java List
  or Java Map can not be used as a Sleep array or hash.
- added the ability to import classes from external jar files into sleep:
  import org.jdom.* from: jdom.jar;
  
  Sleep also has a concept of a Sleep classpath, definable with sleep.classpath
  or through the static methods in sleep.parser.ParserConfig.
- updated the use() function to use the sleep classpath to search for the
  specified jar file.
- fixed lambda({}, $x => $y) sharing scalar container references (caused a 
  change to $x inside of the closure to affect the value of $y)

2.1-beta 3  (18 Aug 06)
===========
- added an optional timeout parameter for the socket connect function i.e.:
  $socket = connect("host", port, [timeout in milliseconds]) 
  default is 60 seconds.
- modified listen to create a server socket and bind to the specified port, 
  each call to listen is a call to accept a connection on the specified port.
  to stop listening on the specified port use closef(port number) instead of 
  $handle.
- added a function global to declare a series of variables into the global 
  scope
- added a require strict debug flag, this flag causes a runtime warning to
  be fired whenever a script uses a variable without delcaring it using
  global, local, or this.
- added &debug(mode) allows scripters to programatically set the debug flags
  for their script..  debug with no arguments returns the current debug flags

  levels are:
  1 - show errors: dump all critical script errors as runtime warnings, this
      should never be turned off.
  2 - show warnings: dump all non-critical script exceptions as runtime 
      warnings.  These can be checked for programatically with &checkError
  4 - require strict: dump all first time uses of non-declared variables as
      runtime warnings.  

  any of these flags can be OR'd together i.e.:

  debug(1 | 4); # show all errors and uses of non-declared variables
- when passed an array parameter, &rand will return a random element of the
  array.
- eliminated the use of a busy loop to wait for a timeout within the &wait
  function
- &wait when called on a process will now wait for that process to exit
  and return the exit value of the process.
- added a new function to BridgeUtilities to extract an "iterator" from the
  argument stack, this iterator will be generated if the argument is an array
  or generator function.  This allows certain functions to accept an array
  or generator function interchangeably.
- updated several functions in the sleep utility library to use this new
  iterator extractor mechanism:
  &map, &filter, &copy, &reverse, &reduce, &printAll, &addAll
- fixed a bug where several bridge utility functions were inadvertently 
  causing arrays/hashes to share scalar references with passed in data. 
  &add, &addAll, &array, &filter, &map, &subarray, and &map.

2.1-beta 2  (5 Aug 06)
===========
- added a few more FP-style functions to Sleep:
  &reduce(&closure, @array)
  &search(@array, &closure, [index])
  &filter(@array, &closure)
- added &replaceAt("original", "new", index, [chars to delete]);
- added &mid("string", index, n chars) to extract a substring equivalent to 
  &substr("string", index, index + n chars) 
- exposed the IO Process, File, and Socket using a new method added to 
  IOObject: getSource().  This will allow scripters to query the IO source 
  using HOES if there is some API Sleep does not bridge. (i.e. exit value of a
  process)
- added an API to SleepUtils for building an IO handle scalar from a Java 
  InputStream/OutputStream
- added a debug flag to each script instance.  the options consist of:

  DEBUG_SHOW_ERRORS = 1 - this is the typical behavior that causes a runtime 
     warning to be fired whenever an uncaught exception occurs within a bridge.
  DEBUG_SHOW_WARNINGS = 2 - fires a runtime warning any time an error
     is flagged using flagError() in the script environment.  runtime warnings
     are typically errors a scripter is meant to check for with 
     checkError($error).  
  DEBUG_NONE = 0 - disables all firing of runtime warnings (not recommended)

  Sleep scripts on the command line can run with different debug levels using:
  java -Dsleep.debug=3 -jar sleep.jar filename.sl
- foreach can now iterate over closures..  if a closure is passed to foreach 
  then the closure will be called continuously until a $null is returned.
- added a few functions for performing set type operations on @arrays
  @ removeAll(@a, @b) - modifies @a with the difference of @a - @b
  @ addAll(@a, @b) - modifies @a with the union of @a + @b
  @ retainAll(@a, @b) - modifies @a to contain the intersection of @a and @b
- added methods to SleepUtils to generate a java.util.Map from a Sleep Hash 
  scalar and to generate a java.util.List from a Sleep Array.
- readln in Sleep I/O now returns the empty scalar at the end of the stream
- sleep I/O streams now autoflush on all writes.  this should solve many
  frustrations that the I/O pipeline has occasionally caused scripters.
- added &available($handle) to determine the number of available bytes for a 
  given stream.  also an option is &available($handle, "substring") to 
  determine if the specified "substring" is contained in the data available to
  be read.
- added an extended version of the while loop that continuously evaluates an 
  expression, assigns it to a variable, and executes a block of code so long as
  the specified variable is not null.  example:

  $handle = openf("somefile.txt");
  while $data (readln($handle))
  {
     println("Read: $data");
  } 
- added formatErrors() and printErrors(OutputStream out) functions to the
  YourCodeSucksException class.   should make reporting parser errors less of
  a burden when embedding sleep into applications.

2.1-beta 1  (16 Jun 06)
===========
- fixed the clean target in the sleep build.xml file
- added a continue keyword for flow control of while/for/foreach
  loops.  My arm hath been twisted.
- rewrote the interpreter to use stack frames instead of a single
  environment stack for all temporary calculations...  this could 
  create bugs and needs lots and lots of testing.
- fixed bug related to using a function call within an array/hash 
  index
- added coroutines to the sleep language, this consists of a yield
  keyword (works like return that exits a closure at that point.  
  Next time said closure is called execution resumes at the point
  where you last yielded from.
- did massive reworking of the sleep interpreter to allow for
  coroutines (this had some benefits as well including the ability
  for bridge writers to track bridge data by script context).
- oops, fixed broken ^ operator (bridge was written wrong, thanks
  to Ralph Becker for catching this one).
- remove() with no parameters will remove the current array element
  in a foreach loop (this only works on arrays, not hashes).
- fixed bugs with iswm algorithm when wildcard pattern is longer 
  than the text it is being compared against.
- updated isMatch/hasMatch/matched to use the new context meta
  data feature to keep tracker of matchers (the old way was not
  thread safe)
- for loop initialization and increment terms can now be empty
- added SleepUtils.getScalar(x) for Java shorts and floats
- opted to distribute documentation as HTML instead of PDF...

2.0-release
===========
- added a -version, -v, --version command line switch to see what
  Sleep version you're using :)
- HOES now automatically converts a 1-dimensional Sleep array into
  a Java array for argument matching (of any Object/non-primitive
  type).  This is a potential area of improvement for the future
  if there is enough demand for it...

  Auto casting is also done for int arrays, double arrays, and float
  arrays.  The first element of the array determines the overarching
  type.  More sophisticated casting should be done using the cast
  function (detailed later in this changelog)
- added function &flatten(@array) for flattening a multidimensional
  array into a 1-dimensional array.
- HOES now recognizes a desired short argument and can build a value
  for it...  (the Java primitive type short)
- when an error occurs sleep will now immediately jump out of the
  currently executing block.
- added a &cast(@var, 't', ...) which casts @var into a native java
  array with a type t (b = byte, c = char, i = int, etc..).  
  Any arguments specified represent the dimensions of the array i.e.
  &cast(@var, 'l', 2, 3) casts @var into a 2x3 array of Java longs.
- &sort now throws an IllegalArgumentException if not enough args
  are specified (I've been bitten by accidentally using &sort when
  I really wanted &sorta and friends...)
- added the ability for fork(&closure, ...) to take an initial set
  of values to pass to the forked script environment.  this feature
  comes with a heavy warning, see the docs for more details

2.0-b11
=======
- fixed a fringe case with the Z unpack character
- cleaned up definitions of pack for z/Z/u/U
- made backslash in single quoted strings behave properly:
  \' is a single quotes; \\ is a \; \ otherwise has no meaning

  I hate changes that break compatability with old scripts (especially
  ones I wrote) but the old behavior was a bug, not a feature...
- fixed $1.$2 not working correctly.  the . operator is the only 
  built-in operator that can do without white space...
- replace() function now takes a 4th parameter for the max number of
  occurences to replace...
- added a hasmatch predicate similar to ismatch, notable differences:
  ismatch matches the entire string against the pattern

  hasmatch looks for a matching substring, each subsequent call to
  hasmatch will look for the next substring until no matches are
  left to be found (in which case it resets itself after returning
  false).   hasmatch is essentially the same as the g option in
  Perl's regex stuff...
- updated the matches() function to work a lot like hasmatch where
  it will look for substrings and return all groupings for all
  matching substrings...  
- added a transliteration function &tr ala the UNIX command tr.  
- updated &matches to allow either a range of matching substring 
  groups to be extracted or a single substring group.

2.0-b10
=======
- fixed a bug with primitive values returned by HOES expressions not
  being interpreted as their primitive selves.
- added a function &values(%hash) for extracting all of the values from a 
  scalar hash.
- exposed the PrintWriter/BufferedReader in the IOObject API
- added a check to prevent ls() on a non-existant directory from fireing an 
  exception..
- added uint(n) to convert scalar int n to a scalar long as an unsigned int.
- fixed bug that was supressing HOES syntax errors
- fixed bug with SleepUtils.getScalar(boolean) always returning a false 
  boolean, thanks to Ralph Becker for finding and isolating the fix for this.
- fixed a bug with pack() packing creating the byte string the wrong way 
- fixed bug with z/Z formats only grabbing one character of a string from the 
  IO stream if no max string size is specified.
- changed the u format and added a U format.. u/U reads/writes 16 bit UTF-16
  characters similar to how z/Z handles 8 bit ASCII characters.
- bwrite and writeb now automatically flush the data after writing everything
- added &wait($handle, [timeout]) to wait for a fork or callback associated
  with $handle to finish.  If the specified timeout is reached the function
  will return the empty scalar.  If $handle is a fork, the return value of the 
  fork will be returned by &wait.
- added a whole slew of mathematical functions bridgeing most of java.lang.Math 
  into Sleep.

2.0-b9 
======
- foreach loops now automatically convert hash parameters into their keyset.
- added a new foreach syntax:

  foreach $index => $value (source) { }

  in this case sleep will assign the index of the source (whether a number for
  an array or a string for a hash) and the value as well.
- sleep console now catches uncaught exceptions with evaluated expressions
- redid the parsing for number literals to rely on Java's methods for doing s
  so.  this means integer/long literals can now be specified in hex, decimal,
  and octal formats.  Octal is indicated with a 0 (digit zero) following the
  number.  Hex is indicated with 0x followed by the hex digits.  Anything
  else is decimal.  Any of these formats can be signed.  Also any of these
  formats can be followed by an L to specify a long scalar rather than an
  int.
- the remove() function now takes multiple parameters for multiple items to 
  remove.
- added callback parameters for &listen() and &connect().  this will allow 
  sleep to call a function when a connection is established or failed for
  either of these functions.
- fixed a deadlock condition caused by calling closef() on a socket from 
  a thread other than the read thread. 
- added fork(&closure) to spin &closure off in its own thread.  &closure 
  is run in an isolated environment.  communication between the main environment
  and the &closure environment is facilitated by a IO pipe returned by fork()
  and available as $source within &closure().
- added sleep(n) to cause the current thread to sleep for n milliseconds
- removed the "script" variable scope.  this was necessary to make the 
  forked isolated script environments a reality.  
- HOES now sets all fields accessible property to true before invocation

2.0-b8
======
- fixed a bug parsing tuple assignments in certain cases.
- added a &subarray(@array, n, [m]) function for extracting an array slice
- reworked the pack/unpack format strings to make them more useful, noteable
  changes include:
  s/S | are for short/unsigned short respectively
  I   | will now read in an unsigned integer
  z/Z | are for reading/writing ascii characters, Z will make sure the 
      | specified field length is used to its fullest.
  u   | is for reading a UTF-8 format string
- rewrote sleep's interactive console to hopefully be a little more useful
- fixed a bug with the pack/unpack format string parser not assigning the 
  specified integer to the last format character.

2.0-b7
======
- array index operator can now be applied to HOES expressions i.e.
  $var = ["this is a string" split: " "][1]
- added error detection for attempting to use foreach loop on a non array value.
- updated &use() to only instantiate dynamically loaded class once other 
  scripts loading this same class will share the instance
- added Evaluation bridge for defining how `backquoted strings` should be 
  processed when encountered in an expression.
- added perl-like cmp operator i.e. "b" cmp "a" returning -1.
- added perl-like spaceship operator i.e. 3 <=> 4.
- fixed a bug with the sort() function and customized sorting functions.  also
  added some javadoc to sleep.interfaces.Function so no one makes the same 
  mistake I did.
- added perl-like map(&closure, @array) function
- altered &use's method signature:
  use(["/path-to/jar-file/to/load/class/from.jar"], "my.package.LoadableClass");
  the jar parameter is optional.
- the x format char in i/o outputs a null byte (in write situations)
- strings can no longer be faked as function literals to a HOES expression i.e.:
  ['&some_func' message: arg1, arg2, ...] no longer works...

  this created a dangerous situation where a string object passed to a HOES 
  expression would be interpreted as a function handle first and foremost 
  whenever the string object began with an &.
- added function('&string') to return a real function handle for the passed in
  &string.
- code parsed with eval() and expr() is no longer cached, if one wants 
  performance similar to cached eval and expr then use compile_closure instead.

  this decision was made to prevent inadvertent memory leaks from scripts that
  do a lot of eval() and expr().
- added compile_closure('string of code') which compiles the string into an 
  anonymous function ready for your use.
- checkError($message) now reports syntax errors for compile_closure, expr, and
  eval.
- YourCodeSucksException's toString() and getMessage() have been made much more
  informative.

2.0-b6
======
- HOES new keyword now runs the returned object through the sleep
  build scalar method.
- made -isnumber friendly to the decimal place indicator .
- fixed a bug with using the index operator on the left hand side
  of any sleep expression (told you to expect bugs last beta!)
- arrays returned by a HOES expression are now converted to sleep
  scalar arrays.

2.0-b5
======
- added -isarray and -ishash predicates.
- added support for multi-dimensional data structure accesses
  to sleep.   i.e.:  @array[3][4] = "hi"; 
- index operator can now be applied to function calls, expressions
  and $scalar's that contain/return an array or hash reference.

  these changes required some massive work on the parser and a
  little bit of work on how the instructions for these things
  are organized.  things are passing my unit tests right now
  but still expect bugs!

- added the option of specifying integers as a hex literal and
  the option of appending L to a number to specify a long.

  $x = 0xFFFFFF;
  $l = 4847324738247832L;

- fixed infinite loop caused by calling strrep with an empty
  string to search for.
- fixed &size and &keys causing a NPE when their passed parameters
  don't contain the appropriate data structure.
- sorting functions will now copy read-only arrays before attempting
  to in-place sort them.  
- iswm predicate is now tolerant of empty strings
- fixed iswm to not consider a left hand side substring to be a valid
  match of the right hand string.  basically the whole left hand side
  string has to be consumed for a valid match to take place.
- added the \ character to iswm patterns to allow the next character
  to have no meaning...
- added ** to iswm to enable greedy matching instead of non-greedy
- meaning of ** and * in iswm now means match 0 or more characters

2.0-b4
======
- added new functions for dealing with binary data in sleep:
  $ pack('format', arg1, arg2, ...)
  $ pack('format', @array)
  @ unpack('format', "string of binary data")
  
  $ readb($handle, n bytes to read)
    writeb($handle, "string of binary data")

  @ bread($handle, 'format')
    bwrite($handle, 'format', arg1, arg2, ...)
    bwrite($handle, 'format', @array)

    the read function can now also take a optional last parameter
    specifying the number of bytes to read on each call to the 
    closure.  a 3rd parameter of 0 means read whole lines of text
    as normal.

  the format string is specified in the Sleep Language Reference.

  As a warning the performance of these functions isn't the greatest
  in the world.  It took 3 seconds to read in sleep.jar and another
  4 to write it back out.  Ah well at least it didn't corrupt the jar
  file :)
- added i/o stream manipulation functions such as:

  skip(n)   - skips n bytes in the file stream
  mark([n]) - sets a mark in the buffer to reset to
  reset()   - resets this stream to the last mark

- added logical operators to sleep such as:
  ^, |, &, <<, >>, and a not() function
- values returned from  HOES will now (usually) map to
  the appropriate sleep scalar type.  
- exposed the Sleep IO primitives (contained in a Sleep
  Object Scalar) as public API's.  I still have yet to
  document it well.

2.0-b3
======
- fixed bug when referring to class names using the dotted 
  noation.
- added => operator to help with instantiating hashmaps, i.e.
  hash(a => 3 + (9 / 3), b => "this is a string", ...)

  a key/value pair object scalar is created by using the =>
  operator.  This scalar can be extracted using the 
  BridgeUtilities class.
- added an "is" predicate for checking object equivalency, 
  is works just like == for checking object reference 
  equivalence in Java.  i.e. if ($x is $y) { }
- added closures to sleep...   See the Sleep language reference 
  for more information
- added two new variable scopes, a script specific variable
  scope and a closure specific scope.  Variables can be placed
  into thse scopes using the &this, and &module functions.
- exception message trapping mechanism for HOES has been
  improved.

2.0-b2
======
- compressed the included PDF documentation
- rewrote the HOES argument resolution to be better(? :))
- added more detailed error messages to the HOES interface i.e. 
  badly matched arguments will show a useful message
- exceptions thrown in the HOES interface will now be accessible 
  with the checkError($scalar) method.  
- stack traces of exceptions thrown by HOES accesses will now be
   printed to the console.
- fixed a bug with importing single classnames from a Package.

^-- These fixes resolve issues with HOES and Java 1.5.0

2.0-b1 (13 Mar 05)
======
- Added experimental Haphazard Object Extensions for Sleep (HOES)
  interface.  

  HOES allows Sleep to access and create Java objects.  This adds 
  a whole new dimension to what is possible with Sleep scripts.

  However Sleep is a language meant to provide an easy to learn
  abstraction of an application's API.  HOES can supplement
  extensions/abstractions not yet provided however it should not
  be solely relied on to provide a solid scripting interface for
  an application.

  For more information see the Sleep Scripting Language document.
  http://sleep.hick.org/sleeplang.html#10

28 Feb 05
=========
- fixed bone headed bug with for loop initialization terms.
  simple stuff like for ($x = 0; ...) worked fine, stuff like
  $x = 1 + 2 turned out to be broken.  Fixed.
- added a new type of syntax, a "filtered environment", 
  essentially an environment that can take a scalar filter
- default hashtables now filter out all keys with null scalar
  values when returning a key set.  
- fixed -isnumber and -isletter to return false if the parameter
  strings are equal to ""
- added $handle = listen(port, [timeout]) function to IO bridge.
  sets up a really simple server socket.
- removed useless debug flag for traceing runtime steps.  
- added an API for getting the approximate line number of a 
  Block Object...
- added (optional) global parsed script cache'ing mechanism.  
  useful for applications with multiple script loaders that
  will be loading the same script files.  
- stack frames for temporary calculations are now contained in the
  ScriptEnvironment rather than being instantiated for each atomic
  step that would need them.  This saves some memory overall and
  eliminates all runtime information from the Block/Step objects.
- fixed race conditions in the Sleep parser
- rewrote sleep predicate parser to be much more friendly with
  right hand side expressions that are not grouped by parentheses.

18 Dec 04
=========
- updated one of the SleepUtils.runCode() functions to return
  type of Scalar instead of void.
- added a convienence method to get the first script environment
  out of the script loader
- registered sleep operators that have names that could be mistaken
  for functions with the sleep parser.  this lack of registration
  created an ambiguous case such as:
 
  $var = "hello" x (3 + 4);
  
  is x (3 + 4) a function call, or is it an operator?  oh well :)
  updated documentation to reflect this requirement as well. 
- fixed a little 'documentation' bug with ParserConfig having the
  wrong package name.
- added a &use("package.SomeBridge") which will attempt to dynamically
  load the class package.SomeBridge as a Loadable object and install it
  into the environment of the current script.  takes either a pathname
  without the .class extension or a package name for something already
  in the class path.

25 Nov 04
=========
- fixed bug with return not working inside of loops.
- made print/println functions able to handle no parameters
- added a 'break' command for breaking out of the current 
  loop.  
- added a iff(condition, value_true, value_false) operator
- added &checkError([$scalar]) which will return the last error
  to occur since checkError was last called.  Right now it
- process, file, and socket i/o now all flag an error if an
  error occurs when executing, opening, or connecting.  error
  is accessible via checkError([$scalar])
- command line sleep, using java -jar sleep.jar now puts all
  arguments in the array @ARGV.  
- scalar string number conversion now does a straight conversion
  failing if the string is not a number.  functions like
  &long($scalar), &double($scalar), &int($scalar) now convert a 
  string directly to those types rather than to an int and then
  casting as the specified type.
- moved over &parseDate(), &formatDate(), and &ticks() from jIRCii
  about time sleep had some date processing tools...
- built-in operator ! now works on expressions and scalar values
  in an if statement.  i.e. if (!$1) { }  don't use it on 
  predicate expressions or you will get a lot of runtime warning
  errors... :)
- added &printAll($handle, @array) for printing the entire 
  contents of the specified array to a file.

14 Nov  04
==========
- added sendEOF($handle) function for signaling end of file to a 
  i/o output stream.
- added an option to ScriptLoader to load script information raw
  with no character set conversion.  
- added formatNumber(number, base) for formatting the passed in
  number to a certain base system i.e. 2 (binary), 10 (decimal), 16 (hex)
- added parseNumber("number", base) to parse a number string encoded
  as a certain base system into a scalar long
- Updated &clear(@array/%hash) to clear hashes as well
- sleep.jar now has a manifest file so you can java -jar sleep.jar to
  start the sleep console.
- added &hash('key=value', 'user=password') to generate a hashtable
- updated getFileProper("parent", "child", ...) to take any number of
  parameters and string them into a properly formatted pathname
- fixed a parser bug: not detecting a missing ; in return statement
  expressions...  led to all kinds of problems later
- updated command line options to execute a script if that is all
  that is specified on the command line i.e.

  java -jar sleep.jar myscript.sl
- IO related bridges updated to handle '/' as a universal path 
  separator regardless of what platform you are on.
- spent a lot of time updating the JavaDoc for the Sleep API.  The
  JavaDoc should now be a useful resource.  :)

26 Sept 04
==========
- unbroke sleep function &clear().
- added a &copy(@array) function to sleep which returns a copy of the 
  given array and copies of all of its values.
- added an "x" string operator i.e. $var = "abc" x 3; # $var is now 
  "abcabcabc"
- added an expr('expression code'); function
- documented and updated eval('code;'); function
- added \r, \n, and \t escape constants to sleep
- added normal array @_ to subroutines, which contains all of the 
  arguments passed to the subroutine.
- added getFileProper("/parent-path/, "file") - returns the appropriate 
  filename/path string for parent-path and file for the current operating 
  system.
- fixed a problem with the sleep return stack, return by itself will now 
  by default return $null - ALWAYS! 
- added some sugar for assigning values from an array to a tuple of 
  scalars i.e. ($x, $y, $z) = @array;  $x will be the first element of 
  @array, $y will be the second element, and $z will be the third 
  element.
- removed white space requirement for the string concatenation operator .
- added a strrep("string", "old", "new", ..., ...) for straight up string 
  replacement without the regex bs in replace()

20 Mar 04 - Initial Release, Take II

06 Apr 02 - Initial Release? :)