HLA v1.103 is a maintenance release correcting several defects introduced during the rewrite of HLA v1.102. The main new feature added in this version is the ability to automatically link in the C standard library under Mac OSX, FreeBSD, and Linux (required for the HLA stdlib sockets library and planned library modules). Added the "-nolibc" command-line option to disable automatically linking in the C standard library to eliminate namespace pollution problems, should they occur (available only under Linux, MacOSX, and FreeBSD).

HLA v1.102 is, perhaps, the biggest rewrite of the HLA system since it was first created. The code generator was completely rewritten and over half the compiler/parser was rewritten. v1.102 now supports Mac OSX in addition to Windows, Linux, and FreeBSD. v1.102 also ships with v4.0 of the HLA Standard Library. The number of changes are far too drastic to list here, but the highlights include the following:

• Support for Mac OSX
• Switch..case..default..endswitch is now supported in the HLA language rather than implemented as a macro (two orders of magnitude faster compilation times!).
• Support for NASM source output (Windows only at this time).
• Gas output is now in AT&T syntax rather than using Gas' .intel_syntax format.
• Most instructions are compiled directly to hexadecimal opcodes (rather than into an intermediate source form).
• New "-sourcemode" command-line option that tells HLA to translate HLA source code into human-readable source code for some other assembler (versus hexadecimal opcode output mode).
• Source code output (when using "-sourcemode") has been dramatically cleaned up in order to make HLA output more readable.
• New "-sh" command-line option (which implies "-sourcemode") tells HLA to emit a low-level HLA source file. Great for seeing how the compiler expands macros, HLL-like control structures, and other expansions during compilation.
• Makefiles under all OSes have been improved. You can now build the entire HLA system under any OS, not just Windows.
• A new test suite has been created to dramatically improve the quality of the HLA system.
• Hundreds of preexisting defects have been corrected.
• The documentation has been updated.

HLA v1.101 is a quick maintenance release that incorporates the HLA stdlib v3.1 package as well as various changes to the HLA header file set. This is also a "stable release" that will be kept around when the experimental v1.102 appears.

HLA v1.100 is the first version to support the FreeBSD operating system. This version of HLA also began shipping with the new HLA stdlib v3.0. Corrections included fixing problems with the output of 64-bit constants under Gas, correction of a problem with strcpylc, and fixing a type checking problem with enum values.

HLA v1.99 is the frozen version. The compiler had major changes made to it, but most of those changes were done to port the code to FreeBSD (HLA v1.100). There were several bugs fixed in the version update. Also, there were a few changes made to the stdlib v1.x to correct some issues before retiring it.

Acknowledgements

Many thanks to Oleh Yuschuk for creating the HLA version of OllyDbg. Now HLA users have a machine-level debugger to help them debug their software! You can download OllyDbg here on Webster.

Also, thanks to Ketil Olsen for modifying the RadASM development environment to support HLA. Links to RadASM appear below. RadASM is also included as part of the HLAsetup.exe program (for first time users).

Thanks to Tomasz Grysztar for provided FASM in open source form, along with a reasonable license, to allow the creation of the new stand-alone version of HLAPARSE.

And special thanks to Sevag Krikorian for creating the HLA IDE (HIDE) specifially for the HLA system. Links to the official HIDE site appear below. HIDE is a great integrated development environment for beginning HLA users.