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blog/_posts/2017-05-23-whats-new-scala-native.md

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+---
+layout: blog
+post-type: blog
+by: Martin Duhem, Guillaume Massé and Denys Shabalin
+title: "What's new with Scala Native?"
+---
+
+It has been a little bit more than two months since Scala Native 0.1 has been
+released. What's new in Scala Native? What should you expect for future
+releases?
+
+## Scala Native 0.2
+
+In April, [Scala Native 0.2 was released][scala-native-0.2-release]. The main
+focus of this release was to increase the coverage of classes from
+the JDK, such that more programs can be ported to Scala Native without any
+further effort. What parts of Java do we now support in Scala Native? Lots!
+We've added support for IO and regular expressions, among others:
+
+### Improvements to the standard library
+
+* Support for file I/O APIs from `java.io` was added by [@Duhemm][@Duhemm]
+  from the Scala Center with help from [@cedricviaccoz][@cedricviaccoz] and
+  [@Korf74][@Korf74] in [#574][#574]. Scala Native now supports enough to read
+  and write files. Doing I/O with Scala Native feels just the same as in normal
+  Scala or Java:
+
+  ```scala
+  import java.io.{DataInputStream, File, FileInputStream}
+  val fis = new FileInputStream(new File("hello.txt"))
+  val dis = new DataInputStream(fis)
+  println(dis.readLine())
+  ```
+
+* In [#588][#588], [@MasseGuillaume] from the Scala Center added support for
+  regular expressions. This implementation relies on Google's RE2 engine and
+  [uses a syntax slightly different from the JDK][scala-native-doc-regular-expressions].
+  Using regular expressions with Scala Native works similarly as it does on the
+  JVM:
+
+  ```scala
+  import java.util.regex._
+  val m = Pattern.compile("a+(b+)(a+)").matcher("aaabbba")
+  assert(m.find())
+  println(m.group(1)) // prints "bbb"
+  println(m.group(2)) // prints "a"
+  ```
+
+* [@densh][@densh] added initial support for Scala's `Future`s in [#618][#618],
+  using an implementation similar to that of Scala.js, where `Future`s will be
+  completed after the `main` method is executed. Here's an example using Scala's
+  `Future`s with Scala Native. Of course, the same code works as well on the
+  JVM:
+
+  ```scala
+  import java.util.concurrent.Future
+  import scala.concurrent.ExecutionContext.Implicits.global
+
+  object Test {
+    def main(args: Array[String]): Unit = {
+      println("Start")
+      Future {
+        println("Hello from the Future")
+      }.foreach(_ => ())
+      println("End")
+    }
+  }
+  ```
+
+* Scala Native now supports pointer subtraction. This work has been
+  contributed by [@jonas][@jonas] in [#624][#624]. Pointer subtraction is
+  useful, for instance, to determine how many elements there are between two
+  elements of the same array:
+
+  ```scala
+  val carr: Ptr[CChar] = toCString("abcdefg")
+  val cptr: Ptr[CChar] = string.strchr(carr, 'd')
+  println(cptr - carr) // prints '3'
+  ```
+
+* [@ekrich][@ekrich] extended Scala Native's implementation of `String` to
+  support `toUpperCase` and `toLowerCase` in [#573][#573].
+* The implementation of `java.lang.Character` was extended to support
+  `Character.Subset` and `Character.UnicodeBlock` by [@densh][@densh] in
+  [#651][#651].
+* [@asoltysik][@asoltysik] implemented support for system properties in
+  [#591][#591].
+
+  ```scala
+  println(System.getProperty("java.version"))   // prints '1.8'
+  println(System.getProperty("file.separator")) // '\' on Windows,
+                                                // '/' elsewhere
+  ```
+* Scala Native can now read environment variables using `System.getEnv`,
+  thanks to [@jonas][@jonas]' efforts in [#606][#606].
+* `stdin` and `stdout` can reliably be read from and written to, thanks to
+  [@fduraffourg][@fduraffourg] and [@densh][@densh] in [#622][#622] and
+  [#659][#659].
+
+### Bugfixes
+
+* A bugfix has been contributed by [@jonas][@jonas] to `String.replace`,
+  fixing one broken benchmark at the same time. His work can be found in
+  [#616][#616].
+* `System.nanoTime` was fixed by [@brad-rathke][@brad-rathke] in [#549][#549].
+* [@xuwei-k][@xuwei-k] fixed `nativeAvailableDependencies` which didn't work
+   in the `test` configuration in [#565][#565].
+
+### Improvements to the tooling and integration
+
+* [@MasseGuillaume][@MasseGuillaume] and [@densh][@densh]
+  worked on refactoring Scala Native's sbt plugin to make it more idiomatic in
+  [#568][#568] and [#630][#630].
+* Follow up fixes were contributed by [@jonas][@jonas] in [#639][#639] and
+  [#653][#653]. They improve how sbt determines the target architecture to
+  compile to.
+
+### Preparing for a better garbage collector
+
+In this release, [@LukasKellenberger][@LukasKellenberger] introduced in
+[#539][#539] a new setting in the sbt plugin that lets users select what
+implementation of the garbage collector should be used. Currently, it lets you
+select Boehm GC, or disable the garbage collector altogether.
+
+This work was done in preparation for [the improved GC that will be shipped
+with Scala Native 0.3][#726]!
+
+
+## A community effort
+
+As shown, many of the improvements that were brought by Scala Native 0.2 have
+been contributed by members of the vibrant community that is developing itself
+around Scala Native. In total, to get to Scala Native 0.2, there have been 61
+commits merged, 11,344 lines added and 1,954 lines deleted by 17 people:
+Denys Shabalin, Jonas Fonseca, Guillaume Massé, Martin Duhem,
+Lukas Kellenberger, Andrzej Sołtysik, Eric K Richardson, Remi Coudert,
+Florian Duraffour, Brad Rathke, Richard Whaling, Ruben Berenguel M,
+Sam Halliday, Shunsuke Otani, Cedric Viaccoz, Kenji Yoshida, Ignat Loskutov.
+
+The combination of these improvements was enough to get a prototype of
+`scalafmt` running on Scala Native by [@olafurpg][@olafurpg], showing a blazing
+fast startup time!
+
+<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-conversation="none" data-lang="en">
+  <p lang="en" dir="ltr">
+    <a href="https://twitter.com/adriaanm">@adriaanm</a>
+    <a href="https://twitter.com/den_sh">@den_sh</a>
+    <a href="https://twitter.com/scala_native">@scala_native</a> OMG IT WORKS :D 30x faster!
+    <a href="https://t.co/M7V9udU5bT">pic.twitter.com/M7V9udU5bT</a>
+  </p>
+  &mdash; Ólafur Páll Geirsson (@olafurpg)
+  <a href="https://twitter.com/olafurpg/status/857559907876433920">April 27, 2017</a>
+</blockquote>
+<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
+
+## What to expect for Scala Native 0.3?
+
+The plans for the next release of Scala Native include a new garbage collector,
+a better integration with sbt and more additions to the standard library.
+
+### Improved garbage collector
+
+The first releases of Scala Native use Boehm GC. A new and improved garbage
+collector has been under development by [@LukasKellenberger][@LukasKellenberger]
+and will be presented at [Scala Days during Denys' talk][denys-talk]. Stay
+tuned for more more details to come soon!
+
+The pull request introducing the new garbage collector can be found in
+[#726][#726].
+
+### Running tests from sbt
+
+Currently, testing frameworks such as utest or scalacheck cannot be used with
+Scala Native. An effort to enable support for sbt-compatible testing
+frameworks has been undertaken by [@Duhemm][@Duhemm] from the Scala Center and
+is expected to land in Scala Native's third release.
+
+### Support for `java.nio`, `java.util.{jar, zip}`
+
+The existing I/O capabilities of Scala Native have been extended in this
+release by adding support for the classes defined in the packages `java.nio`,
+`java.util.jar` and `java.util.zip`.
+
+### Smaller binaries
+
+In [#686][#686], [@densh][@densh] started work to reduce the size of the
+binaries compiled by Scala Native, using a technique called selector-based
+row displacement.
+
+These improvements make the dispatch table up to 10 times smaller, on some
+codebases in the wild.
+
+## 0.4 and beyond
+
+Some features are already in the works for Scala Native 0.4.
+
+### Windows support
+
+[@muxanick][@muxanick] has been working on a port of Scala Native to Windows.
+The advancement of his work can be consulted in [#691][#691].
+
+### Automatic binding generation
+
+A prototype of [automatic binding generation][#642] is in development by
+[@jonas][@jonas]. The goal is to be able to generate automatically bindings
+for C libraries. For instance, given the following C header `test.h`:
+
+```C
+enum color {
+  RED = 1,
+  GREEN,
+  BLUE = 100
+};
+typedef int SomeInt;
+char *strchr(const char *s, int c);
+```
+
+We want to generate the following definitions:
+
+```scala
+@extern
+object Test {
+  object color {
+    val RED = 1
+    val GREEN = 2
+    val BLUE = 100
+  }
+  type SomeInt = CInt
+  def strchr(s: CString, c: CInt): CString = extern
+}
+```
+
+Ultimately, this tool will make it much easier to providing bindings for C's
+stdlib and external libraries.
+
+[scala-native-0.2-release]: https://github.com/scala-native/scala-native/releases/tag/v0.2.0
+[@asoltysik]: https://github.com/asoltysik
+[@brad-rathke]: https://github.com/brad-rathke
+[@cedricviaccoz]: https://github.com/cedricviaccoz
+[@densh]: https://github.com/densh
+[@Duhemm]: https://github.com/Duhemm
+[@ekrich]: https://github.com/ekrich
+[@fduraffourg]: https://github.com/fduraffourg
+[@jonas]: https://github.com/jonas
+[@Korf74]: https://github.com/Korf74
+[@LukasKellenberger]: https://github.com/LukasKellenberger
+[@MasseGuillaume]: https://github.com/MasseGuillaume
+[@muxanick]: https://github.com/muxanick
+[@olafurpg]: https://github.com/olafurpg
+[@xuwei-k]: https://github.com/xuwei-k
+
+[scala-native-doc-regular-expressions]: http://scala-native.readthedocs.io/en/latest/lib/javalib.html?highlight=regex#regular-expressions-java-util-regex
+
+[#539]: https://github.com/scala-native/scala-native/pull/539
+[#549]: https://github.com/scala-native/scala-native/pull/549
+[#562]: https://github.com/scala-native/scala-native/pull/562
+[#565]: https://github.com/scala-native/scala-native/pull/565
+[#568]: https://github.com/scala-native/scala-native/pull/568
+[#573]: https://github.com/scala-native/scala-native/pull/573
+[#574]: https://github.com/scala-native/scala-native/pull/574
+[#588]: https://github.com/scala-native/scala-native/pull/588
+[#591]: https://github.com/scala-native/scala-native/pull/591
+[#606]: https://github.com/scala-native/scala-native/pull/606
+[#616]: https://github.com/scala-native/scala-native/pull/616
+[#618]: https://github.com/scala-native/scala-native/pull/618
+[#621]: https://github.com/scala-native/scala-native/pull/621
+[#622]: https://github.com/scala-native/scala-native/pull/621
+[#624]: https://github.com/scala-native/scala-native/pull/624
+[#630]: https://github.com/scala-native/scala-native/pull/630
+[#639]: https://github.com/scala-native/scala-native/pull/639
+[#642]: https://github.com/scala-native/scala-native/pull/642
+[#651]: https://github.com/scala-native/scala-native/pull/651
+[#653]: https://github.com/scala-native/scala-native/pull/653
+[#659]: https://github.com/scala-native/scala-native/pull/659
+[#686]: https://github.com/scala-native/scala-native/pull/686
+[#691]: https://github.com/scala-native/scala-native/pull/691
+[#726]: https://github.com/scala-native/scal-anative/pull/726
+[denys-talk]: http://event.scaladays.org/scaladays-cph-2017#!#schedulePopupExtras-8135