Release Notes (v0.20)

[jolanglinais]

Tasks

• This will track and construct the overall release notes for this repo in relation to the v0.20 project

Related Issues:

• Support for Dynamic Template Grammars with Expressions #346
• Syntax for Rich Text & Dynamic Templates #392
• Ergo Issue 646

[jeromesimeon]

• Markdown based parsing and text generation
• New syntax for templates (e.g., {{foo}} {{#if forceMajeure}}...{{/if}}
• Dynamic templates (e.g., {{% rate * 1.24 %}}
• Based on new modelling package Concerto 0.80.*
• ...

[jolanglinais]

Cicero v0.20 🦋

This release is a full redesign of the Accord Project template technology:

• Support for Rich Text annotations with Markdown
  • Based on CommonMark
• New syntax for templates variables
• A notion of template blocks
  • Handles structured data such as lists or complex objects
• A new notion of dynamic templates
  • Allows users to create text dynamically through embedded Ergo expressions

It also includes several new Ergo features and numerous bug fixes.

Note: This release requires changes to application and template code ...

🚀 New Features

• (feat) support for markdown templates #405: Support for markdown with rich text annotations (@jeromesimeon)
• Syntax for Rich Text & Dynamic Templates #392: Fully redesigned and more expressive template syntax (@jeromesimeon)
• Support for Dynamic Template Grammars with Expressions #346: Ability to embed Ergo expressions within your templates (@jeromesimeon)
• Template Triangle and Cicero Directory structure #435: Templates have a new directory structure, aligning better with the Accord Project conceptual model (@jeromesimeon)
• Should template allow for lists of terms #20: Support for lists of terms

🛰 New Command Line

#425: A new and improved command line for Cicero which better aligns with the rest of the Accord Project (@jeromesimeon)

cicero <cmd> [args]

Commands:
  cicero parse       parse a contract text
  cicero draft       create contract text from data
  cicero normalize   normalize markdown (parse & redraft)
  cicero trigger     send a request to the contract
  cicero invoke      invoke a clause of the contract
  cicero initialize  initialize a clause
  cicero archive     create a template archive
  cicero compile     generate code for a target platform
  cicero get         save local copies of external dependencies

Options:
  --version      Show version number                                   [boolean]
  --verbose, -v                                                 [default: false]
  --help         Show help                                             [boolean]

🦋 Ergo

• Syntax for Rich Text & Dynamic Templates #392: New syntax for constructing strings with embedded expressions`This is text with {{% expression %}} and more text` (@jeromesimeon)
• #3: Support for enumerated values, with proper typing and pattern matching (@jeromesimeon)
• #143: New set state.NAME = EXPR; statement for modifying a specific variable in the contract state (@jeromesimeon)
• #303: Redefining a constant is now a compiler warning (@jeromesimeon)

🦋 Ergo Standard Library

• New functions for URI encoding (encode and decode)
• New format function for DateTime
• New getOptions function which returns global static options for the compiler

🐛 Bug Fixes

• Templates with tab characters do not roundtrip between parse and generateText #441, parsing/generateText for special characters #353: Fixes to template parsing in the presence of special characters (e.g., \t) (@jeromesimeon)
• Variables beginning with the letters "as" cause an error in Cicero parse. #407: Template variables starting with as do not result in parse errors anymore (@jeromesimeon)
• Invalid grammar generated for concepts containing DateTime #406: Fixes a regression when using DateTime within template variables of a complex type (@jeromesimeon)
• generateText does not handle nested clauses #390: Now text generation properly handled nested clauses (@jeromesimeon)
• Badly specified dates should produce an error rather than a warning #375: Badly specified dates now produce an error rather than a warning (@jeromesimeon)
• Cicero tests do not take into account the timezone when current time is set #467: Tests now use current timezone for dates in contract text
• #642: now is no longer a magic variable (@jeromesimeon)
• #575: toString now properly format numeric values based on their types (@jeromesimeon)
• #465: Constants are now properly imported and scoped, and can be accessed using an explicit namespace (@jeromesimeon)
• #644: Cicero compilation target properly includes type hierarchy (@jeromesimeon)
• #645: Type soundness of match expression (@jeromesimeon)