Ozma is a programming language based on Scala, with extensions regarding concurrency. It adds three paradigms of the Oz programming language to Scala: declarative concurrency, lazy execution (demand-driven execution) and message-passing concurrency.
Ozma does not compile towards the JVM nor the MSIL. Instead, it compiles towards the Mozart programming system. This runtime provides built-in support for these three concurrency models.
Ozma was initially developed as a master's thesis at the Université Catholique de Louvain, under the supervision of Pr Peter Van Roy. The text of the master's thesis details the design and implementation, as well as rationale for the Ozma programming language. It also discusses most of the example programs.
In order to run the Ozma compiler and Ozma programs, you need the following software installed on your computer:
- Scala >= 2.9.0 < 2.9.1
- Mozart >= 1.4.0
Binaries for Scala and Mozart are required to be available in the PATH. The following should run properly:
$ scala -version
Scala code runner version 2.9.0.final -- Copyright 2002-2011, LAMP/EPFL
$ oztool version
1.4.0
Ozma is tested only on Linux by its original author. It is also supposed to work fine on any POSIX environment supporting both Scala and Mozart (e.g. Mac OS).
Windows users are likely to run into trouble, though it has been reported that it can be made working. Contributions to make Ozma run smoothly on Windows are welcome!
You can either download pre-compiled binaries for Ozma, or compile it from source. We recommand compiling from source because binaries are not updated very often.
Unzip them wherever you want. Executables are available in the bin/ directory.
It is recommanded that you add this directory to your PATH, for convenience.
In order to build Ozma from source, you need:
- Ant >= 1.6
You also need to define the environment variable SCALA_HOME so that it points
to your local Scala installation. Note that installers for Scala (such as the
Typesafe Stack) automatically configure this environment variable.
The entire Ozma compiler and library can be built with Ant:
$ ant
The compilation is likely to take quite a lot of time (tens of minutes).
Executables are placed in the bin/ subdirectory. It is recommanded that you
add this directory to your PATH, for convenience.
The running unit of an Ozma program is the main(args: String[Array]) method of
an object.
Here is the traditional HelloWorld program in Ozma. You can find it in
docs/examples/helloworld/, in the file helloworld/HelloWorld.scala.
package helloworld
object HelloWorld {
def main(args: Array[String]) {
Console.println("Hello world!")
}
}
Note: using the App (or Application) trait of Scala does not work for now.
After you have built Ozma, you can run the compiler using:
$ ozmac FILE.scala...
All the options applicable to scalac (see man scalac) are also applicable to
ozmac.
To compile the Hello World program, do the following:
$ cd <ozma>/docs/examples/helloworld/
$ ozmac helloworld/HelloWorld.scala
This will produce a compiled functor HelloWorld.ozf in the helloworld
subdirectory.
To run a compiled object, use the program ozma.
$ ozma pack.subpack.ObjectName [ARGS...]
Thus, you can run the Hello world program like this:
$ ozma helloword.HelloWorld
A lot of examples can be found in the directory docs/examples/. In increasing
order of complexity, they are:
- Basic Scala-valid examples
- Hello world!
- Echo: echo command-line arguments on the standard output
- Exceptions
- Basic Ozma examples
- Trivial thread
- Scala-valid examples with Ozma-specific tail recursion
- Merge sort
- Binary trees
- Streams
- Prime numbers
- Token ring
- Bounded buffer
- Message-passing concurrency
- Tossing the ball
- Server ports
- Advanced examples
- Digital logic simulation
Another advanced example is available in a dedicated repositiory: Capture the Flag
The best source of documentation is the text of the master's thesis.
- Chapter 3 contains a tutorial for Ozma
- Chapter 4 gives step-by-step construction of some of the example programs
- Chapter 5 gives the semantics of the language
Ozma is developed using Eclipse, with the Scala IDE plugin.
Sébastien Doeraene