Mercurial > hg > octave-nkf

comparison NEWS @ 5781:faafc2d98b8d

Find changesets by keywords (author, files, the commit message), revision number or hash, or revset expression.
[project @ 2006-05-02 19:40:19 by jwe]
author jwe
date Tue, 02 May 2006 19:40:21 +0000
parents e461b8ed7c4d
children 1138ced03f14
comparison
equal deleted inserted replaced
5780:cbf717bf8150 5781:faafc2d98b8d
1 Summary of changes for version 2.1.x: 1 Summary of changes for version 3.0:
2 ------------------------------------
3
4 * Given a matrix, X, and a boolean index, idx, of the same shape as
5 X, X(idx) and X(idx) = RHS now work no matter what the value of
6 do_fortran_indexing is.
7
8 * If you are using GNU Emacs 19.34 or earlier, you will need to add
9 the following code to your ~/.emacs file in order to use Emacs
10 Octave mode:
11
12 ;; Set up the custom library.
13 ;; taken from http://www.dina.kvl.dk/~abraham/custom/
14 (eval-and-compile
15 (condition-case ()
16 (require 'custom)
17 (error nil))
18 (if (and (featurep 'custom) (fboundp 'custom-declare-variable))
19 nil ;; We've got what we needed
20 ;; We have the old custom-library, hack around it!
21 (defmacro defgroup (&rest args)
22 nil)
23 (defmacro defcustom (var value doc &rest args)
24 (` (defvar (, var) (, value) (, doc))))))
25
26 * When `format +' is in effect, Octave uses the following symbols to
27 provide more information about the values in a matrix:
28
29 + postive real
30 - negative real
31 i pure imaginary
32 c complex
33 blank zero
34
35 * The ++ and -- operators now work for indexed matrices, and the
36 following operators now work:
37
38 +=, -=, *=, /=, \=, <<=, >>=, .*=, ./=, .\=, &=, |=
39
40 These operators are currently implemented using a relatively
41 inefficient brute-force method but hey, they work.
42
43 * The built-in variable argv is now a list of strings instead of a
44 string vector.
45
46 * The value of LOADPATH set by the environment variable
47 OCTAVE_PATH, the -p or --path command line options, or on the
48 command line is no longer modified to include the default path.
49 Instead it is left as specified. Its default value is now ":",
50 which tells Octave to search the default path, and the new
51 built-in variable DEFAULT_LOADPATH contains the default list of
52 directories to search.
53
54 * The function file_in_path no longer does any special processing of
55 its PATH argument. To search LOADPATH for files, it is now
56 generally better to use the new function file_in_loadpath.
57
58 * If fread is given a skip parameter, the skip is performed after
59 the read instead of before (for compatibility with Matlab).
60
61 * The new built-in variable `crash_dumps_octave_core' controls
62 whether Octave writes user variables to the file `octave-core'
63 when it crashes or is killed by a signal. The default value is 1
64 (0 if you use --traditional).
65
66 * If LOADPATH contains a doubled colon, the default path is inserted
67 in its place. This is similar to the substitution that also takes
68 place for leading or trailing colons in the LOADPATH.
69
70 * Loops of the form `for i = STRING ... endfor' are now allowed.
71
72 * It is now possible to set the iteration limit for lsode using
73 lsode_options ("step limit", N).
74
75 * New functions:
76
77 is_complex -- tell whether a variable is complex
78 rehash -- re-initialize the cache of directories in LOADPATH
79 graw -- send a string to the gnuplot subprocess
80
81 * New functions from Kurt Hornik's Octave-ci package:
82
83 In finance (new directory):
84
85 fv -- future value of an investment
86 fvl -- future value of an initial lump sum investment
87 irr -- internal rate of return of an investment
88 nper -- number of payments needed for amortizing a loan
89 npv -- net present value of a series of payments
90 pmt -- amount of periodic payment needed to amortize a loan
91 pv -- present value of an investment
92 pvl -- present value of an investment that pays off at the end
93 rate -- rate of return of an investment
94 vol -- volatility of financial time series data
95
96 In linear-algebra:
97
98 dmult -- rescale the rows of a matrix
99
100 In signal:
101
102 arch_fit -- fit an ARCH regression model
103 arch_rnd -- simulate an ARCH process
104 arch_test -- test for conditional heteroscedascity
105 arma_rnd -- simulate an ARMA process
106 autocor -- compute autocorrelations
107 autocov -- compute autocovariances
108 autoreg_matrix -- design matrix for autoregressions
109 bartlett -- coefficients of the Bartlett (triangular) window
110 blackman -- coefficients of the Blackman window
111 diffpara -- estimate the fractional differencing parameter
112 durbinlevinson -- perform one step of the Durbin-Levinson algorithm
113 fractdiff -- compute fractional differences
114 hamming -- coefficients of the Hamming window
115 hanning -- coefficients of the Hanning window
116 hurst -- estimate the Hurst parameter
117 periodogram -- compute the periodogram
118 rectangle_lw -- rectangular lag window
119 rectangle_sw -- rectangular spectral window
120 sinetone -- compute a sine tone
121 sinewave -- compute a sine wave
122 spectral_adf -- spectral density estimation
123 spectral_xdf -- spectral density estimation
124 spencer -- apply Spencer's 15-point MA filter
125 stft -- short-term Fourier transform
126 synthesis -- recover a signal from its short-term Fourier transform
127 triangle_lw -- triangular lag window
128 triangle_sw -- triangular spectral window
129 yulewalker -- fit AR model by Yule-Walker method
130
131 In statistics/base (new directory):
132
133 center -- center by subtracting means
134 cloglog -- complementary log-log function
135 cor -- compute correlations
136 cov -- compute covariances
137 cut -- cut data into intervals
138 iqr -- interquartile range
139 kendall -- kendall's rank correlation tau
140 logit -- logit transformation
141 mean -- compute arithmetic, geometric, and harmonic mean
142 meansq -- compute mean square
143 moment -- compute moments
144 ppplot -- perform a PP-plot (probability plot)
145 probit -- probit transformation
146 qqplot -- perform a QQ-plot (quantile plot)
147 range -- compute range
148 ranks -- compute ranks
149 run_count -- count upward runs
150 spearman -- spearman's rank correlation rho
151 statistics -- compute basic statistics
152 studentize -- subtract mean and divide by standard deviation
153 table -- cross tabulation
154 values -- extract unique elements
155 var -- compute variance
156
157 In statistics/distributions (new directory):
158
159 beta_cdf -- CDF of the Beta distribution
160 beta_inv -- Quantile function of the Beta distribution
161 beta_pdf -- PDF of the Beta distribution
162 beta_rnd -- Random deviates from the Beta distribution
163
164 binomial_cdf -- CDF of the binomial distribution
165 binomial_inv -- Quantile function of the binomial distribution
166 binomial_pdf -- PDF of the binomial distribution
167 binomial_rnd -- Random deviates from the binomial distribution
168
169 cauchy_cdf -- CDF of the Cauchy distribution
170 cauchy_inv -- Quantile function of the Cauchy distribution
171 cauchy_pdf -- PDF of the Cauchy distribution
172 cauchy_rnd -- Random deviates from the Cauchy distribution
173
174 chisquare_cdf -- CDF of the chi-square distribution
175 chisquare_inv -- Quantile function of the chi-square distribution
176 chisquare_pdf -- PDF of the chi-sqaure distribution
177 chisquare_rnd -- Random deviates from the chi-square distribution
178
179 discrete_cdf -- CDF of a discrete distribution
180 discrete_inv -- Quantile function of a discrete distribution
181 discrete_pdf -- PDF of a discrete distribution
182 discrete_rnd -- Random deviates from a discrete distribution
183
184 empirical_cdf -- CDF of the empirical distribution
185 empirical_inv -- Quantile function of the empirical distribution
186 empirical_pdf -- PDF of the empirical distribution
187 empirical_rnd -- Bootstrap samples from the empirical distribution
188
189 exponential_cdf -- CDF of the exponential distribution
190 exponential_inv -- Quantile function of the exponential distribution
191 exponential_pdf -- PDF of the exponential distribution
192 exponential_rnd -- Random deviates from the exponential distribution
193
194 f_cdf -- CDF of the F distribution
195 f_inv -- Quantile function of the F distribution
196 f_pdf -- PDF of the F distribution
197 f_rnd -- Random deviates from the F distribution
198
199 gamma_cdf -- CDF of the Gamma distribution
200 gamma_inv -- Quantile function of the Gamma distribution
201 gamma_pdf -- PDF of the Gamma distribution
202 gamma_rnd -- Random deviates from the Gamma distribution
203
204 geometric_cdf -- CDF of the geometric distribution
205 geometric_inv -- Quantile function of the geometric distribution
206 geometric_pdf -- PDF of the geometric distribution
207 geometric_rnd -- Random deviates from the geometric distribution
208
209 hypergeometric_cdf -- CDF of the hypergeometric distribution
210 hypergeometric_inv -- Random deviates from hypergeometric distribution
211 hypergeometric_pdf -- PDF of the hypergeometric distribution
212 hypergeometric_rnd -- Random deviates from hypergeometric distribution
213
214 kolmogorov_smirnov_cdf -- CDF of the Kolmogorov-Smirnov distribution
215
216 laplace_cdf -- CDF of the Laplace distribution
217 laplace_inv -- Quantile function of the Laplace distribution
218 laplace_pdf -- PDF of the Laplace distribution
219 laplace_rnd -- Random deviates from the Laplace distribution
220
221 logistic_cdf -- CDF of the logistic distribution
222 logistic_inv -- Quantile function of the logistic distribution
223 logistic_pdf -- PDF of the logistic distribution
224 logistic_rnd -- Random deviates from the logistic distribution
225
226 lognormal_cdf -- CDF of the log normal distribution
227 lognormal_inv -- Quantile function of the log normal distribution
228 lognormal_pdf -- PDF of the log normal distribution
229 lognormal_rnd -- Random deviates from the log normal distribution
230
231 normal_cdf -- CDF of the normal distribution
232 normal_inv -- Quantile function of the normal distribution
233 normal_pdf -- PDF of the normal distribution
234 normal_rnd -- Random deviates from the normal distribution
235
236 pascal_cdf -- CDF of the Pascal (negative binomial) distribution
237 pascal_inv -- Quantile function of the Pascal distribution
238 pascal_pdf -- PDF of the Pascal (negative binomial) distribution
239 pascal_rnd -- Random deviates from the Pascal distribution
240
241 poisson_cdf -- CDF of the Poisson distribution
242 poisson_inv -- Quantile function of the Poisson distribution
243 poisson_pdf -- PDF of the Poisson distribution
244 poisson_rnd -- Random deviates from the Poisson distribution
245
246 stdnormal_cdf -- CDF of the standard normal distribution
247 stdnormal_inv -- Quantile function of standard normal distribution
248 stdnormal_pdf -- PDF of the standard normal distribution
249 stdnormal_rnd -- Random deviates from standard normal distribution
250
251 t_cdf -- CDF of the t distribution
252 t_inv -- Quantile function of the t distribution
253 t_pdf -- PDF of the t distribution
254 t_rnd -- Random deviates from the t distribution
255
256 uniform_cdf -- CDF of the uniform distribution
257 uniform_inv -- Quantile function of the uniform distribution
258 uniform_pdf -- PDF of the uniform distribution
259 uniform_rnd -- Random deviates from the uniform distribution
260
261 weibull_cdf -- CDF of the Weibull distribution
262 weibull_inv -- Quantile function of the Weibull distribution
263 weibull_pdf -- PDF of the Weibull distribution
264 weibull_rnd -- Random deviates from the Weibull distribution
265
266 wiener_rnd -- Simulate a Wiener process
267
268 In statistics/models (new directory):
269
270 logistic_regression -- ordinal logistic regression
271 logistic_regression_derivatives -- derivates of log-likelihood
272 in logistic regression
273 logistic_regression_likelihood -- likelihood in logistic regression
274
275 In statistics/tests (new directory):
276
277 anova -- one-way analysis of variance
278 bartlett_test -- bartlett test for homogeneity of variances
279 chisquare_test_homogeneity -- chi-square test for homogeneity
280 chisquare_test_independence -- chi-square test for independence
281 cor_test -- test for zero correlation
282 f_test_regression -- test linear hypotheses in linear
283 regression model
284 hotelling_test -- test for mean of a multivariate normal
285 hotelling_test_2 -- compare means of two multivariate normals
286 kolmogorov_smirnov_test -- one-sample Kolmogorov-Smirnov test
287 kolmogorov_smirnov_test_2 -- two-sample Kolmogorov-Smirnov test
288 kruskal_wallis_test -- kruskal-Wallis test
289 manova -- one-way multivariate analysis of variance
290 mcnemar_test -- mcnemar's test for symmetry
291 prop_test_2 -- compare two proportions
292 run_test -- run test for independence
293 sign_test -- sign test
294 t_test -- student's one-sample t test
295 t_test_2 -- student's two-sample t test
296 t_test_regression -- test one linear hypothesis in linear
297 regression model
298 u_test -- mann-Whitney U-test
299 var_test -- f test to compare two variances
300 welch_test -- welch two-sample t test
301 wilcoxon_test -- wilcoxon signed-rank test
302 z_test -- test for mean of a normal sample with
303 known variance
304 z_test_2 -- compare means of two normal samples with
305 known variances
306
307 * The save command now accepts the option -append to save the
308 variables at the end of the file, leaving the existing contents.
309
310 * New command-line option --no-history (also available using the
311 single character option -H) inhibits saving command history.
312
313 * The mkoctfile script now accepts -DDEF options and passes them on
314 to the C and C++ compilers.
315
316 * Running `make check' should work now before you run `make install',
317 even if you build a copy of Octave that depends on shared versions
318 of the Octave libraries.
319
320 * For matrices, x(:) now works and returns a column vector no matter
321 what the value of do_fortran_indexing is.
322
323 * New keywords __FILE__ and __LINE__ expand to the name of the file
324 that is being read and the current input line number, respectively.
325
326 * Octave's expression parser is more general and consistent. It is
327 now possible to access structure elements and index arbitrary
328 values. For example, expressions like
329
330 my_home_dir = getpwuid (getuid ()) . dir;
331
332 and
333
334 svd (x) (1:5)
335
336 now work.
337
338 * New built-in variable `print_rhs_assign_val' controls what is
339 printed when an assignment expression is evaluated. If it is
340 zero, the value of the variable on the left hand side (after the
341 assignment) is printed. If it is nonzero, the value of the right
342 hand side (i.e., the result of the expression) is printed. The
343 default value of is zero, so the behavior is the same as in
344 previous versions of Octave.
345
346 * tmpnam now takes two optional arguments, DIR, and PREFIX. For
347 example, tmpnam ("/foo", "bar-") returns a file name like
348 "/foo/bar-10773baa". If DIR is omitted or empty, the value of the
349 environment variable TMPDIR, or /tmp is used. If PREFIX is
350 omitted, "oct-" is used.
351
352 * The built-in variable `PWD' has been removed. If you need to get
353 the value of the current working directory, use the pwd() function
354 instead.
355
356 * New operators. Octave's parser now recognizes the following
357 operators: << >> += -= *= /= .+= .-= .*= ./= &= |= <<= >>=. So
358 far, there are only a few operations defined that actually use
359 them (this should change before 2.1 is released).
360
361 * New built-in data types:
362
363 logical:
364
365 A true value is represented by 1, and false value by 0.
366 Comparison operations like <, <=, ==, >, >=, and != now return
367 logical values. Indexing operations that use zero-one style
368 indexing must now use logical values. You can use the new
369 function logical() to convert a numeric value to a logical
370 value. This avoids the need for the built-in variable
371 `prefer_zero_one_indexing', so it has been removed. Logical
372 values are automatically converted to numeric values where
373 appropriate.
374
375 file:
376
377 A file object represents an open Octave stream object. The
378 fopen function now returns a file object instead of an integer.
379 File objects can be converted to integers automatically, and the
380 other functions that work with file ids still work with
381 integers, so this change should be backward compatible.
382
383 The binary left-shift operator `<<' has been defined to work as
384 in C++ for file objects and built-in types. For example,
385
386 my_stream = fopen ("foo", "w");
387 my_stream << "x = " << pi << " marks the spot\n";
388
389 writes `x = 3.1416 marks the spot' in the file foo.
390
391 The built-in variables stdin, stdout, and stderr are now also
392 file objects instead of integers.
393
394 list:
395
396 A list is an array of Octave objects. It can be indexed using
397 the normal indexing operator. For example,
398
399 x = list ([1,2;3,4], 1, "foo");
400 stdout << x(2) << "\n"
401 1
402 stdout << x;
403 (
404 [1] =
405
406 1 2
407 3 4
408
409 [2] = 1
410 [3] = foo
411 )
412
413 There is currently no special syntax for creating lists; you
414 must use the list function.
415
416 * Commas in global statements are no longer special. They are now
417 treated as command separators. This removes a conflict in the
418 grammar and is consistent with the way Matlab behaves. The
419 variable `warn_comma_in_global_decl' has been eliminated.
420
421 * It is now possible to declare static variables that retain their
422 values across function calls. For example,
423
424 function ncall = f () static n = 0; ncall = ++n; endfunction
425
426 defines a function that returns the number of times that it has
427 been called.
428
429 * Within user-defined functions, the new automatic variable `argn'
430 contains the names of the arguments that were passed to the
431 function. For example,
432
433 function f (...)
434 for i = 1:nargin
435 stdout << "argn(" << i << ") = `" << deblank (argn(i,:)) \
436 << "' and its value is " << va_arg () << "\n";
437 endfor
438 endfunction
439 f (1+2, "foo", sin (pi/2))
440
441 prints
442
443 argn(1) = `1 + 2' and its value is 3
444 argn(2) = `"foo"' and its value is foo
445 argn(3) = `sin (pi)' and its value is 1
446
447 on the standard output stream. If nargin is zero, argn is not defined.
448 * Functions like quad, fsolve, and lsode can take either a function
449 name or a simple function body as a string. For example,
450
451 quad ("sqrt (x)", 0, 1)
452
453 is equivalent to
454
455 function y = f (x) y = sqrt (x); endfunction
456 quad ("f", 0, 1)
457
458 * If the argument to eig() is symmetric, Octave uses the specialized
459 Lapack subroutine for symmetric matrices for a significant
460 increase in performance.
461
462 * If the argument to lsode that names the user-supplied function is
463 a 2-element string array, the second element is taken as the name
464 of the Jacobian function. The named function should have the
465 following form:
466
467 JAC = f (X, T)
468
469 where JAC is the Jacobian matrix of partial derivatives of the
470 right-hand-side functions that define the set of differential
471 equations with respect to the state vector X.
472
473 * Global variables are now initialized to the empty matrix, for
474 compatibility with Matlab.
475
476 * Explicit initialization of global variables only happens once.
477 For example, after the following statements are evaluated, g still
478 has the value 1.
479
480 global g = 1
481 global g = 2
482
483 This is useful for initializing global variables that are used to
484 maintain state information that is shared among several functions.
485
486 * Structure elements completion on the command line actually works
487 now.
488
489 * The new built-in variable `fixed_point_format' controls whether
490 Octave uses a scaled fixed-point format for displaying matrices.
491 The default value is 0 unless you use --traditional.
492
493 * The function sumsq now computes sum (x .* conj (x)) for complex values.
494
495 * The new built-in variable max_recursion_depth allows you to
496 prevent Octave from attempting infinite recursion. The default
497 value is 256.
498
499 * Octave now uses kpathsea 3.2.
500
501 * New configure option, --enable-readline.
502
503 * New configure option, --enable-static.
504
505 Summary of changes for version 2.0.7:
506 ------------------------------------
507
508 This is a bug-fixing release. There are no new user-visible features.
509
510 Summary of changes for version 2.0.6:
511 ------------------------------------
512
513 This is primarily a bug-fixing release. There are only a few new
514 user-visible features.
515
516 * The new built-in variable default_eval_print_flag controls whether
517 Octave prints the results of commands executed by eval() that do
518 not end with semicolons. The default is 1.
519
520 * The new built-in constant OCTAVE_HOME specifies the top-level
521 directory where Octave is installed.
522
523 * Octave no longer includes functions to work with NPSOL or QPSOL,
524 because they are not free software.
525
526 * The new built-in variable called kluge_procbuf_delay specifies the
527 number of microseconds to delay in the parent process after
528 forking. By default on gnu-win32 systems, it's set to 500000 (1/2
529 second). On other systems, the default value is 0. Delaying for
530 a short time in the parent after forking seems to avoid problems
531 in which communicating with subprocesses via pipes would sometimes
532 cause Octave to hang. I doubt that the delay is really the right
533 solution. If anyone has a better idea, I'd love to hear it.
534
535 Summary of changes for version 2.0.5:
536 ------------------------------------
537
538 * A `switch' statement is now available. See the Statements chapter
539 in the manual for details.
540
541 * Commands like ls, save, and cd may now also be used as formal
542 parameters for functions.
543
544 * More tests.
545
546 Summary of changes for version 2.0.4:
547 ------------------------------------
548
549 * It is now possible to use commands like ls, save, and cd as simple
550 variable names. They still cannot be used as formal parameters
551 for functions, or as the names of structure variables. Failed
552 assignments leave them undefined (you can recover the orginal
553 function definition using clear).
554
555 * Is is now possible to invoke commands like ls, save, and cd as
556 normal functions (for example, load ("foo", "x", "y", "z")).
557
558 Summary of changes for version 2.0.3:
559 ------------------------------------
560
561 * The manual has been completely revised and now corresponds much
562 more closely to the features of the current version.
563
564 * The return value for assignment expressions is now the RHS since
565 that is more consistent with the way other programming languages
566 work. However, Octave still prints the entire LHS value so that
567
568 x = zeros (1, 2);
569 x(2) = 1
570
571 still prints
572
573 x =
574
575 0 1
576
577 but an assignment like
578
579 z = x(2) = 1
580
581 sets z to 1 (not [ 0, 1 ] as in previous versions of Octave).
582
583 * It is now much easier to make binary distributions. See the
584 Binary Distributions section of the manual for more details.
585
586 Summary of changes for version 2.0.2:
587 ------------------------------------
588
589 * Octave now stops executing commands from a script file if an error
590 is encountered.
591
592 * The return, and break commands now cause Octave to quit executing
593 commands from script files. When used in invalid contexts, the
594 break, continue, and return commands are now simply ignored
595 instead of producing parse errors.
596
597 * size ("") is now [0, 0].
598
599 * New functions:
600
601 sleep -- pause execution for a specified number of seconds
602 usleep -- pause execution for a specified number of microseconds
603
604 Summary of changes for version 2.0:
605 ---------------------------------- 2 ----------------------------------
606 3
607 * The set and show commands for setting and displaying gnuplot 4 * Previous versions of Octave had a number of built-in variables to
608 parameters have been replaced by gset and gshow. This change will 5 control warnings (for example, warn_divide_by_zero). These
609 probably break lots of things, but it is necessary to allow for 6 variables have been replaced by warning identifiers that are used
610 compatibility with the Matlab graphics and GUI commands in a 7 with the warning function to control the state of warnings. Now,
611 future version of Octave. (For now, the old set and show commands 8 instead of writing
612 do work, but they print an annoying warning message to try to get
613 people to switch to using gset.)
614 9
615 * Octave has been mostly ported to Windows NT and Windows 95 using 10 warn_divide_by_zero = false;
616 the beta 17 release of the Cygnus GNU-WIN32 tools. Not everything
617 works, but it is usable. See the file README.WINDOWS for more
618 information.
619 11
620 * Dynamic linking works on more systems using dlopen() and friends 12 to disable divide-by-zero warnings, you should write
621 (most modern Unix systems) or shl_load() and friends (HP/UX
622 systems). A simple example is provided in examples/hello.cc.
623 For this feature to work, you must configure Octave with
624 --enable-shared. You may also need to have a shared-library
625 version of libg++ and libstdc++.
626 13
627 * New data types can be added to Octave by writing a C++ class. On 14 warning ("off", "Octave:divide-by-zero");
628 systems that support dynamic linking, new data types can be added
629 to an already running Octave binary. A simple example appears in
630 the file examples/make_int.cc. Other examples are the standard
631 Octave data types defined in the files src/ov*.{h,cc} and
632 src/op-*.cc.
633 15
634 * The configure option --enable-bounds-check turns on bounds 16 You may use the same technique in your own code to control
635 checking on element references for Octave's internal array and 17 warnings. For example, you can use
636 matrix classes. It's enabled by default. To disable this
637 feature, configure Octave with --disable-bounds-check.
638 18
639 * The C-style I/O functions (fopen, fprintf, etc.) have been 19 warning ("My-package:phase-of-the-moon",
640 rewritten to be more compatible with Matlab. The fputs function 20 "the phase of the moon could cause trouble today");
641 has also been added. Usage of the *printf functions that was
642 allowed in previous versions of Octave should still work.
643 However, there is no way to make the new versions of the *scanf
644 functions compatible with Matlab *and* previous versions of
645 Octave. An optional argument to the *scanf functions is now
646 available to make them behave in a way that is compatible with
647 previous versions of Octave.
648 21
649 * Octave can now read files that contain columns of numbers only, 22 to allow users to control this warning using the
650 with no header information. The name of the loaded variable is 23 "My-package:phase-of-the-moon" warning identifier.
651 constructed from the file name. Each line in the file must have
652 the same number of elements.
653 24
654 * The interface to the pager has changed. The new built-in variable 25 You may also enable or disable all warnings, or turn them into
655 `page_output_immediately' controls when Octave sends output to the 26 errors:
656 pager. If it is nonzero, Octave sends output to the pager as soon
657 as it is available. Otherwise, Octave buffers its output and
658 waits until just before the prompt is printed to flush it to the
659 pager.
660 27
661 * Expressions of the form 28 warning ("on", "all");
29 warning ("off", "all");
30 warning ("error", "Octave:divide-by-zero");
31 warning ("error", "all");
662 32
663 A(i,j) = x 33 You can query the state of current warnings using
664 34
665 where X is a scalar and the indices i and j define a matrix of 35 warning ("query", ID)
666 elements now work as you would expect rather than giving an error. 36 warning ("query")
667 I am told that this is how Matlab 5.0 will behave when it is
668 released.
669 37
670 * Indexing of character strings now works. 38 (only those warning IDs which have been explicitly set are
39 returned).
671 40
672 * The echo command has been implemented. 41 A partial list and description of warning identifiers is available
42 using
673 43
674 * The document command is now a regular function. 44 help warning_ids
675 45
676 * New method for handling errors:
677 46
678 try 47 See NEWS.2 for old news.
679 BODY
680 catch
681 CLEANUP
682 end_try_catch
683
684 Where BODY and CLEANUP are both optional and may contain any
685 Octave expressions or commands. The statements in CLEANUP are
686 only executed if an error occurs in BODY.
687
688 No warnings or error messages are printed while BODY is
689 executing. If an error does occur during the execution of BODY,
690 CLEANUP can access the text of the message that would have been
691 printed in the builtin constant __error_text__. This is the same
692 as eval (TRY, CATCH) (which may now also use __error_text__) but
693 it is more efficient since the commands do not need to be parsed
694 each time the TRY and CATCH statements are evaluated.
695
696 * Octave no longer parses the help command by grabbing everything
697 after the keyword `help' until a newline character is read. To
698 get help for `;' or `,', now, you need to use the command
699 `help semicolon' or `help comma'.
700
701 * Octave's parser now does some simple constant folding. This means
702 that expressions like 3*i are now evaluated only once, when a
703 function is compiled, and the right hand side of expressions like
704 a = [1,2;3,4] are treated as true matrix constants rather than
705 lists of elements which must be evaluated each time they are
706 needed.
707
708 * Built-in variables that can take values of "true" and "false" can
709 now also be set to any nonzero scalar value to indicate "true",
710 and 0 to indicate "false".
711
712 * New built-in variables `history_file', `history_size', and
713 `saving_history'.
714
715 * New built-in variable `string_fill_char' specifies the character
716 to fill with when creating arrays of strings.
717
718 * If the new built-in variable `gnuplot_has_frames' is nonzero,
719 Octave assumes that your copy of gnuplot includes support for
720 multiple plot windows when using X11.
721
722 If the new built-in variable `gnuplot_has_multiplot' is nonzero,
723 Octave assumes that your copy of gnuplot has the multiplot support
724 that is included in recent 3.6beta releases.
725
726 The initial values of these variables are determined by configure,
727 but can be changed in your startup script or at the command line
728 in case configure got it wrong, or if you upgrade your gnuplot
729 installation.
730
731 * The new plot function `figure' allows multiple plot windows when
732 using newer versions of gnuplot with X11.
733
734 * Octave now notices when the plotter has exited unexpectedly.
735
736 * New built-in variable `warn_missing_semicolon'. If nonzero, Octave
737 will warn when statements in function definitions don't end in
738 semicolons. The default value is 0.
739
740 * Octave now attempts to continue after floating point exceptions
741 or out-of-memory errors.
742
743 * If Octave crashes, it now attempts to save all user-defined
744 variables in a file named `octave-core' in the current directory
745 before exiting.
746
747 * It is now possible to get the values of individual option settings
748 for the dassl, fsolve, lsode, npsol, qpsol, and quad functions
749 using commands like
750
751 dassl_reltol = dassl_options ("relative tolerance");
752
753 * The svd() function no longer computes the left and right singular
754 matrices unnecessarily. This can significantly improve
755 performance for large matrices if you are just looking for the
756 singular values.
757
758 * The filter() function is now a built-in function.
759
760 * New function randn() returns a pseudo-random number from a normal
761 distribution. The rand() and randn() functions have separate
762 seeds and generators.
763
764 * Octave's command-line arguments are now available in the built-in
765 variable `argv'. The program name is also available in the
766 variables `program_invocation_name' and `program_name'. If
767 executing a script from the command line (e.g., octave foo.m) or
768 using the `#! /bin/octave' hack, the program name is set to the
769 name of the script.
770
771 * New built-in variable `completion_append_char' used as the
772 character to append to successful command-line completion
773 attempts. The default is " " (a single space).
774
775 * Octave now uses a modified copy of the readline library from
776 version 1.14.5 of GNU bash.
777
778 * In prompt strings, `\H' expands to the whole host name.
779
780 * New built-in variable `beep_on_error'. If nonzero, Octave will try
781 to ring your terminal's bell before printing an error message.
782 The default value is 0.
783
784 * For functions defined from files, the type command now prints the
785 text of the file. You can still get the text reconstructed from
786 the parse tree by using the new option -t (-transformed).
787
788 * New command-line argument --traditional sets the following
789 preference variables for compatibility with Matlab:
790
791 PS1 = ">> "
792 PS2 = ""
793 beep_on_error = 1
794 default_save_format = "mat-binary"
795 define_all_return_values = 1
796 do_fortran_indexing = 1
797 empty_list_elements_ok = 1
798 implicit_str_to_num_ok = 1
799 ok_to_lose_imaginary_part = 1
800 page_screen_output = 0
801 prefer_column_vectors = 0
802 prefer_zero_one_indexing = 1
803 print_empty_dimensions = 0
804 treat_neg_dim_as_zero = 1
805 warn_function_name_clash = 0
806 whitespace_in_literal_matrix = "traditional"
807
808 * New functions:
809
810 readdir -- returns names of files in directory as array of strings
811 mkdir -- create a directory
812 rmdir -- remove a directory
813 rename -- rename a file
814 unlink -- delete a file
815 umask -- set permission mask for file creation
816 stat -- get information about a file
817 lstat -- get information about a symbolic link
818 glob -- perform filename globbing
819 fnmatch -- match strings with filename globbing patterns
820 more -- turn the pager on or off
821 gammaln -- alias for lgamma
822
823 * New audio functions from Andreas Weingessel
824 <Andreas.Weingessel@ci.tuwien.ac.at>.
825
826 lin2mu -- linear to mu-law encoding
827 loadaudio -- load an audio file to a vector
828 mu2lin -- mu-law to linear encoding
829 playaudio -- play an audio file
830 record -- record sound and store in vector
831 saveaudio -- save a vector as an audio file
832 setaudio -- executes mixer shell command
833
834 * New plotting functions from Vinayak Dutt. Ones dealing with
835 multiple plots on one page require features from gnuplot 3.6beta
836 (or later).
837
838 bottom_title -- put title at the bottom of the plot
839 mplot -- multiplot version of plot
840 multiplot -- switch multiple-plot mode on or off
841 oneplot -- return to one plot per page
842 plot_border -- put a border around plots
843 subplot -- position multiple plots on a single page
844 subwindow -- set subwindow position for next plot
845 top_title -- put title at the top of the plot
846 zlabel -- put a label on the z-axis
847
848 * New string functions
849
850 bin2dec -- convert a string of ones and zeros to an integer
851 blanks -- create a string of blanks
852 deblank -- delete trailing blanks
853 dec2bin -- convert an integer to a string of ones and zeros
854 dec2hex -- convert an integer to a hexadecimal string
855 findstr -- locate occurrences of one string in another
856 hex2dec -- convert a hexadecimal string to an integer
857 index -- return position of first occurrence a string in another
858 rindex -- return position of last occurrence a string in another
859 split -- divide one string into pieces separated by another
860 str2mat -- create a string matrix from a list of strings
861 strrep -- replace substrings in a string
862 substr -- extract a substring
863
864 The following functions return a matrix of ones and zeros.
865 Elements that are nonzero indicate that the condition was true for
866 the corresponding character in the string array.
867
868 isalnum -- letter or a digit
869 isalpha -- letter
870 isascii -- ascii
871 iscntrl -- control character
872 isdigit -- digit
873 isgraph -- printable (but not space character)
874 islower -- lower case
875 isprint -- printable (including space character)
876 ispunct -- punctuation
877 isspace -- whitespace
878 isupper -- upper case
879 isxdigit -- hexadecimal digit
880
881 These functions return new strings.
882
883 tolower -- convert to lower case
884 toupper -- convert to upper case
885
886 * New function, fgetl. Both fgetl and fgets accept an optional
887 second argument that specifies a maximum number of characters to
888 read, and the function fgets is now compatible with Matlab.
889
890 * Printing in hexadecimal format now works (format hex). It is also
891 possible to print the internal bit representation of a value
892 (format bit). Note that these formats are only implemented for
893 numeric values.
894
895 * Additional structure features:
896
897 -- Name completion now works for structures.
898
899 -- Values and names of structure elements are now printed by
900 default. The new built-in variable `struct_levels_to_print'
901 controls the depth of nested structures to print. The default
902 value is 2.
903
904 -- New functions:
905
906 struct_contains (S, NAME) -- returns 1 if S is a structure with
907 element NAME; otherwise returns 0.
908
909 struct_elements (S) -- returns the names of all elements
910 of structure S in an array of strings.
911
912 * New io/subprocess functions:
913
914 fputs -- write a string to a file with no formatting
915 popen2 -- start a subprocess with 2-way communication
916 mkfifo -- create a FIFO special file
917 popen -- open a pipe to a subprocess
918 pclose -- close a pipe from a subprocess
919 waitpid -- check the status of or wait for subprocesses
920
921 * New time functions:
922
923 asctime -- format time structure according to local format
924 ctime -- equivalent to `asctime (localtime (TMSTRUCT))'
925 gmtime -- return time structure corresponding to UTC
926 localtime -- return time structure corresponding to local time zone
927 strftime -- print given time structure using specified format
928 time -- return current time
929
930 The `clock' and `date' functions are now implemented in M-files
931 using these basic functions.
932
933 * Access to additional Unix system calls:
934
935 dup2 -- duplicate a file descriptor
936 exec -- replace current process with a new process
937 fcntl -- control open file descriptors
938 fork -- create a copy of the current process
939 getpgrp -- return the process group id of the current process
940 getpid -- return the process id of the current process
941 getppid -- return the process id of the parent process
942 getuid -- return the real user id of the current process
943 getgid -- return the real group id of the current process
944 geteuid -- return the effective user id of the current process
945 getegid -- return the effective group id of the current process
946 pipe -- create an interprocess channel
947
948 * Other new functions:
949
950 commutation_matrix -- compute special matrix form
951 duplication_matrix -- compute special matrix form
952 common_size.m -- bring arguments to a common size
953 completion_matches -- perform command completion on string
954 tilde_expand -- perform tilde expansion on string
955
956 meshgrid -- compatible with Matlab's meshgrid function
957 tmpnam -- replaces octave_tmp_file_name
958 atexit -- register functions to be called when Octave exits
959 putenv -- define an environment variable
960 bincoeff -- compute binomial coefficients
961 nextpow2 -- compute the next power of 2 greater than a number
962 detrend -- remove a best fit polynomial from data
963 erfinv -- inverse error function
964 shift -- perform a circular shift on the elements of a matrix
965 pow2 -- compute 2 .^ x
966 log2 -- compute base 2 logarithms
967 diff -- compute differences of matrix elements
968 vech -- stack columns of a matrix below the diagonal
969 vec -- stack columns of a matrix to form a vector
970 xor -- compute exclusive or
971
972 * Functions for getting info from the password database on Unix systems:
973
974 getpwent -- read entry from password-file stream, opening if necessary
975 getpwuid -- search for password entry with matching user ID
976 getpwnam -- search for password entry with matching username
977 setpwent -- rewind the password-file stream
978 endpwent -- close the password-file stream
979
980 * Functions for getting info from the group database on Unix systems:
981
982 getgrent -- read entry from group-file stream, opening if necessary
983 getgrgid -- search for group entry with matching group ID
984 getgrnam -- search for group entry with matching group name
985 setgrent -- rewind the pgroup-file stream
986 endgrent -- close the group-file stream
987
988 * The New function octave_config_info returns a structure containing
989 information about how Octave was configured and compiled.
990
991 * New function getrusage returns a structure containing system
992 resource usage statistics. The `cputime' function is now defined
993 in an M-file using getrusage.
994
995 * The info reader is now a separate binary that runs as a
996 subprocess. You still need the info reader distributed with
997 Octave though, because there are some new command-line arguments
998 that are not yet available in the public release of Info.
999
1000 * There is a new built-in variable, INFO_PROGRAM, which is used as
1001 the name of the info program to run. Its initial value is
1002 $OCTAVE_HOME/lib/octave/VERSION/exec/ARCH/info, but that value can
1003 be overridden by the environment variable OCTAVE_INFO_PROGRAM, or
1004 the command line argument --info-program NAME, or by setting the
1005 value of INFO_PROGRAM in a startup script.
1006
1007 * There is a new built-in variable, EXEC_PATH, which is used as
1008 the list of directories to search when executing subprograms. Its
1009 initial value is taken from the environment variable
1010 OCTAVE_EXEC_PATH (if it exists) or PATH, but that value can be
1011 overridden by the the command line argument --exec-path PATH, or
1012 by setting the value of EXEC_PATH in a startup script. If the
1013 EXEC_PATH begins (ends) with a colon, the directories
1014 $OCTAVE_HOME/lib/octave/VERSION/exec/ARCH and $OCTAVE_HOME/bin are
1015 prepended (appended) to EXEC_PATH (if you don't specify a value
1016 for EXEC_PATH explicitly, these special directories are prepended
1017 to your PATH).
1018
1019 * If it is present, Octave will now use an `ls-R' database file to
1020 speed up recursive path searching. Octave looks for a file called
1021 ls-R in the directory specified by the environment variable
1022 OCTAVE_DB_DIR. If that is not set but the environment variable
1023 OCTAVE_HOME is set, Octave looks in $OCTAVE_HOME/lib/octave.
1024 Otherwise, Octave looks in the directory $datadir/octave (normally
1025 /usr/local/lib/octave).
1026
1027 * New examples directory.
1028
1029 * There is a new script, mkoctfile, that can be used to create .oct
1030 files suitable for dynamic linking.
1031
1032 * Many more bug fixes.
1033
1034 * ChangeLogs are now kept in each subdirectory.
1035
1036 See NEWS.1 for old news.