From help-octave-request at bevo dot che dot wisc dot edu  Mon Feb  9 13:25:30 1998
Subject: ANNOUNCE: Octave Version 2.0.10 released
From: "John W. Eaton" <jwe at bevo dot che dot wisc dot edu>
To: info-octave at bevo dot che dot wisc dot edu
Date: Mon, 9 Feb 1998 13:25:41 -0600

Octave version 2.0.10 is now available for ftp from ftp.che.wisc.edu
in the directory /pub/octave.  Diffs from the previous have not been
made because they would be quite large.

  -rw-r--r--   1 jwe  3621268 Feb  6 16:59 octave-2.0.10.tar.gz

Most bugs reported since the release of version 2.0 have been fixed.

This is mostly a bug-fixing release, but to keep things interesting,
there are some new features:

  * The built-in variable `PWD' has been removed.  If you need to get
    the value of the current working directory, use the pwd() function
    instead.

  * For compatibility with Matlab, Octave's lyap function now solves

      A*X + X*A' + C = 0

    instead of

      A'*X + X*A + C = 0

    To try to avoid confusion for people who are used to the way
    Octave behaved in previous versions, a warning is printed the
    first time lyap is called in a given session.  To completely
    disable the warning, simply add

      global __disable_lyap_interface_change_warning__;

    to your ~/.octaverc file.  The warning will eventually disappear
    for good in some future version of Octave.

  * New built-in functions for computing Bessel functions:
    besseli, besselj, besselk, and bessely.

  * The gammai and betai functions are now implemented as built-in
    functions rather than function files.

  * The new built-in variable `implicit_num_to_str_ok' controls
    whether Octave converts expressions like `[97, 98, 99, "123"]' to
    strings.  The default value is 0 unless you use --traditional.

  * The new built-in variable `fixed_point_format' controls whether
    Octave uses a scaled fixed-point format for displaying matrices.
    The default value is 0 unless you use --traditional.

  * The function sumsq now computes sum (x .* conj (x)) for complex values.

  * Dynamically linked functions can be cleared.

  * If a .oct file has a time stamp more recent than the time that it
    was loaded, it is automatically reloaded.  Reloading a .oct file
    may cause several functions to be cleared automatically.  By
    default, a warning is printed that lists the names of the
    functions that will be cleared.  You can suppress the message by
    setting the new built-in variable `warn_reload_forces_clear' to 0.

  * Global variables are now initialized to the empty matrix, for
    compatibility with Matlab.

  * Explicit initialization of global variables only happens once.
    For example, after the following statements are evaluated, g still
    has the value 1.

      global g = 1
      global g = 2

    This is useful for initializing global variables that are used to
    maintain state information that is shared among several functions.

  * The new built-in variable max_recursion_depth allows you to
    prevent Octave from attempting infinite recursion.  The default
    value is 256.

  * Octave now uses readline version 2.1 and kpathsea 3.0.

  * The libreadline and libkpathsea libraries are no longer installed.

  * The libcruft, liboctave, and liboctinterp libraries are now
    installed in $libdir/octave instead of just $libdir.

  * It's no longer necessary to have libg++, but you do need to have
    the GNU implementation of libstdc++.  If you are using gcc 2.7.2,
    libstdc++ is distributed as part of libg++ 2.7.2.  For later
    versions, libstdc++ is distributed separately.  For egcs,
    libstdc++ is included with the compiler distribution.

Octave is a high-level interactive language primarily intended for
numerical computations.  It is mostly compatible with MATLAB.

Additional information is available on the WWW at

  http://www.che.wisc.edu/octave

-- 
John W. Eaton
jwe at bevo dot che dot wisc dot edu
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Department of Chemical Engineering