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+<pre>
+Summary of important user-visible changes for version 4.0:
+---------------------------------------------------------
+
+ ** A graphical user interface is now the default when running Octave
+    interactively.  The start-up option --no-gui will run the familiar
+    command line interface, and still allows use of the GUI dialogs and
+    qt plotting toolkit.  The option --no-gui-libs runs a minimalist
+    command line interface that does not link with the Qt libraries and
+    uses the fltk toolkit for plotting.
+
+ ** Octave now uses OpenGL graphics with Qt widgets by default.  If OpenGL
+    libraries are not available when Octave is built, gnuplot is used.
+    You may choose to use the fltk or gnuplot toolkit for graphics by
+    executing the command
+
+      graphics_toolkit ("fltk")
+        OR
+      graphics_toolkit ("gnuplot")
+
+    Adding such a command to your ~/.octaverc file will set the default
+    for each session.
+
+ ** A new syntax for object oriented programming termed classdef has been
+    introduced.  See the manual for more extensive documentation of the
+    classdef interface.
+
+    New keywords:
+
+      classdef      endclassdef
+      enumeration   endenumeration
+      events        endevents
+      methods       endmethods
+      properties    endproperties
+
+ ** New audio functions and classes:
+
+      audiodevinfo  audioread      sound
+      audioinfo     audiorecorder  soundsc
+      audioplayer   audiowrite
+
+ ** Other new classes in Octave 4.0:
+
+      audioplayer    inputParser
+      audiorecorder
+
+ ** Optional stricter Matlab compatibility for ranges, diagonal matrices,
+    and permutation matrices.
+
+    Octave has internal optimizations which use space-efficient storage
+    for the three data types above.  Three new functions have been added
+    which control whether the optimizations are used (default), or whether
+    the data types are stored as full matrices.
+
+    disable_range   disable_diagonal_matrix   disable_permutation_matrix
+
+    All three optimizations are disabled if Octave is started with the
+    --braindead command line option.
+
+ ** The preference
+
+      do_braindead_shortcircuit_evaluation
+
+    is now enabled by default.
+
+ ** The preference
+
+      allow_noninteger_range_as_index
+
+    is now enabled by default and the warning ID
+
+      Octave:noninteger-range-as-index
+
+    is now set to "on" by default instead of "error" by default and "on"
+    for --traditional.
+
+ ** The "backtrace" warning option is now enabled by default.  This change
+    was made for Matlab compatibility.
+
+ ** For compatibility with Matlab, the "ismatrix (x)" function now only checks
+    the dimension of "x".  The old behaviour of "ismatrix" is obtained by
+    "isnumeric (x) || islogical (x) || ischar (x)".
+
+ ** The nextpow2 function behaviour has been changed for vector inputs.
+    Instead of computing `nextpow2 (length (x))', it will now compute
+    nextpow2 for each element of the input.  This change is Matlab compatible,
+    and also prevents bugs for "vectors" of length 1.
+
+ ** polyeig now returns a row vector of eigenvalues rather than a matrix
+    with the eigenvalues on the diagonal.  This change was made for Matlab
+    compatibility.
+
+ ** Interpolation function changes for Matlab compatibility
+
+    The interpolation method 'cubic' is now equivalent to 'pchip'
+    for interp1, interp2, and interp3.  Previously, 'cubic' was equivalent
+    to 'spline' for interp2.  This may produce different results as 'spline'
+    has continuous 1st and 2nd derivatives while 'pchip' only has a continuous
+    1st derivative.  The methods 'next' and 'previous' have been added to
+    interp1 for compatibility.
+
+ ** The delaunay function has been extended to accept 3-D inputs for
+    Matlab compatibility.  The delaunay function no longer plots the
+    triangulation if no output argument is requested, instead, the
+    triangulation is always returned.  The delaunay3 function which
+    handles 3-D inputs has been deprecated in favor of delaunay.
+
+ ** The trigonometric functions asin and acos return different phase values
+    from previous versions of Octave when the input is outside the principal
+    branch ([-1, 1]).  If the real portion of the input is greater than 1 then
+    the limit from below is taken.  If the real portion is less than 1 then the
+    limit from above is taken.  This criteria is consistent with several other
+    numerical analysis software packages.
+
+ ** The hyperbolic function acosh now returns values with a phase in the range
+    [-pi/2, +pi/2].  Previously Octave returned values in the range [0, pi].
+    This is consistent with several other numerical analysis software packages.
+
+ ** strfind changes when using empty pattern ("") for Matlab compatibility
+
+    strfind now returns an empty array when the pattern itself is empty.
+    In previous versions of Octave, strfind matched at every character
+    location when the pattern was empty.
+
+      NEW
+      strfind ("abc", "") => []
+      OLD
+      strfind ("abc", "") => [1, 2, 3, 4]
+
+ ** Integer formats used in the printf family of functions now work for
+    64-bit integers and are more compatible with Matlab when printing
+    non-integer values.  Now instead of truncating, Octave will switch
+    the effective format to '%g' in the following circumstances:
+
+      * the value of an integer type (int8, uint32, etc.) value exceeds
+        the maximum for the format specifier.  For '%d', the limit is
+        intmax ('int64') and for '%u' it is intmax ('uint64').
+
+      * round(x) != x or the value is outside the range allowed by the
+        integer format specifier.
+
+    There is still one difference:  Matlab switches to '%e' and Octave
+    switches to '%g'.
+
+ ** The functions intersect, setdiff, setxor, and union now return a
+    column vector as output unless the input was a row vector.  This change
+    was made for Matlab compatibility.
+
+ ** The inpolygon function now returns true for points that are within
+    the polygon OR on it's edge.  This change was made for Matlab
+    compatibility. 
+
+ ** The archive family of functions (bzip2, gzip, zip, tar) and their
+    unpacking routines (bunzip2, gunzip, unzip, untar, unpack) have
+    been recoded.  Excepting unpack, the default is now to place files
+    in the same directory as the archive (on unpack) or as the original
+    files (on archiving).
+
+ ** Qt and FLTK graphics toolkits now support offscreen rendering on Linux.
+    In other words, print will work even when the figure visibility is "off".
+
+ ** Z-order stacking issues with patches, grid lines, and line object
+    plot markers for on screen display and printing have all been resolved.
+    For 2-D plots the axis grid lines can be placed on top of the plot
+    with set (gca, "layer", "top").
+
+ ** The patch graphic object has been overhauled.  It now produces visual
+    results equivalent to Matlab even for esoteric combinations of
+    faces/vertices/cdata.
+
+ ** The polar() plot function now draws a circular theta axis and
+    radial rho axis rather than using a rectangular x/y axis.
+
+ ** linkprop has been completely re-coded for performance and Matlab
+    compatibility.  It now returns a linkprop object which must be stored
+    in a variable for as long as the graphic objects should remain linked.
+    To unlink properties use 'clear hlink' where hlink is the variable
+    containing the linkprop object.
+
+ ** isprime has been extended to operate on negative and complex inputs.
+
+ ** xor has been extended to accept more than two arguments in which case
+    it performs cumulative XOR reduction.
+
+ ** The following functions now support N-dimensional arrays:
+
+      fliplr   flipud   rot90   rectint
+
+ ** The new warning ID "Octave:data-file-in-path" replaces the three
+    previous separate warning IDs "Octave:fopen-file-in-path",
+    "Octave:load-file-in-path", and "Octave:md5sum-file-in-path".
+
+ ** The warning ID Octave:singular-matrix-div has been replaced by
+    Octave:nearly-singular-matrix and Octave:singular-matrix.
+
+ ** The warning ID Octave:matlab-incompatible has been replaced by
+    Octave:language-extension to better reflect its meaning.
+
+ ** The warning ID Octave:broadcast has been removed.  Instead automatic
+    broadcasting will throw an Octave:language-extension warning.  This
+    warning ID is used for broadcasting as well as other features not
+    available in Matlab.
+
+ ** Other new functions added in 4.0:
+
+      annotation
+      bandwidth
+      cubehelix
+      dir_in_loadpath
+      flip
+      frame2im
+      get_home_directory
+      hgload
+      hgsave
+      ichol
+      ilu
+      im2frame
+      isbanded
+      isdiag
+      isstudent
+      istril
+      istriu
+      javachk
+      jit_failcnt
+      linkaxes
+      lscov
+      metaclass
+      numfields
+      open
+      ordschur
+      pan
+      qmr
+      rotate
+      rotate3d
+      sylvester
+      unsetenv
+      validateattributes
+      zoom
+
+ ** inline() scheduled for eventual deprecation by Matlab
+
+    Functions created through the use of inline are scheduled for deprecation
+    by Matlab.  When this occurs Octave will continue to support inline
+    functions for an indeterminate amount of time before also removing support.
+    All new code should use anonymous functions in place of inline functions.
+
+ ** Deprecated functions.
+
+    The following functions have been deprecated in Octave 4.0 and will
+    be removed from Octave 4.4 (or whatever version is the second major
+    release after 4.0):
+
+      Function             | Replacement
+      ---------------------|------------------
+      bicubic              | interp2
+      delaunay3            | delaunay
+      dump_prefs           | individual preference get/set routines
+      find_dir_in_path     | dir_in_loadpath
+      finite               | isfinite
+      fmod                 | rem
+      fnmatch              | glob or regexp
+      loadaudio            | audioread
+      luinc                | ilu or ichol
+      mouse_wheel_zoom     | mousewheelzoom axes property
+      nfields              | numfields
+      octave_tmp_file_name | tempname
+      playaudio            | audioplayer
+      saveaudio            | audiowrite
+      syl                  | sylvester
+      usage                | print_usage
+
+      allow_noninteger_range_as_index
+      do_braindead_shortcircuit_evaluation
+      setaudio
+
+ ** The following functions were deprecated in Octave 3.8 and will be
+    removed from Octave 4.2 (or whatever version is the second major
+    release after 3.8):
+
+      default_save_options    java_new
+      gen_doc_cache           java_unsigned_conversion
+      interp1q                javafields
+      isequalwithequalnans    javamethods
+      java_convert_matrix     re_read_readline_init_file
+      java_debug              read_readline_init_file
+      java_invoke             saving_history
+
+ ** The following functions were deprecated in Octave 3.6 and have been
+    removed from Octave 4.0.
+
+      cut                polyderiv
+      cor                shell_cmd
+      corrcoef           studentize
+      __error_text__     sylvester_matrix
+      error_text
+
+ ** The following keywords were deprecated in Octave 3.8 and have been
+    removed from Octave 4.0
+
+      static
+
+ ** The following configuration variables were deprecated in Octave 3.8
+    and have been removed from Octave 4.0
+
+      CC_VERSION  (now GCC_VERSION)
+      CXX_VERSION (now GXX_VERSION)
+
+ ** The internal function atan2 of the sparse matrix class has been deprecated
+    in Octave 4.0 and will be removed from Octave 4.4 (or whatever version is
+    the second major release after 4.0).  Use the Fatan2 function with sparse
+    inputs as a replacement.
+
+ ** The internal class Octave_map was deprecated in Octave 3.8 and has
+    been removed from Octave 4.0.  Replacement classes are
+    octave_map (struct array) or octave_scalar_map for a single structure.
+
+ ** The configure option --enable-octave-allocator has been removed.
+    The internal class octave_allocator declared in oct-alloc.h has
+    been removed.  The header remains, but is deprecated.  The macros to
+    access the class (DECLARE_OCTAVE_ALLOCATOR, DEFINE_OCTAVE_ALLOCATOR,
+    and DEFINE_OCTAVE_ALLOCATOR2) are now unconditionally defined to be
+    empty.
+
+ ** Octave now has OpenMP enabled by default if the system provides a
+    working OpenMP implementation.  This allows oct-file modules to take
+    advantage of OpenMP if desired.  This can be disabled when building
+    Octave with the configure option --disable-openmp.
+
+ ** Octave now automatically truncates intermediate calculations done with
+    floating point values to 64 bits.  Some hardware math co-processors, such
+    as the x87, maintain extra precision, but this leads to disagreements in
+    calculations when compared to reference implementations in software using
+    the IEEE standard for double precision.  There was no measurable
+    performance impact to this change, but it may be disabled with the
+    configure option --disable-float-truncate.  MinGW and Cygwin platforms,
+    as well as GCC compilers >= 5.0 require this feature.  Non-x87 hardware,
+    or hardware using SSE options exclusively, can disable float truncation
+    if desired.
+</pre>