Mercurial > octave-nkf
changeset 7990:86dae6e5b83c
Initial update of NEWS for 3.2 release
| author | David Bateman <dbateman@free.fr> |
|---|---|
| date | Mon, 28 Jul 2008 17:41:10 +0200 |
| parents | 23c248d415b5 |
| children | 139f47cf17ab |
| files | ChangeLog NEWS NEWS.3 |
| diffstat | 3 files changed, 259 insertions(+), 184 deletions(-) [+] |
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--- a/ChangeLog Tue Jul 29 17:01:43 2008 +0200 +++ b/ChangeLog Mon Jul 28 17:41:10 2008 +0200 @@ -1,3 +1,8 @@ +2008-07-29 David Bateman <dbateman@free.fr> + + * NEWS.3: Copy from NEWS. + * NEWS: Initial update in preparation for a 3.2 release. + 2008-07-21 John W. Eaton <jwe@octave.org> * configure.in: If FTGL.h is found, then also include
--- a/NEWS Tue Jul 29 17:01:43 2008 +0200 +++ b/NEWS Mon Jul 28 17:41:10 2008 +0200 @@ -1,200 +1,70 @@ -Summary of important user-visible changes for version 3.0: +Summary of important user-visible changes for version 3.2: --------------------------------------------------------- - ** Compatibility with Matlab graphics is much better now. We now - have some graphics features that work like Matlab's Handle - Graphics (tm): - - + You can make a subplot and then use the print function to - generate a file with the plot. + ** Compatibility with Matlab graphics is much better now. - + RGB line colors are supported if you use gnuplot 4.2. Octave - can still use gnuplot 4.0, but there is no way to set arbitrary - line colors with it when using the Matlab-style plot functions. - There never was any way to do this reliably with older versions - of gnuplot (whether run from Octave or not) since it only - provided a limited set to choose from, and they were terminal - dependent, so choosing color 1 with the X11 terminal would be - different from color 1 with the PostScript terminal. Valid RGB - colors for gnuplot 4.0 are the eight possible combinations of 0 - and 1 for the R, G and B values. Invalid values are all mapped - to the same color. + TO BE WRITTEN (Shai / Micheal inputs please) - This also affects patch objects used in the bar, countour, meshc - and surfc functions, where the bars and contours will be - monochrome. A workaround for this is to type "colormap gmap40" - that loads a colormap that in many cases will be adequate for - simple bar and contour plots. - - + You can control the width of lines using (for example): - - line (x, y, "linewidth", 4, "color", [1, 0, 0.5]); - - (this also shows the color feature). + ** Eliminate the functions for direct access to gnuplot from Octave. + The functions __gnuplot_plot__, __gnuplot_set__, __gnuplot_raw__, + __gnuplot_show__, __gnuplot_replot__, __gnuplot_splot__, + __gnuplot_save_data__ and __gnuplot_send_inline_data__ have been + removed from Octave. These function were incompatible with the high + level graphics handle code. - + With gnuplot 4.2, image data is plotted with gnuplot and may be - combined with other 2-d plot data. - - + Lines for contour plots are generated with an Octave function, so - contour plots are now 2-d plots instead of special 3-d plots, and - this allows you to plot additional 2-d data on top of a contour - plot. - - + With the gnuplot "extended" terminals the TeX interpreter is - emulated. However, this means that the TeX interpreter is only - supported on the postscript terminals with gnuplot 4.0. Under - gnuplot 4.2 the terminals aqua, dumb, png, jpeg, gif, pm, windows, - wxt, svg and x11 are supported as well. + ** Object Oriented Programming - + The following plot commands are now considered obsolete and will - be removed from a future version of Octave: - - __gnuplot_set__ - __gnuplot_show__ - __gnuplot_plot__ - __gnuplot_splot__ - __gnuplot_replot__ - - Additionally, these functions no longer have any effect on plots - created with the Matlab-style plot commands (plot, line, mesh, - semilogx, etc.). - - + Plot property values are not extensively checked. Specifying - invalid property values may produce unpredictible results. - - + Octave now sends data over the same pipe that is used to send - commands to gnuplot. While this avoids the problem of - cluttering /tmp with data files, it is no longer possible to use - the mouse to zoom in on plots. This is a limitation of gnuplot, - which is unable to zoom when the data it plots is not stored in - a file. Some work has been done to fix this problem in newer - versions of gnuplot (> 4.2.2). See for example, this thread + TO BE WRITTEN - http://www.nabble.com/zooming-of-inline-data-tf4357017.html#a12416496 - - on the gnuplot development list. - - - ** The way Octave handles search paths has changed. Instead of - setting the built-in variable LOADPATH, you must use addpath, - rmpath, or path to manipulate the function search path. These - functions will maintain "." at the head of the path, for - compatibility with Matlab. + ** Block comments + Commented code can be between matching "%{" and "%}" markers, even + if the commented code spans several line. This allows blocks code + to be commented, without needing to comment each line. For + example, - Leading, trailing or doubled colons are no longer special. - Now, all elements of the search path are explicitly included in - the path when Octave starts. To display the path, use the path - function. - - Path elements that end in // are no longer searched recursively. - Instead, you may use addpath and the genpath function to add an - entire directory tree to the path. For example, - - addpath (genpath ("~/octave")); - - will add ~/octave and all directories below it to the head of the - path. - + function y = func (x) + y = 2 * x; + %{ + y += 1; + %} + endfunction - ** Previous versions of Octave had a number of built-in variables to - control warnings (for example, warn_divide_by_zero). These - variables have been replaced by warning identifiers that are used - with the warning function to control the state of warnings. - - For example, instead of writing - - warn_divide_by_zero = false; - - to disable divide-by-zero warnings, you should write - - warning ("off", "Octave:divide-by-zero"); - - You may use the same technique in your own code to control - warnings. For example, you can use - - warning ("My-package:phase-of-the-moon", - "the phase of the moon could cause trouble today"); - - to allow users to control this warning using the - "My-package:phase-of-the-moon" warning identifier. + the line "y += 1;" will not be executed. + + ** Removed the Control, Finance and Quaternions toolboxes + These toolboxes have been removed and ported to octave-forge, and + they are specialized toolboxes that not all users need. These + functions can be reinstalled use the Octave package manager (see + the pkg function) and the packages available at - You may also enable or disable all warnings, or turn them into - errors: + http://octave.sourceforge.net/packages.html - warning ("on", "all"); - warning ("off", "all"); - warning ("error", "Octave:divide-by-zero"); - warning ("error", "all"); - - You can query the state of current warnings using + ** The imwrite and imread function have been included in Octave based + on the GraphicsMagick library. - warning ("query", ID) - warning ("query") - - (only those warning IDs which have been explicitly set are - returned). - - A partial list and description of warning identifiers is available - using - - help warning_ids - + ** Special treatment in the parser of expressions like "a' * b". In + these cases the transpose is no longer explicitly formed and BLAS + libraries are called with the transpose flagged. This significantly + improves the speed. - ** All built-in variables have been converted to functions. This - change simplifies the interpreter and allows a consistent - interface to internal variables for user-defined packages and the - core functions distributed with Octave. In most cases, code that - simply accesses internal variables does not need to change. Code - that sets internal variables will change. For example, instead of - writing - - PS1 = ">> "; - - you will need to write - - PS1 (">> "); - - If you need write code that will run in both old and new versions - of Octave, you can use something like - - if (exist ("OCTAVE_VERSION") == 5) - ## New: - PS1 (">> "); - else - ## Old: - PS1 = ">> "; - endif - - - ** For compatibility with Matlab, the output order of Octave's - "system" function has changed from + ** Single Precision data type + Octave now includes a single precision data type. Single precision + variables can be created with the "single" command, or from + function like ones, etc. For example - [output, status] = system (cmd); - - to - - [status, output] = system (cmd); - - - ** For compatibility with Matlab, the output of Octave's fsolve - function has been changed from - - [x, info, msg] = fsolve (...); - - to + single (1) + ones (2, 2, "single") + zeros (2, 2, "single") + eye (2, 2, "single") + Inf (2, 2, "single") + NaN (2, 2, "single") + NA (2, 2, "single") - [x, fval, info] = fsolve (...); - - - ** For compatibility with Matlab, normcdf, norminv, normpdf, and - normrnd have been modified to compute distributions using the - standard deviation instead of the variance. - + all create single precision variables. Mixed double/single + precision operators and functions return single precision + types. As a consequence of this addition to Octave the internal + representation of the double precision NA value has changed, and + so users that make use of data generated by Octave with R or + visa-versa are warned that compatibility might not be assured. - ** For compatibility with Matlab, gamcdf, gaminv, gampdf, gamrnd, - expcdf, expinv, exppdf and exprnd have been modified to compute - the distributions using the standard scale factor rather than - one over the scale factor. - - -See NEWS.2 for old news. +See NEWS.3 for old news.
--- /dev/null Thu Jan 01 00:00:00 1970 +0000 +++ b/NEWS.3 Mon Jul 28 17:41:10 2008 +0200 @@ -0,0 +1,200 @@ +Summary of important user-visible changes for version 3.0: +--------------------------------------------------------- + + ** Compatibility with Matlab graphics is much better now. We now + have some graphics features that work like Matlab's Handle + Graphics (tm): + + + You can make a subplot and then use the print function to + generate a file with the plot. + + + RGB line colors are supported if you use gnuplot 4.2. Octave + can still use gnuplot 4.0, but there is no way to set arbitrary + line colors with it when using the Matlab-style plot functions. + There never was any way to do this reliably with older versions + of gnuplot (whether run from Octave or not) since it only + provided a limited set to choose from, and they were terminal + dependent, so choosing color 1 with the X11 terminal would be + different from color 1 with the PostScript terminal. Valid RGB + colors for gnuplot 4.0 are the eight possible combinations of 0 + and 1 for the R, G and B values. Invalid values are all mapped + to the same color. + + This also affects patch objects used in the bar, countour, meshc + and surfc functions, where the bars and contours will be + monochrome. A workaround for this is to type "colormap gmap40" + that loads a colormap that in many cases will be adequate for + simple bar and contour plots. + + + You can control the width of lines using (for example): + + line (x, y, "linewidth", 4, "color", [1, 0, 0.5]); + + (this also shows the color feature). + + + With gnuplot 4.2, image data is plotted with gnuplot and may be + combined with other 2-d plot data. + + + Lines for contour plots are generated with an Octave function, so + contour plots are now 2-d plots instead of special 3-d plots, and + this allows you to plot additional 2-d data on top of a contour + plot. + + + With the gnuplot "extended" terminals the TeX interpreter is + emulated. However, this means that the TeX interpreter is only + supported on the postscript terminals with gnuplot 4.0. Under + gnuplot 4.2 the terminals aqua, dumb, png, jpeg, gif, pm, windows, + wxt, svg and x11 are supported as well. + + + The following plot commands are now considered obsolete and will + be removed from a future version of Octave: + + __gnuplot_set__ + __gnuplot_show__ + __gnuplot_plot__ + __gnuplot_splot__ + __gnuplot_replot__ + + Additionally, these functions no longer have any effect on plots + created with the Matlab-style plot commands (plot, line, mesh, + semilogx, etc.). + + + Plot property values are not extensively checked. Specifying + invalid property values may produce unpredictible results. + + + Octave now sends data over the same pipe that is used to send + commands to gnuplot. While this avoids the problem of + cluttering /tmp with data files, it is no longer possible to use + the mouse to zoom in on plots. This is a limitation of gnuplot, + which is unable to zoom when the data it plots is not stored in + a file. Some work has been done to fix this problem in newer + versions of gnuplot (> 4.2.2). See for example, this thread + + http://www.nabble.com/zooming-of-inline-data-tf4357017.html#a12416496 + + on the gnuplot development list. + + + ** The way Octave handles search paths has changed. Instead of + setting the built-in variable LOADPATH, you must use addpath, + rmpath, or path to manipulate the function search path. These + functions will maintain "." at the head of the path, for + compatibility with Matlab. + + Leading, trailing or doubled colons are no longer special. + Now, all elements of the search path are explicitly included in + the path when Octave starts. To display the path, use the path + function. + + Path elements that end in // are no longer searched recursively. + Instead, you may use addpath and the genpath function to add an + entire directory tree to the path. For example, + + addpath (genpath ("~/octave")); + + will add ~/octave and all directories below it to the head of the + path. + + + ** Previous versions of Octave had a number of built-in variables to + control warnings (for example, warn_divide_by_zero). These + variables have been replaced by warning identifiers that are used + with the warning function to control the state of warnings. + + For example, instead of writing + + warn_divide_by_zero = false; + + to disable divide-by-zero warnings, you should write + + warning ("off", "Octave:divide-by-zero"); + + You may use the same technique in your own code to control + warnings. For example, you can use + + warning ("My-package:phase-of-the-moon", + "the phase of the moon could cause trouble today"); + + to allow users to control this warning using the + "My-package:phase-of-the-moon" warning identifier. + + You may also enable or disable all warnings, or turn them into + errors: + + warning ("on", "all"); + warning ("off", "all"); + warning ("error", "Octave:divide-by-zero"); + warning ("error", "all"); + + You can query the state of current warnings using + + warning ("query", ID) + warning ("query") + + (only those warning IDs which have been explicitly set are + returned). + + A partial list and description of warning identifiers is available + using + + help warning_ids + + + ** All built-in variables have been converted to functions. This + change simplifies the interpreter and allows a consistent + interface to internal variables for user-defined packages and the + core functions distributed with Octave. In most cases, code that + simply accesses internal variables does not need to change. Code + that sets internal variables will change. For example, instead of + writing + + PS1 = ">> "; + + you will need to write + + PS1 (">> "); + + If you need write code that will run in both old and new versions + of Octave, you can use something like + + if (exist ("OCTAVE_VERSION") == 5) + ## New: + PS1 (">> "); + else + ## Old: + PS1 = ">> "; + endif + + + ** For compatibility with Matlab, the output order of Octave's + "system" function has changed from + + [output, status] = system (cmd); + + to + + [status, output] = system (cmd); + + + ** For compatibility with Matlab, the output of Octave's fsolve + function has been changed from + + [x, info, msg] = fsolve (...); + + to + + [x, fval, info] = fsolve (...); + + + ** For compatibility with Matlab, normcdf, norminv, normpdf, and + normrnd have been modified to compute distributions using the + standard deviation instead of the variance. + + + ** For compatibility with Matlab, gamcdf, gaminv, gampdf, gamrnd, + expcdf, expinv, exppdf and exprnd have been modified to compute + the distributions using the standard scale factor rather than + one over the scale factor. + + +See NEWS.2 for old news.