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annotate pages/NEWS-3.8.md @ 271:3ce19581b946
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| author | Kai Torben Ohlhus <k.ohlhus@gmail.com> |
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| date | Mon, 21 Feb 2022 17:32:38 +0900 |
| parents | e69093ab4992 |
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| rev | line source |
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| 215 | 1 --- |
| 2 layout: page | |
| 3 title: GNU Octave Version 3.8 | |
| 4 permalink: NEWS-3.8.html | |
| 5 --- | |
| 6 | |
| 7 ## Summary of important user-visible changes | |
| 8 | |
| 9 December 27, 2013 | |
| 10 | |
| 11 {% include release_news_select.md %} | |
| 12 | |
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13 {::options parse_block_html="true" /} |
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14 <div class="panel callout"> |
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15 * TOC |
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16 {:toc} |
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17 </div> |
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20 |
| 215 | 21 <pre> |
| 22 ** One of the biggest new features for Octave 3.8 is a graphical user | |
| 23 interface. It is the one thing that users have requested most | |
| 24 often over the last few years and now it is almost ready. But | |
| 25 because it is not quite as polished as we would like, we have | |
| 26 decided to wait until the 4.0.x release series before making the | |
| 27 GUI the default interface (until then, you can use the --force-gui | |
| 28 option to start the GUI). | |
| 29 | |
| 30 Given the length of time and the number of bug fixes and | |
| 31 improvements since the last major release Octave, we also decided | |
| 32 against delaying the release of all these new improvements any | |
| 33 longer just to perfect the GUI. So please enjoy the 3.8 release of | |
| 34 Octave and the preview of the new GUI. We believe it is working | |
| 35 reasonably well, but we also know that there are some obvious rough | |
| 36 spots and many things that could be improved. | |
| 37 | |
| 38 WE NEED YOUR HELP. There are many ways that you can help us fix | |
| 39 the remaining problems, complete the GUI, and improve the overall | |
| 40 user experience for both novices and experts alike: | |
| 41 | |
| 42 * If you are a skilled software developer, you can help by | |
| 43 contributing your time to help with Octave's development. See | |
| 44 http://octave.org/get-involved.html for more information. | |
| 45 | |
| 46 * If Octave does not work properly, you are encouraged | |
| 47 report the problems you find. See http://octave.org/bugs.html | |
| 48 for more information about how to report problems. | |
| 49 | |
| 50 * Whether you are a user or developer, you can help to fund the | |
| 51 project. Octave development takes a lot of time and expertise. | |
| 52 Your contributions help to ensure that Octave will continue to | |
| 53 improve. See http://octave.org/donate.html for more details. | |
| 54 | |
| 55 We hope you find Octave to be useful. Please help us make it even | |
| 56 better for the future! | |
| 57 | |
| 58 ** Octave now uses OpenGL graphics by default with FLTK widgets. If | |
| 59 OpenGL libraries or FLTK widgets are not available when Octave is | |
| 60 built, gnuplot is used. You may also choose to use gnuplot for | |
| 61 graphics by executing the command | |
| 62 | |
| 63 graphics_toolkit ("gnuplot") | |
| 64 | |
| 65 Adding this command to your ~/.octaverc file will set the default | |
| 66 for each session. | |
| 67 | |
| 68 ** Printing or saving figures with OpenGL graphics requires the | |
| 69 gl2ps library which is no longer distributed with Octave. The | |
| 70 software is widely available in most package managers. If a | |
| 71 pre-compiled package does not exist for your system, you can find | |
| 72 the current sources at http://www.geuz.org/gl2ps/. | |
| 73 | |
| 74 ** Octave now supports nested functions with scoping rules that are | |
| 75 compatible with Matlab. A nested function is one declared and defined | |
| 76 within the body of another function. The nested function is only | |
| 77 accessible from within the enclosing function which makes it one | |
| 78 method for making private functions whose names do not conflict with those | |
| 79 in the global namespace (See also subfunctions and private functions). | |
| 80 In addition, variables in the enclosing function are visible within the | |
| 81 nested function. This makes it possible to have a pseudo-global variable | |
| 82 which can be seen by a group of functions, but which is not visible in | |
| 83 the global namespace. | |
| 84 | |
| 85 Example: | |
| 86 function outerfunc (...) | |
| 87 ... | |
| 88 function nested1 (...) | |
| 89 ... | |
| 90 function nested2 (...) | |
| 91 ... | |
| 92 endfunction | |
| 93 endfunction | |
| 94 | |
| 95 function nested3 (...) | |
| 96 ... | |
| 97 endfunction | |
| 98 endfunction | |
| 99 | |
| 100 ** Line continuations inside character strings have changed. | |
| 101 | |
| 102 The sequence '...' is no longer recognized as a line continuation | |
| 103 inside a character string. A backslash '\' followed by a newline | |
| 104 character is no longer recognized as a line continuation inside | |
| 105 single-quoted character strings. Inside double-quoted character | |
| 106 strings, a backslash followed by a newline character is still | |
| 107 recognized as a line continuation, but the backslash character must | |
| 108 be followed *immediately* by the newline character. No whitespace or | |
| 109 end-of-line comment may appear between them. | |
| 110 | |
| 111 ** Backslash as a continuation marker outside of double-quoted strings | |
| 112 is now deprecated. | |
| 113 | |
| 114 Using '\' as a continuation marker outside of double quoted strings | |
| 115 is now deprecated and will be removed from a future version of | |
| 116 Octave. When that is done, the behavior of | |
| 117 | |
| 118 (a \ | |
| 119 b) | |
| 120 | |
| 121 will be consistent with other binary operators. | |
| 122 | |
| 123 ** Redundant terminal comma accepted by parser | |
| 124 | |
| 125 A redundant terminal comma is now accepted in matrix | |
| 126 definitions which allows writing code such as | |
| 127 | |
| 128 [a,... | |
| 129 b,... | |
| 130 c,... | |
| 131 ] = deal (1,2,3) | |
| 132 | |
| 133 ** Octave now has limited support for named exceptions | |
| 134 | |
| 135 The following syntax is now accepted: | |
| 136 | |
| 137 try | |
| 138 statements | |
| 139 catch exception-id | |
| 140 statements | |
| 141 end | |
| 142 | |
| 143 The exception-id is a structure with the fields "message" and | |
| 144 "identifier". For example | |
| 145 | |
| 146 try | |
| 147 error ("Octave:error-id", "error message"); | |
| 148 catch myerr | |
| 149 printf ("identifier: %s\n", myerr.identifier); | |
| 150 printf ("message: %s\n", myerr.message); | |
| 151 end_try_catch | |
| 152 | |
| 153 When classdef-style classes are added to Octave, the exception-id | |
| 154 will become an MException object. | |
| 155 | |
| 156 ** Warning states may now be set temporarily, until the end of the | |
| 157 current function, using the syntax | |
| 158 | |
| 159 warning STATE ID "local" | |
| 160 | |
| 161 in which STATE may be "on", "off", or "error". Changes to warning | |
| 162 states that are set locally affect the current function and all | |
| 163 functions called from the current scope. The previous warning state | |
| 164 is restored on return from the current function. The "local" | |
| 165 option is ignored if used in the top-level workspace. | |
| 166 | |
| 167 ** Warning IDs renamed: | |
| 168 | |
| 169 Octave:array-as-scalar => Octave:array-to-scalar | |
| 170 Octave:array-as-vector => Octave:array-to-vector | |
| 171 | |
| 172 ** 'emptymatch', 'noemptymatch' options added to regular expressions. | |
| 173 | |
| 174 With this addition Octave now accepts the entire set of Matlab options | |
| 175 for regular expressions. 'noemptymatch' is the default, but 'emptymatch' | |
| 176 has certain uses where you need to match an assertion rather than actual | |
| 177 characters. For example, | |
| 178 | |
| 179 regexprep ('World', '^', 'Hello ', 'emptymatch') | |
| 180 => Hello World | |
| 181 | |
| 182 where the pattern is actually the assertion '^' or start-of-line. | |
| 183 | |
| 184 ** For compatibility with Matlab, the regexp, regexpi, and regexprep | |
| 185 functions now process backslash escape sequences in single-quoted pattern | |
| 186 strings. In addition, the regexprep function now processes backslash | |
| 187 escapes in single-quoted replacement strings. For example, | |
| 188 | |
| 189 regexprep (str, '\t', '\n') | |
| 190 | |
| 191 would search the variable str for a TAB character (escape sequence \t) | |
| 192 and replace it with a NEWLINE (escape sequence \n). Previously the | |
| 193 expression would have searched for a literal '\' followed by 't' and | |
| 194 replaced the two characters with the sequence '\', 'n'. | |
| 195 | |
| 196 ** A TeX parser has been implemented for the FLTK toolkit and is the default | |
| 197 for any text object including titles and axis labels. The TeX parser is | |
| 198 supported only for display on a monitor, not for printing. | |
| 199 | |
| 200 A quick summary of features: | |
| 201 | |
| 202 Code Feature Example Comment | |
| 203 ----------------------------------------------------------------- | |
| 204 _ subscript H_2O formula for water | |
| 205 ^ exponent y=x^2 formula for parabola | |
| 206 \char symbol \beta Greek symbol beta | |
| 207 \fontname font \fontname{Arial} set Arial font | |
| 208 \fontsize fontsize \fontsize{16} set fontsize 16 | |
| 209 \color[rgb] fontcolor \color[rgb]{1 0 1} set magenta color | |
| 210 \bf bold \bfBold Text bold font | |
| 211 \it italic \itItalic Text italic font | |
| 212 \sl slanted \slOblique Text slanted font | |
| 213 \rm normal \bfBold\rmNormal normal font | |
| 214 {} group {\bf Bold}Normal group objects | |
| 215 e^{i*\pi} = -1 group objects | |
| 216 | |
| 217 ** The m-files in the plot directory have been overhauled. | |
| 218 | |
| 219 The plot functions now produce output that is nearly visually compatible | |
| 220 with Matlab. Plot performance has also increased, dramatically for some | |
| 221 functions such as comet and waitbar. Finally, the documentation for most | |
| 222 functions has been updated so it should be clearer both how to use a | |
| 223 function and when a function is appropriate. | |
| 224 | |
| 225 ** The m-files in the image directory have been overhauled. | |
| 226 | |
| 227 The principal benefit is that Octave will now no longer automatically | |
| 228 convert images stored with integers to doubles. Storing images as uint8 | |
| 229 or uint16 requires only 1/8 or 1/4 the memory of an image stored using | |
| 230 doubles. For certain operations, such as fft2, the image must still be | |
| 231 converted to double in order to work. | |
| 232 | |
| 233 Other changes include fixes to the way indexed images are read from a | |
| 234 colormap depending on the image class (integer images have a -1 offset to | |
| 235 the colormap row number). | |
| 236 | |
| 237 ** The imread and imwrite functions have been completely rewritten. | |
| 238 | |
| 239 The main changes relate to the alpha channel, support for reading and | |
| 240 writing of floating point images, implemented writing of indexed images, | |
| 241 and appending images to multipage image files. | |
| 242 | |
| 243 The issues that may arise due to backwards incompatibility are: | |
| 244 | |
| 245 * imwrite no longer interprets a length of 2 or 4 in the third dimension | |
| 246 as grayscale or RGB with alpha channel (a length of 4 will be saved | |
| 247 as a CMYK image). Alpha channel must be passed as separate argument. | |
| 248 | |
| 249 * imread will always return the colormap indexes when reading an indexed | |
| 250 image, even if the colormap is not requested as output. | |
| 251 | |
| 252 * transparency values are now inverted from previous Octave versions | |
| 253 (0 is for completely transparent instead of completely opaque). | |
| 254 | |
| 255 In addition, the function imformats has been implemented to expand | |
| 256 reading and writing of images of different formats through imread | |
| 257 and imwrite. | |
| 258 | |
| 259 ** The colormap function now provides new options--"list", "register", | |
| 260 and "unregister"--to list all available colormap functions, and to | |
| 261 add or remove a function name from the list of known colormap | |
| 262 functions. Packages that implement extra colormaps should use these | |
| 263 commands with PKG_ADD and PKG_DEL statements. | |
| 264 | |
| 265 ** strsplit has been modified to be compatible with Matlab. There | |
| 266 are two instances where backward compatibility is broken. | |
| 267 | |
| 268 (1) Delimiters are now string vectors, not scalars. | |
| 269 | |
| 270 Octave's legacy behavior | |
| 271 | |
| 272 strsplit ("1 2, 3", ", ") | |
| 273 ans = | |
| 274 { | |
| 275 [1,1] = 1 | |
| 276 [1,2] = 2 | |
| 277 [1,3] = | |
| 278 [1,4] = 3 | |
| 279 } | |
| 280 | |
| 281 Matlab compatible behavior | |
| 282 | |
| 283 strsplit ("1 2, 3", ", ") | |
| 284 ans = | |
| 285 { | |
| 286 [1,1] = 1 2 | |
| 287 [1,2] = 3 | |
| 288 } | |
| 289 | |
| 290 (2) By default, Matlab treats consecutive delimiters as a single | |
| 291 delimiter. By default, Octave's legacy behavior was to return an | |
| 292 empty string for the part between the delmiters. | |
| 293 | |
| 294 Where legacy behavior is desired, the call to strsplit() may be | |
| 295 replaced by ostrsplit(), which is Octave's original implementation of | |
| 296 strsplit(). | |
| 297 | |
| 298 ** The datevec function has been extended for better Matlab compatibility. | |
| 299 It now accepts string inputs in the following numerical formats: 12, 21, | |
| 300 22, 26, 29, 31. This is undocumented, but verifiable, Matlab behavior. | |
| 301 In addition, the default for formats which do not specify a date is | |
| 302 January 1st of the current year. The previous default was the current day, | |
| 303 month, and year. This may produce changes in existing scripts. | |
| 304 | |
| 305 ** The error function and its derivatives has been extended to accept complex | |
| 306 arguments. The following functions now accept complex inputs: | |
| 307 | |
| 308 erf erfc erfcx | |
| 309 | |
| 310 In addition two new error functions erfi (imaginary error function) and | |
| 311 dawson (scaled imaginary error function) have been added. | |
| 312 | |
| 313 ** The glpk function has been modified to reflect changes in the GLPK | |
| 314 library. The "round" and "itcnt" options have been removed. The | |
| 315 "relax" option has been replaced by the "rtest" option. The numeric | |
| 316 values of error codes and of some options have also changed. | |
| 317 | |
| 318 ** The kurtosis function has changed definition to be compatible with | |
| 319 Matlab. It now returns the base kurtosis instead of the "excess kurtosis". | |
| 320 The old behavior can be had by changing scripts to normalize with -3. | |
| 321 | |
| 322 "excess kurtosis" = kurtosis (x) - 3 | |
| 323 | |
| 324 ** The moment function has changed definition to be compatible with | |
| 325 Matlab. It now returns the central moment instead of the raw moment. | |
| 326 The old behavior can be had by passing the type argument "r" for raw. | |
| 327 | |
| 328 ** The default name of the Octave crash dump file is now | |
| 329 "octave-workspace" instead of "octave-core". The exact name can | |
| 330 always be customized with the octave_core_file_name function. | |
| 331 | |
| 332 ** A citation command has been added to display information on how to | |
| 333 cite Octave and packages in publications. The package system will | |
| 334 look for and install CITATION files from packages. | |
| 335 | |
| 336 ** The java package from Octave Forge is now part of core Octave. The | |
| 337 following new functions are available for interacting with Java | |
| 338 directly from Octave: | |
| 339 | |
| 340 debug_java java_matrix_autoconversion | |
| 341 isjava java_unsigned_autoconversion | |
| 342 java2mat javaaddpath | |
| 343 javaArray javaclasspath | |
| 344 javaMethod javamem | |
| 345 javaObject javarmpath | |
| 346 usejava | |
| 347 | |
| 348 In addition, the following functions that use the Java interface | |
| 349 are now available (provided that Octave is compiled with support for | |
| 350 Java enabled): | |
| 351 | |
| 352 helpdlg listdlg questdlg | |
| 353 inputdlg msgbox warndlg | |
| 354 | |
| 355 ** Other new functions added in 3.8.0: | |
| 356 | |
| 357 atan2d erfi lines | |
| 358 base64_decode expint linsolve | |
| 359 base64_encode findfigs missing_component_hook | |
| 360 betaincinv flintmax polyeig | |
| 361 built_in_docstrings_file fminsearch prefdir | |
| 362 cmpermute gallery preferences | |
| 363 cmunique gco readline_re_read_init_file | |
| 364 colorcube hdl2struct readline_read_init_file | |
| 365 copyobj history_save rgbplot | |
| 366 dawson imformats save_default_options | |
| 367 dblist importdata shrinkfaces | |
| 368 desktop isaxes splinefit | |
| 369 doc_cache_create iscolormap stemleaf | |
| 370 ellipj isequaln strjoin | |
| 371 ellipke jit_debug struct2hdl | |
| 372 erfcinv jit_enable tetramesh | |
| 373 jit_startcnt waterfall | |
| 374 | |
| 375 ** Deprecated functions. | |
| 376 | |
| 377 The following functions were deprecated in Octave 3.4 and have been | |
| 378 removed from Octave 3.8. | |
| 379 | |
| 380 autocor dispatch is_global setstr | |
| 381 autocov fstat krylovb strerror | |
| 382 betai gammai perror values | |
| 383 cellidx glpkmex replot | |
| 384 cquad is_duplicate_entry saveimage | |
| 385 | |
| 386 The following functions have been deprecated in Octave 3.8 and will | |
| 387 be removed from Octave 3.12 (or whatever version is the second major | |
| 388 release after 3.8): | |
| 389 | |
| 390 default_save_options java_new | |
| 391 gen_doc_cache java_set | |
| 392 interp1q java_unsigned_conversion | |
| 393 isequalwithequalnans javafields | |
| 394 java_convert_matrix javamethods | |
| 395 java_debug re_read_readline_init_file | |
| 396 java_get read_readline_init_file | |
| 397 java_invoke saving_history | |
| 398 | |
| 399 | |
| 400 The following keywords have been deprecated in Octave 3.8 and will | |
| 401 be removed from Octave 3.12 (or whatever version is the second major | |
| 402 release after 3.8): | |
| 403 | |
| 404 static | |
| 405 | |
| 406 The following configuration variables have been deprecated in Octave | |
| 407 3.8 and will be removed from Octave 3.12 (or whatever version is the | |
| 408 second major release after 3.8): | |
| 409 | |
| 410 CC_VERSION (now GCC_VERSION) | |
| 411 CXX_VERSION (now GXX_VERSION) | |
| 412 | |
| 413 The internal class Octave_map has been deprecated in Octave 3.8 and | |
| 414 will be removed from Octave 3.12 (or whatever version is the second | |
| 415 major release after 3.8). Replacement classes are octave_map | |
| 416 (struct array) or octave_scalar_map for a single structure. | |
| 417 </pre> |