Mercurial > web-octave
changeset 166:afa95c42b86b
new files for 5.1 release
* NEWS-5.1.md, _posts/2019-03-01-octave-5.1-released.markdown:
New files.
author | John W. Eaton <jwe@octave.org> |
---|---|
date | Fri, 01 Mar 2019 10:33:04 -0500 |
parents | 2309b737d2b6 |
children | f58b6e395216 |
files | NEWS-5.1.md _posts/2019-03-01-octave-5.1-released.markdown |
diffstat | 2 files changed, 325 insertions(+), 0 deletions(-) [+] |
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--- /dev/null Thu Jan 01 00:00:00 1970 +0000 +++ b/NEWS-5.1.md Fri Mar 01 10:33:04 2019 -0500 @@ -0,0 +1,303 @@ +--- +layout: default +--- + +<pre> +Summary of important user-visible changes for version 5 (2019-02-23): +-------------------------------------------------------------------- + + ** The determination of an object's dimensions, size, and shape by the + functions ndims, rows, columns, isscalar, isvector, isrow, iscolumn, + ismatrix, and issquare now fully depends on the function size. + Thus, any user-defined object can ensure correct treatment by the + aforementioned functions by properly overloading the "size" + function. + + ** The function randi has been recoded to produce an unbiased (all + results are equally likely) sample of integers. This may produce + different results in existing code. If it is necessary to reproduce + the exact random integer sequence as in previous versions use + + ri = imin + floor ((imax - imin + 1) * rand ()); + + ** A new core function movfun will apply a function to a sliding + window of arbitrary size on a dataset and accumulate the results. + Many common cases have been implemented using the naming + scheme movXXX where "XXX" is the function that will be applied. + For example, the moving average over a dataset is movmean. + New moving window functions: + + movfun movslice + movmad movmax movmean movmedian movmin movprod + movstd movsum movvar + + ** The functions issymmetric and ishermitian accept an option "nonskew" + or "skew" to calculate the symmetric or skew-symmetric property + of a matrix. Performance has also been increased. + + ** The function isdefinite now returns true or false rather than + -1, 0, 1. To test for a positive semi-definite matrix (old output + of 0) check whether the following two conditions hold: + + isdefinite (A) => 0 + isdefinite (A + 5*TOL, TOL) => 1 + + ** The issorted function now uses a direction option of "ascend" or + "descend" to make it compatible with both the sort function and + with Matlab. Change all uses of "ascending" and "descending" in + existing code to the new options. + + ** The strncmp and strncmpi functions now return true if the two input + strings match, even though the number of characters specified by N + exceeds the string length. This behavior more closely matches + common sense and is Matlab compatible. Example: + + Octave 5 : strncmp ("abc", "abc", 100) => true + Previously : strncmp ("abc", "abc", 100) => false + + ** The intmax, intmin, and flintmax functions now accept a variable + as input. This supports a common programming usage which is to + query the range of an existing variable. Existing code can be + simplified by removing the call to "class" that was previously + required. Example: + + x = int8 (3); + Octave 5 : range = [ intmin(x), intmax(x) ] + Previously : range = [ intmin(class(x)), intmax(class(x)) ] + + ** The ranks function has been recoded for performance and is now 25X + faster. In addition, it now supports a third argument that + specifies how to resolve the ranking of tie values. + + ** The fsolve function has been tweaked to use larger step sizes when + calculating the Jacobian of a function with finite differences. + This leads to faster convergence. The default solver options have + also changed to be Matlab compatible. This *may* result in existing + code producing different results. + + Option | New Default | Old Default + ------------------------------------------------ + FinDiffType | "forward" | "central" + MaxFunEvals | 100*length(x0) | Inf + TolFun | 1e-6 | 1e-7 + TolX | 1e-6 | 1e-7 + Updating | "off" | "on" + + ** The fminsearch function has changed default solver options for + Matlab compatibility. The accuracy option TolFun is now 1e-4 rather + than 1e-7. This *may* result in existing code producing different + results. + + ** The fminbnd function has changed defaults for Matlab compatibility. + This *may* result in existing code producing different results. + + Option | New Default | Old Default + ------------------------------------------------ + MaxFunEvals | 500 | Inf + MaxIter | 500 | Inf + TolX | 1e-4 | 1e-8 + + ** The fminunc function has changed defaults for Matlab compatibility. + This *may* result in existing code producing different results. + + Option | New Default | Old Default + ------------------------------------------------ + FinDiffType | "forward" | "central" + MaxFunEvals | 100*length(x0) | Inf + TolX | 1e-6 | 1e-7 + TolFun | 1e-6 | 1e-7 + + ** Using "clear" with no arguments now removes only local variables + from the current workspace. Global variables will no longer be + visible, but they continue to exist in the global workspace and + possibly other workspaces such as the base workspace. + This change was made for Matlab compatibility. + + ** The Octave plotting system now supports high resolution screens, + i.e, those with greater than 96 DPI which are referred to as + HiDPI/Retina monitors. + + ** Figure graphic objects have a new property "Number" which is + read-only and will return the handle (number) of the figure. + However, if the property "IntegerHandle" has been set to "off" then + the property will return an empty matrix ([]). + + ** Patch and surface graphic objects now use the "FaceNormals" property + for flat lighting. + + ** "FaceNormals" and "VertexNormals" for patch and surface graphic + objects are now calculated only when necessary to improve graphics + performance. In order for any normals to be calculated the + "FaceLighting" property must be set to "flat" (FaceNormals) or + "gouraud" (VertexNormals), AND a light object must be present in the + axes. + + ** The "Margin" property of text() objects has a new default of 3 + rather than 2. This change was made for Matlab compatibility. + + ** Printing to raster formats (bitmaps like PNG or JPEG) now uses an + OpenGL-based method by default. The print options "-opengl" + (raster) and "-painters" (vector) have been added ("qt" toolkit + only). The figure property "renderer" specifies which renderer to + use. When the property "renderermode" is "auto" Octave will select + -opengl for a raster output format and -painters for a vector output + format. + + ** A new print option "-RGBImage" has been added which captures the + pixels of a figure as an image. This is similar to screen capture + tools, except that print formatting options can be used to, for + example, change the resolution or display the image in black and + white. + + ** Two new print options for page-based formats (PDF, PostScript) have + been added. The "-fillpage" option will stretch the plot to occupy + the entire page with 0.25 inch margins all around. The "-bestfit" + option will expand the plot to take up as much room as possible on + the page without distorting the original aspect ratio of the plot. + + ** Printing using the -dtiff output device will now create compressed + images using LZW compression. This change was made for Matlab + compatibility. To produce uncompressed images use the -dtiffn + device. + + ** A new printing device is available, -ddumb, which produces ASCII art + for plots. This device is only available with the gnuplot toolkit. + + ** Specifying legend position with a numeric argument is deprecated and + will be removed in Octave 7.0. Use a string argument instead. + + ** It is now possible to use files and folders containing Unicode + characters in Windows. + + ** The environment variable used by mkoctfile for linker flags is now + LDFLAGS rather than LFLAGS. LFLAGS is deprecated, and a warning + is emitted if is used, but it will continue to work until eventual + removal in Octave 7.0. + + ** The GUI requires Qt libraries. The minimum Qt4 version supported is + Qt4.8. Qt5 of any version is preferred. + + ** The FFTW library is now required to perform FFT calculations. + The FFTPACK sources have been removed from Octave. + + ** The OSMesa library is no longer used. To print invisible figures + when using OpenGL graphics, the Qt QOFFSCREENSURFACE feature must be + available and you must use the qt graphics toolkit. + + ** The str2func function no longer accepts a second "global" argument. + This argument was typically used to allow functions that accept + function names as arguments to avoid conflicts with subfunctions or + nested functions. Instead, it's best to avoid this situation + entirely and require users to pass function handles rather than + function names. + + ** The path handling functions no longer perform variable or brace + expansion on path elements and Octave's load-path is no longer + subject to these expansions. + + ** New functions added in 5: + + clearvars + isfile + isfolder + matlab.lang.makeUniqueStrings + matlab.lang.makeValidName + movegui + movfun + movie + movmad + movmax + movmean + movmedian + movmin + movprod + movslice + movstd + movsum + movvar + openfig + ordeig + savefig + uitable + + ** Legacy functions. + + The following functions have been declared legacy functions which + means they are obsolete and should not be used in any new code. + Unlike deprecated functions, however, their removal from Octave has + not yet been scheduled. + + Function | Replacement + ---------------------|------------------ + findstr | strfind + flipdim | flip + isdir | isfolder or dir_in_loadpath + isequalwithequalnans | isequaln + isstr | ischar + setstr | char + strmatch | strncmp or strcmp + strread | textscan + textread | textscan + + ** Deprecated functions. + + The following functions have been deprecated in Octave 5 and will + be removed from Octave 7 (or whatever version is the second major + release after 5): + + Function | Replacement + -----------------------|------------------ + output_max_field_width | output_precision + + ** The following functions were deprecated in Octave 4.2 and have been + removed from Octave 5. + + Function | Replacement + ---------------------|------------------ + bitmax | flintmax + mahalanobis | mahal in Octave Forge statistics pkg + md5sum | hash + octave_config_info | __octave_config_info__ + onenormest | normest1 + sleep | pause + usleep | pause + wavread | audioread + wavwrite | audiowrite + + ** Deprecated graphics properties. + + The following properties or allowed corresponding values have been + deprecated in Octave 5 and will be removed from Octave 7 (or + whatever version is the second major release after 5): + + Object | Property | Value + ---------------------|-------------------------|------------------- + text | fontangle | "oblique" + uibuttongroup | fontangle | "oblique" + uicontrol | fontangle | "oblique" + uipanel | fontangle | "oblique" + uitable | fontangle | "oblique" + + ** The following properties or allowed corresponding values were + deprecated in Octave 4.2 and have been removed from Octave 5: + + Object | Property | Value + ---------------------|-------------------------|------------------- + axes | xaxislocation | "zero" + | yaxislocation | "zero" + hggroup | erasemode | + image | erasemode | + line | erasemode | + patch | erasemode | + patch | normalmode | + surface | erasemode | + surface | normalmode | + text | erasemode | + + ** The C++ function is_keyword has been deprecated in favor of + iskeyword. The old function will be removed two versions after 5. + +--------------------------------------------------------- + +See NEWS.4 for old news. +</pre>
--- /dev/null Thu Jan 01 00:00:00 1970 +0000 +++ b/_posts/2019-03-01-octave-5.1-released.markdown Fri Mar 01 10:33:04 2019 -0500 @@ -0,0 +1,22 @@ +--- +layout: post +title: "GNU Octave 5.1.0 Released" +date: 2019-03-01 +categories: news release +--- + +GNU Octave version 5.1.0 has been released and is now available for +[download][1]. An official [Windows binary installer][2] is available. +For [macOS][3] see the installation instructions in the wiki. + +This major release improves compatibility with Matlab and contains many new +and improved functions. A list of important user-visible changes is available +by selecting the [Release Notes][4] item in the News menu of the GUI or by +typing `news` at the Octave command prompt. + +Thanks to the many people who contributed to this release! + +[1]: {{ "download.html" | absolute_url }} +[2]: https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/octave/windows/ +[3]: {{ site.wiki_url }}/Octave_for_macOS +[4]: {{ "NEWS-5.1.html" | absolute_url }}