May 23, 2015
News for version 9 8 7 6 5 4.4 4.2 4 3.8 3.6 3.4 3.2 3 2 1 (Release History)
** 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.