December 27, 2013
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)
** One of the biggest new features for Octave 3.8 is a graphical user
interface. It is the one thing that users have requested most
often over the last few years and now it is almost ready. But
because it is not quite as polished as we would like, we have
decided to wait until the 4.0.x release series before making the
GUI the default interface (until then, you can use the --force-gui
option to start the GUI).
Given the length of time and the number of bug fixes and
improvements since the last major release Octave, we also decided
against delaying the release of all these new improvements any
longer just to perfect the GUI. So please enjoy the 3.8 release of
Octave and the preview of the new GUI. We believe it is working
reasonably well, but we also know that there are some obvious rough
spots and many things that could be improved.
WE NEED YOUR HELP. There are many ways that you can help us fix
the remaining problems, complete the GUI, and improve the overall
user experience for both novices and experts alike:
* If you are a skilled software developer, you can help by
contributing your time to help with Octave's development. See
http://octave.org/get-involved.html for more information.
* If Octave does not work properly, you are encouraged
report the problems you find. See http://octave.org/bugs.html
for more information about how to report problems.
* Whether you are a user or developer, you can help to fund the
project. Octave development takes a lot of time and expertise.
Your contributions help to ensure that Octave will continue to
improve. See http://octave.org/donate.html for more details.
We hope you find Octave to be useful. Please help us make it even
better for the future!
** Octave now uses OpenGL graphics by default with FLTK widgets. If
OpenGL libraries or FLTK widgets are not available when Octave is
built, gnuplot is used. You may also choose to use gnuplot for
graphics by executing the command
graphics_toolkit ("gnuplot")
Adding this command to your ~/.octaverc file will set the default
for each session.
** Printing or saving figures with OpenGL graphics requires the
gl2ps library which is no longer distributed with Octave. The
software is widely available in most package managers. If a
pre-compiled package does not exist for your system, you can find
the current sources at http://www.geuz.org/gl2ps/.
** Octave now supports nested functions with scoping rules that are
compatible with Matlab. A nested function is one declared and defined
within the body of another function. The nested function is only
accessible from within the enclosing function which makes it one
method for making private functions whose names do not conflict with those
in the global namespace (See also subfunctions and private functions).
In addition, variables in the enclosing function are visible within the
nested function. This makes it possible to have a pseudo-global variable
which can be seen by a group of functions, but which is not visible in
the global namespace.
Example:
function outerfunc (...)
...
function nested1 (...)
...
function nested2 (...)
...
endfunction
endfunction
function nested3 (...)
...
endfunction
endfunction
** Line continuations inside character strings have changed.
The sequence '...' is no longer recognized as a line continuation
inside a character string. A backslash '\' followed by a newline
character is no longer recognized as a line continuation inside
single-quoted character strings. Inside double-quoted character
strings, a backslash followed by a newline character is still
recognized as a line continuation, but the backslash character must
be followed *immediately* by the newline character. No whitespace or
end-of-line comment may appear between them.
** Backslash as a continuation marker outside of double-quoted strings
is now deprecated.
Using '\' as a continuation marker outside of double quoted strings
is now deprecated and will be removed from a future version of
Octave. When that is done, the behavior of
(a \
b)
will be consistent with other binary operators.
** Redundant terminal comma accepted by parser
A redundant terminal comma is now accepted in matrix
definitions which allows writing code such as
[a,...
b,...
c,...
] = deal (1,2,3)
** Octave now has limited support for named exceptions
The following syntax is now accepted:
try
statements
catch exception-id
statements
end
The exception-id is a structure with the fields "message" and
"identifier". For example
try
error ("Octave:error-id", "error message");
catch myerr
printf ("identifier: %s\n", myerr.identifier);
printf ("message: %s\n", myerr.message);
end_try_catch
When classdef-style classes are added to Octave, the exception-id
will become an MException object.
** Warning states may now be set temporarily, until the end of the
current function, using the syntax
warning STATE ID "local"
in which STATE may be "on", "off", or "error". Changes to warning
states that are set locally affect the current function and all
functions called from the current scope. The previous warning state
is restored on return from the current function. The "local"
option is ignored if used in the top-level workspace.
** Warning IDs renamed:
Octave:array-as-scalar => Octave:array-to-scalar
Octave:array-as-vector => Octave:array-to-vector
** 'emptymatch', 'noemptymatch' options added to regular expressions.
With this addition Octave now accepts the entire set of Matlab options
for regular expressions. 'noemptymatch' is the default, but 'emptymatch'
has certain uses where you need to match an assertion rather than actual
characters. For example,
regexprep ('World', '^', 'Hello ', 'emptymatch')
=> Hello World
where the pattern is actually the assertion '^' or start-of-line.
** For compatibility with Matlab, the regexp, regexpi, and regexprep
functions now process backslash escape sequences in single-quoted pattern
strings. In addition, the regexprep function now processes backslash
escapes in single-quoted replacement strings. For example,
regexprep (str, '\t', '\n')
would search the variable str for a TAB character (escape sequence \t)
and replace it with a NEWLINE (escape sequence \n). Previously the
expression would have searched for a literal '\' followed by 't' and
replaced the two characters with the sequence '\', 'n'.
** A TeX parser has been implemented for the FLTK toolkit and is the default
for any text object including titles and axis labels. The TeX parser is
supported only for display on a monitor, not for printing.
A quick summary of features:
Code Feature Example Comment
-----------------------------------------------------------------
_ subscript H_2O formula for water
^ exponent y=x^2 formula for parabola
\char symbol \beta Greek symbol beta
\fontname font \fontname{Arial} set Arial font
\fontsize fontsize \fontsize{16} set fontsize 16
\color[rgb] fontcolor \color[rgb]{1 0 1} set magenta color
\bf bold \bfBold Text bold font
\it italic \itItalic Text italic font
\sl slanted \slOblique Text slanted font
\rm normal \bfBold\rmNormal normal font
{} group {\bf Bold}Normal group objects
e^{i*\pi} = -1 group objects
** The m-files in the plot directory have been overhauled.
The plot functions now produce output that is nearly visually compatible
with Matlab. Plot performance has also increased, dramatically for some
functions such as comet and waitbar. Finally, the documentation for most
functions has been updated so it should be clearer both how to use a
function and when a function is appropriate.
** The m-files in the image directory have been overhauled.
The principal benefit is that Octave will now no longer automatically
convert images stored with integers to doubles. Storing images as uint8
or uint16 requires only 1/8 or 1/4 the memory of an image stored using
doubles. For certain operations, such as fft2, the image must still be
converted to double in order to work.
Other changes include fixes to the way indexed images are read from a
colormap depending on the image class (integer images have a -1 offset to
the colormap row number).
** The imread and imwrite functions have been completely rewritten.
The main changes relate to the alpha channel, support for reading and
writing of floating point images, implemented writing of indexed images,
and appending images to multipage image files.
The issues that may arise due to backwards incompatibility are:
* imwrite no longer interprets a length of 2 or 4 in the third dimension
as grayscale or RGB with alpha channel (a length of 4 will be saved
as a CMYK image). Alpha channel must be passed as separate argument.
* imread will always return the colormap indexes when reading an indexed
image, even if the colormap is not requested as output.
* transparency values are now inverted from previous Octave versions
(0 is for completely transparent instead of completely opaque).
In addition, the function imformats has been implemented to expand
reading and writing of images of different formats through imread
and imwrite.
** The colormap function now provides new options--"list", "register",
and "unregister"--to list all available colormap functions, and to
add or remove a function name from the list of known colormap
functions. Packages that implement extra colormaps should use these
commands with PKG_ADD and PKG_DEL statements.
** strsplit has been modified to be compatible with Matlab. There
are two instances where backward compatibility is broken.
(1) Delimiters are now string vectors, not scalars.
Octave's legacy behavior
strsplit ("1 2, 3", ", ")
ans =
{
[1,1] = 1
[1,2] = 2
[1,3] =
[1,4] = 3
}
Matlab compatible behavior
strsplit ("1 2, 3", ", ")
ans =
{
[1,1] = 1 2
[1,2] = 3
}
(2) By default, Matlab treats consecutive delimiters as a single
delimiter. By default, Octave's legacy behavior was to return an
empty string for the part between the delmiters.
Where legacy behavior is desired, the call to strsplit() may be
replaced by ostrsplit(), which is Octave's original implementation of
strsplit().
** The datevec function has been extended for better Matlab compatibility.
It now accepts string inputs in the following numerical formats: 12, 21,
22, 26, 29, 31. This is undocumented, but verifiable, Matlab behavior.
In addition, the default for formats which do not specify a date is
January 1st of the current year. The previous default was the current day,
month, and year. This may produce changes in existing scripts.
** The error function and its derivatives has been extended to accept complex
arguments. The following functions now accept complex inputs:
erf erfc erfcx
In addition two new error functions erfi (imaginary error function) and
dawson (scaled imaginary error function) have been added.
** The glpk function has been modified to reflect changes in the GLPK
library. The "round" and "itcnt" options have been removed. The
"relax" option has been replaced by the "rtest" option. The numeric
values of error codes and of some options have also changed.
** The kurtosis function has changed definition to be compatible with
Matlab. It now returns the base kurtosis instead of the "excess kurtosis".
The old behavior can be had by changing scripts to normalize with -3.
"excess kurtosis" = kurtosis (x) - 3
** The moment function has changed definition to be compatible with
Matlab. It now returns the central moment instead of the raw moment.
The old behavior can be had by passing the type argument "r" for raw.
** The default name of the Octave crash dump file is now
"octave-workspace" instead of "octave-core". The exact name can
always be customized with the octave_core_file_name function.
** A citation command has been added to display information on how to
cite Octave and packages in publications. The package system will
look for and install CITATION files from packages.
** The java package from Octave Forge is now part of core Octave. The
following new functions are available for interacting with Java
directly from Octave:
debug_java java_matrix_autoconversion
isjava java_unsigned_autoconversion
java2mat javaaddpath
javaArray javaclasspath
javaMethod javamem
javaObject javarmpath
usejava
In addition, the following functions that use the Java interface
are now available (provided that Octave is compiled with support for
Java enabled):
helpdlg listdlg questdlg
inputdlg msgbox warndlg
** Other new functions added in 3.8.0:
atan2d erfi lines
base64_decode expint linsolve
base64_encode findfigs missing_component_hook
betaincinv flintmax polyeig
built_in_docstrings_file fminsearch prefdir
cmpermute gallery preferences
cmunique gco readline_re_read_init_file
colorcube hdl2struct readline_read_init_file
copyobj history_save rgbplot
dawson imformats save_default_options
dblist importdata shrinkfaces
desktop isaxes splinefit
doc_cache_create iscolormap stemleaf
ellipj isequaln strjoin
ellipke jit_debug struct2hdl
erfcinv jit_enable tetramesh
jit_startcnt waterfall
** Deprecated functions.
The following functions were deprecated in Octave 3.4 and have been
removed from Octave 3.8.
autocor dispatch is_global setstr
autocov fstat krylovb strerror
betai gammai perror values
cellidx glpkmex replot
cquad is_duplicate_entry saveimage
The following functions have been deprecated in Octave 3.8 and will
be removed from Octave 3.12 (or whatever version is the second major
release after 3.8):
default_save_options java_new
gen_doc_cache java_set
interp1q java_unsigned_conversion
isequalwithequalnans javafields
java_convert_matrix javamethods
java_debug re_read_readline_init_file
java_get read_readline_init_file
java_invoke saving_history
The following keywords have been deprecated in Octave 3.8 and will
be removed from Octave 3.12 (or whatever version is the second major
release after 3.8):
static
The following configuration variables have been deprecated in Octave
3.8 and will be removed from Octave 3.12 (or whatever version is the
second major release after 3.8):
CC_VERSION (now GCC_VERSION)
CXX_VERSION (now GXX_VERSION)
The internal class Octave_map has been deprecated in Octave 3.8 and
will be removed from Octave 3.12 (or whatever version is the second
major release after 3.8). Replacement classes are octave_map
(struct array) or octave_scalar_map for a single structure.