Octave Version 4.4.1 has been released and is now available for download. An official Windows binary installer is also available.

This version is a bug fixing release:

Improvements

  • disable compound binary operator optimization (bug #54465)
  • Fix initial bracketing for fzero (bug #54445).
  • Fix scrolling command window in Windows 10 (bug #52496).
  • Produce a single backtrace for global declaration overriding local variable.
  • revive setstr (bug #54417)
  • ode15i.m: In tests, use unlikely symbol name instead of “foo”.
  • run.m: In test, use a symbol name that is unlikely to be a function.
  • avoid alignment warning on solaris systems (bug #54389)
  • Improve error message if iconv is not available (bug #54384).
  • avoid error in gnulib wrapper on systems that don’t have fpu control word
  • avoid unused variable warning on some systems
  • avoid fprintf format warning on some systems
  • eliminate unnecessary sun-utils.h header file
  • index.tst: Make tests case insensitive for NaN, NA, Inf values (bug #54385).
  • positive value from uname can mean success (bug #54235)
  • add some bug numbers to the test suite
  • consider any non-zero return from uname to be failure (bug #54235)
  • if freetype detection fails, unset FT2_* config variables (bug #54369)
  • Produce same random number stream for "state" initialized to Inf (bug #54342).
  • avoid crash when loading classdef objects (bug #54319)
  • hist.m: Don’t error out if called with identical Y values (bug #54326).
  • Parse empty struct input correctly (bug #54318).
  • Fix regression in 4.2.0 which disallowed printing with some Ghostscript devices.
  • transform libiconv.dll.a to -liconv for mkoctfile (bug #53920)
  • trapz.m: Overhaul function to fix errors with different orientations of X and Y (bug #54277).
  • Write audio OGG files in smaller chunk sizes (bug #54280).
  • Use LAPACK DTGSEN subrouting for ordered-qz computation (bug #53761)
  • Fix blkmm to work with empty matrices (bug #54261).
  • use octave bat file in pkg install configure/make when in windows (bug #53938).
  • repelem.m: Fix behavior when final repeat count is 0 (bug #54275).
  • .hgsub: Use hg.octave.org instead of hg-new.octave.org
  • move some fortran and dynamic linking configure checks to separate macros
  • configure.ac: Reorder tests so that FPICFLAG is correctly set on Solaris (bug #54235).
  • eigs.m: Decrease opts.maxit in UnconvergedEigenvalues BIST (bug #54179).
  • fix ambiguous overload build error on Solaris (bug #54217)
  • pkg.m: Restore ability to use file glob patterns when specifying local pkg files (bug #54224).
  • Use %ld format code in xerbla printf (bug #54206).
  • use int instead of size_t for xerbla string length (bug #54206)
  • Pair fclose with all fopen and prevent file-io.cc test fails (bug #54180).
  • fsolve.m: Return info=1 when initial guess x0 is correct (bug #53991).
  • fsolve.m: Add BIST test for bug #53991.
  • fsolve.m: exit with info=-2 when singularity reached (bug #53991).
  • ensure that Make sees Octave exit status when running make check
  • interpreter.cc (intialize_xerbla_error_handler, xerbla_abort): New functions.
  • improve warnings for global/local variable conflicts (bug #54052)
  • maybe preserve local value when declaring variable global (bug #54052)
  • fix regression in text (bug #54109)
  • create valid tmp scope for who -file (bug #54030)
  • polar.m: Correct axes limits when using negative rho values (bug #53999).
  • text.m: Fix regression when ‘String’ property is specified (bug #54067).
  • allow NULL mxArray* to be returned as undefined from fcn calls (bug #54096)
  • treat NULL as [] for mxSetFieldByNumber and mxSetCell (bug #54096)
  • Properly test Qt offscreen printing during manual figures generation.
  • Avoid segfault with textscan (bug #53786).
  • add Qt include needed to build against Qt 5.11 (bug #53978)
  • make listing local functions for command completion work again (bug #53925)
  • Stop segfault in debug mode with readline complete (bug #53925).
  • Remove code to install default colors for qt toolkit from window theme (bug #53805).
  • back out changes attempting to automatically call handle class destructor
  • residue.m: Use a pre-conditioner on final matrix division for numerical stability (bug #53869)
  • track multiple file types (oct|m|mex) for private functions (bug #53856)
  • also preserve temporaries in indexing expressions (bug #53844)
  • also update load-path info if private subdir time stamp changes (bug #53856)
  • defer deletion of temporaries in argument lists (bug #53844)
  • improve test for handle class destructor
  • call delete method correctly for handle class objects (bug #53844)
  • use size_t for f77 char arg length params with GCC 8 (bug #53872)
  • Fix lrwork dimension in svd for complex cases (bug #53823).
  • lines.m: Don’t open empty figure or axes if none already exist (bug #53648)

GUI

  • gui: fix editor rendering on some displays, disable QScintilla buffered drawing

Build system

  • m4/octave_blas_f77_func.m4: Restore 64-bit integer BLAS detection (bug #53853).
  • build: include inplace_edit.pl in tarball (bug #54349).
  • fix test for 8-byte integer BLAS lib on big-endian systems (bug #53853)
  • OCTAVE_CHECK_LIB: avoid shell syntax error if not checking for lib
  • build: avoid compiler warning about unused function abs (bug #54237)
  • build: Work around bug in perl 5.28.0 (bug #54202).

Documentation

  • doc: Add version number to top title of HTML manual for clarity.
  • flip.m: Update docstring.
  • setdiff.m: Fix typo in documentation (bug #54393).
  • doc: Replace instances of realroot (non-existent) with realpow (bug #54336).
  • HACKING.md: Update for recently removed files.
  • remove unused qtinfo source files
  • doc: Remove bad calling convention for warning with a mode struct (bug #54288)
  • Document work-around for disabling OpenGL software rendering (bug #53845).
  • xpow.cc (err_nonsquare_matrix): Clarify error message (bug #54248).
  • doc: Miscellaneous documentation fixes all over the manual (bug #54288).
  • doc: small fixes to size and plot.txi (bug #54283).
  • doc: Clarify description of Example 4 for size (bug #54283).
  • doc: Fix malformed URL (bug #54225).
  • Fix typo in error statement from containers.Map (bug #54103).
  • doc: Use qcode macro to document fseek offsets (bug #51402).
  • Use correct abbreviation UTC for Coordinated Universal Time (bug #53918).
  • doc: Rewrite section on indexing for clarity (bug #53675).
  • md5sum.m: Fix error in sample code (bug #53829).

The above list was generated using the following command and some manual post-processing and grouping:

hg log -r "release-4-4-0:release-4-4-1" -b stable \
| grep "summary:" | nl | sort -rn | cut -f 2- \
| sed 's/summary:\s*/- /' \
| sed 's/\(bug #\)\([0-9]*\)/[\1\2](https:\/\/savannah.gnu.org\/bugs\/?\2)/' \
| sed 's/\(patch #\)\([0-9]*\)/[\1\2](https:\/\/savannah.gnu.org\/patch\/?\2)/'