1# News 2 3## 3.0.2 4 5This is a production release that adds `utf8` locale symlinks and removes an 6unused `auto` variable from the `ceil()` function in the [extended math 7library][16]. 8 9Users do ***NOT*** need to update unless they want the locales. 10 11## 3.0.1 12 13This is a production release with two small changes. Users do ***NOT*** need to 14upgrade to this release; however, if they haven't upgraded to `3.0.0` yet, it 15may be worthwhile to upgrade to this release. 16 17The first change is fixing a compiler warning on FreeBSD with strict warnings 18on. 19 20The second change is to make the new implementation of `ceil()` in `lib2.bc` 21much more efficient. 22 23## 3.0.0 24 25*Notes for package maintainers:* 26 27*First, the `2.7.0` release series saw a change in the option parsing. This made 28me change one error message and add a few others. The error message that was 29changed removed one format specifier. This means that `printf()` will seqfault 30on old locale files. Unfortunately, `bc` cannot use any locale files except the 31global ones that are already installed, so it will use the previous ones while 32running tests during install. **If `bc` segfaults while running arg tests when 33updating, it is because the global locale files have not been replaced. Make 34sure to either prevent the test suite from running on update or remove the old 35locale files before updating.** Once this is done, `bc` should install without 36problems.* 37 38*Second, **the option to build without signal support has been removed**. See 39below for the reasons why.* 40 41This is a production release with some small bug fixes, a few improvements, 42three major bug fixes, and a complete redesign of `bc`'s error and signal 43handling. **Users and package maintainers should update to this version as soon 44as possible.** 45 46The first major bug fix was in how `bc` executed files. Previously, a whole file 47was parsed before it was executed, but if a function is defined *after* code, 48especially if the function definition was actually a redefinition, and the code 49before the definition referred to the previous function, this `bc` would replace 50the function before executing any code. The fix was to make sure that all code 51that existed before a function definition was executed. 52 53The second major bug fix was in `bc`'s `lib2.bc`. The `ceil()` function had a 54bug where a `0` in the decimal place after the truncation position, caused it to 55output the wrong numbers if there was any non-zero digit after. 56 57The third major bug is that when passing parameters to functions, if an 58expression included an array (not an array element) as a parameter, it was 59accepted, when it should have been rejected. It is now correctly rejected. 60 61Beyond that, this `bc` got several improvements that both sped it up, improved 62the handling of signals, and improved the error handling. 63 64First, the requirements for `bc` were pushed back to POSIX 2008. `bc` uses one 65function, `strdup()`, which is not in POSIX 2001, and it is in the X/Open System 66Interfaces group 2001. It is, however, in POSIX 2008, and since POSIX 2008 is 67old enough to be supported anywhere that I care, that should be the requirement. 68 69Second, the BcVm global variable was put into `bss`. This actually slightly 70reduces the size of the executable from a massive code shrink, and it will stop 71`bc` from allocating a large set of memory when `bc` starts. 72 73Third, the default Karatsuba length was updated from 64 to 32 after making the 74optimization changes below, since 32 is going to be better than 64 after the 75changes. 76 77Fourth, Spanish translations were added. 78 79Fifth, the interpreter received a speedup to make performance on non-math-heavy 80scripts more competitive with GNU `bc`. While improvements did, in fact, get it 81much closer (see the [benchmarks][19]), it isn't quite there. 82 83There were several things done to speed up the interpreter: 84 85First, several small inefficiencies were removed. These inefficiencies included 86calling the function `bc_vec_pop(v)` twice instead of calling 87`bc_vec_npop(v, 2)`. They also included an extra function call for checking the 88size of the stack and checking the size of the stack more than once on several 89operations. 90 91Second, since the current `bc` function is the one that stores constants and 92strings, the program caches pointers to the current function's vectors of 93constants and strings to prevent needing to grab the current function in order 94to grab a constant or a string. 95 96Third, `bc` tries to reuse `BcNum`'s (the internal representation of 97arbitary-precision numbers). If a `BcNum` has the default capacity of 98`BC_NUM_DEF_SIZE` (32 on 64-bit and 16 on 32-bit) when it is freed, it is added 99to a list of available `BcNum`'s. And then, when a `BcNum` is allocated with a 100capacity of `BC_NUM_DEF_SIZE` and any `BcNum`'s exist on the list of reusable 101ones, one of those ones is grabbed instead. 102 103In order to support these changes, the `BC_NUM_DEF_SIZE` was changed. It used to 104be 16 bytes on all systems, but it was changed to more closely align with the 105minimum allocation size on Linux, which is either 32 bytes (64-bit musl), 24 106bytes (64-bit glibc), 16 bytes (32-bit musl), or 12 bytes (32-bit glibc). Since 107these are the minimum allocation sizes, these are the sizes that would be 108allocated anyway, making it worth it to just use the whole space, so the value 109of `BC_NUM_DEF_SIZE` on 64-bit systems was changed to 32 bytes. 110 111On top of that, at least on 64-bit, `BC_NUM_DEF_SIZE` supports numbers with 112either 72 integer digits or 45 integer digits and 27 fractional digits. This 113should be more than enough for most cases since `bc`'s default `scale` values 114are 0 or 20, meaning that, by default, it has at most 20 fractional digits. And 11545 integer digits are *a lot*; it's enough to calculate the amount of mass in 116the Milky Way galaxy in kilograms. Also, 72 digits is enough to calculate the 117diameter of the universe in Planck lengths. 118 119(For 32-bit, these numbers are either 32 integer digits or 12 integer digits and 12020 fractional digits. These are also quite big, and going much bigger on a 12132-bit system seems a little pointless since 12 digits in just under a trillion 122and 20 fractional digits is still enough for about any use since `10^-20` light 123years is just under a millimeter.) 124 125All of this together means that for ordinary uses, and even uses in scientific 126work, the default number size will be all that is needed, which means that 127nearly all, if not all, numbers will be reused, relieving pressure on the system 128allocator. 129 130I did several experiments to find the changes that had the most impact, 131especially with regard to reusing `BcNum`'s. One was putting `BcNum`'s into 132buckets according to their capacity in powers of 2 up to 512. That performed 133worse than `bc` did in `2.7.2`. Another was putting any `BcNum` on the reuse 134list that had a capacity of `BC_NUM_DEF_SIZE * 2` and reusing them for `BcNum`'s 135that requested `BC_NUM_DEF_SIZE`. This did reduce the amount of time spent, but 136it also spent a lot of time in the system allocator for an unknown reason. (When 137using `strace`, a bunch more `brk` calls showed up.) Just reusing `BcNum`'s that 138had exactly `BC_NUM_DEF_SIZE` capacity spent the smallest amount of time in both 139user and system time. This makes sense, especially with the changes to make 140`BC_NUM_DEF_SIZE` bigger on 64-bit systems, since the vast majority of numbers 141will only ever use numbers with a size less than or equal to `BC_NUM_DEF_SIZE`. 142 143Last of all, `bc`'s signal handling underwent a complete redesign. (This is the 144reason that this version is `3.0.0` and not `2.8.0`.) The change was to move 145from a polling approach to signal handling to an interrupt-based approach. 146 147Previously, every single loop condition had a check for signals. I suspect that 148this could be expensive when in tight loops. 149 150Now, the signal handler just uses `longjmp()` (actually `siglongjmp()`) to start 151an unwinding of the stack until it is stopped or the stack is unwound to 152`main()`, which just returns. If `bc` is currently executing code that cannot be 153safely interrupted (according to POSIX), then signals are "locked." The signal 154handler checks if the lock is taken, and if it is, it just sets the status to 155indicate that a signal arrived. Later, when the signal lock is released, the 156status is checked to see if a signal came in. If so, the stack unwinding starts. 157 158This design eliminates polling in favor of maintaining a stack of `jmp_buf`'s. 159This has its own performance implications, but it gives better interaction. And 160the cost of pushing and popping a `jmp_buf` in a function is paid at most twice. 161Most functions do not pay that price, and most of the rest only pay it once. 162(There are only some 3 functions in `bc` that push and pop a `jmp_buf` twice.) 163 164As a side effect of this change, I had to eliminate the use of `stdio.h` in `bc` 165because `stdio` does not play nice with signals and `longjmp()`. I implemented 166custom I/O buffer code that takes a fraction of the size. This means that static 167builds will be smaller, but non-static builds will be bigger, though they will 168have less linking time. 169 170This change is also good because my history implementation was already bypassing 171`stdio` for good reasons, and unifying the architecture was a win. 172 173Another reason for this change is that my `bc` should *always* behave correctly 174in the presence of signals like `SIGINT`, `SIGTERM`, and `SIGQUIT`. With the 175addition of my own I/O buffering, I needed to also make sure that the buffers 176were correctly flushed even when such signals happened. 177 178For this reason, I **removed the option to build without signal support**. 179 180As a nice side effect of this change, the error handling code could be changed 181to take advantage of the stack unwinding that signals used. This means that 182signals and error handling use the same code paths, which means that the stack 183unwinding is well-tested. (Errors are tested heavily in the test suite.) 184 185It also means that functions do not need to return a status code that 186***every*** caller needs to check. This eliminated over 100 branches that simply 187checked return codes and then passed that return code up the stack if necessary. 188The code bloat savings from this is at least 1700 bytes on `x86_64`, *before* 189taking into account the extra code from removing `stdio.h`. 190 191## 2.7.2 192 193This is a production release with one major bug fix. 194 195The `length()` built-in function can take either a number or an array. If it 196takes an array, it returns the length of the array. Arrays can be passed by 197reference. The bug is that the `length()` function would not properly 198dereference arrays that were references. This is a bug that affects all users. 199 200**ALL USERS SHOULD UPDATE `bc`**. 201 202## 2.7.1 203 204This is a production release with fixes for new locales and fixes for compiler 205warnings on FreeBSD. 206 207## 2.7.0 208 209This is a production release with a bug fix for Linux, new translations, and new 210features. 211 212Bug fixes: 213 214* Option parsing in `BC_ENV_ARGS` was broken on Linux in 2.6.1 because `glibc`'s 215 `getopt_long()` is broken. To get around that, and to support long options on 216 every platform, an adapted version of [`optparse`][17] was added. Now, `bc` 217 does not even use `getopt()`. 218* Parsing `BC_ENV_ARGS` with quotes now works. It isn't the smartest, but it 219 does the job if there are spaces in file names. 220 221The following new languages are supported: 222 223* Dutch 224* Polish 225* Russian 226* Japanes 227* Simplified Chinese 228 229All of these translations were generated using [DeepL][18], so improvements are 230welcome. 231 232There is only one new feature: **`bc` now has a built-in pseudo-random number 233generator** (PRNG). 234 235The PRNG is seeded, making it useful for applications where 236`/dev/urandom` does not work because output needs to be reproducible. However, 237it also uses `/dev/urandom` to seed itself by default, so it will start with a 238good seed by default. 239 240It also outputs 32 bits on 32-bit platforms and 64 bits on 64-bit platforms, far 241better than the 15 bits of C's `rand()` and `bash`'s `$RANDOM`. 242 243In addition, the PRNG can take a bound, and when it gets a bound, it 244automatically adjusts to remove bias. It can also generate numbers of arbitrary 245size. (As of the time of release, the largest pseudo-random number generated by 246this `bc` was generated with a bound of `2^(2^20)`.) 247 248***IMPORTANT: read the [`bc` manual][9] and the [`dc` manual][10] to find out 249exactly what guarantees the PRNG provides. The underlying implementation is not 250guaranteed to stay the same, but the guarantees that it provides are guaranteed 251to stay the same regardless of the implementation.*** 252 253On top of that, four functions were added to `bc`'s [extended math library][16] 254to make using the PRNG easier: 255 256* `frand(p)`: Generates a number between `[0,1)` to `p` decimal places. 257* `ifrand(i, p)`: Generates an integer with bound `i` and adds it to `frand(p)`. 258* `srand(x)`: Randomizes the sign of `x`. In other words, it flips the sign of 259 `x` with probability `0.5`. 260* `brand()`: Returns a random boolean value (either `0` or `1`). 261 262## 2.6.1 263 264This is a production release with a bug fix for FreeBSD. 265 266The bug was that when `bc` was built without long options, it would give a fatal 267error on every run. This was caused by a mishandling of `optind`. 268 269## 2.6.0 270 271This release is a production release ***with no bugfixes***. If you do not want 272to upgrade, you don't have to. 273 274No source code changed; the only thing that changed was `lib2.bc`. 275 276This release adds one function to the [extended math library][16]: `p(x, y)`, 277which calculates `x` to the power of `y`, whether or not `y` is an integer. (The 278`^` operator can only accept integer powers.) 279 280This release also includes a couple of small tweaks to the [extended math 281library][16], mostly to fix returning numbers with too high of `scale`. 282 283## 2.5.3 284 285This release is a production release which addresses inconsistencies in the 286Portuguese locales. No `bc` code was changed. 287 288The issues were that the ISO files used different naming, and also that the 289files that should have been symlinks were not. I did not catch that because 290GitHub rendered them the exact same way. 291 292## 2.5.2 293 294This release is a production release. 295 296No code was changed, but the build system was changed to allow `CFLAGS` to be 297given to `CC`, like this: 298 299``` 300CC="gcc -O3 -march=native" ./configure.sh 301``` 302 303If this happens, the flags are automatically put into `CFLAGS`, and the compiler 304is set appropriately. In the example above this means that `CC` will be "gcc" 305and `CFLAGS` will be "-O3 -march=native". 306 307This behavior was added to conform to GNU autotools practices. 308 309## 2.5.1 310 311This is a production release which addresses portability concerns discovered 312in the `bc` build system. No `bc` code was changed. 313 314* Support for Solaris SPARC and AIX were added. 315* Minor documentations edits were performed. 316* An option for `configure.sh` was added to disable long options if 317 `getopt_long()` is missing. 318 319## 2.5.0 320 321This is a production release with new translations. No code changed. 322 323The translations were contributed by [bugcrazy][15], and they are for 324Portuguese, both Portugal and Brazil locales. 325 326## 2.4.0 327 328This is a production release primarily aimed at improving `dc`. 329 330* A couple of copy and paste errors in the [`dc` manual][10] were fixed. 331* `dc` startup was optimized by making sure it didn't have to set up `bc`-only 332 things. 333* The `bc` `&&` and `||` operators were made available to `dc` through the `M` 334 and `m` commands, respectively. 335* `dc` macros were changed to be tail call-optimized. 336 337The last item, tail call optimization, means that if the last thing in a macro 338is a call to another macro, then the old macro is popped before executing the 339new macro. This change was made to stop `dc` from consuming more and more memory 340as macros are executed in a loop. 341 342The `q` and `Q` commands still respect the "hidden" macros by way of recording 343how many macros were removed by tail call optimization. 344 345## 2.3.2 346 347This is a production release meant to fix warnings in the Gentoo `ebuild` by 348making it possible to disable binary stripping. Other users do *not* need to 349upgrade. 350 351## 2.3.1 352 353This is a production release. It fixes a bug that caused `-1000000000 < -1` to 354return `0`. This only happened with negative numbers and only if the value on 355the left was more negative by a certain amount. That said, this bug *is* a bad 356bug, and needs to be fixed. 357 358**ALL USERS SHOULD UPDATE `bc`**. 359 360## 2.3.0 361 362This is a production release with changes to the build system. 363 364## 2.2.0 365 366This release is a production release. It only has new features and performance 367improvements. 368 3691. The performance of `sqrt(x)` was improved. 3702. The new function `root(x, n)` was added to the extended math library to 371 calculate `n`th roots. 3723. The new function `cbrt(x)` was added to the extended math library to 373 calculate cube roots. 374 375## 2.1.3 376 377This is a non-critical release; it just changes the build system, and in 378non-breaking ways: 379 3801. Linked locale files were changed to link to their sources with a relative 381 link. 3822. A bug in `configure.sh` that caused long option parsing to fail under `bash` 383 was fixed. 384 385## 2.1.2 386 387This release is not a critical release. 388 3891. A few codes were added to history. 3902. Multiplication was optimized a bit more. 3913. Addition and subtraction were both optimized a bit more. 392 393## 2.1.1 394 395This release contains a fix for the test suite made for Linux from Scratch: now 396the test suite prints `pass` when a test is passed. 397 398Other than that, there is no change in this release, so distros and other users 399do not need to upgrade. 400 401## 2.1.0 402 403This release is a production release. 404 405The following bugs were fixed: 406 4071. A `dc` bug that caused stack mishandling was fixed. 4082. A warning on OpenBSD was fixed. 4093. Bugs in `ctrl+arrow` operations in history were fixed. 4104. The ability to paste multiple lines in history was added. 4115. A `bc` bug, mishandling of array arguments to functions, was fixed. 4126. A crash caused by freeing the wrong pointer was fixed. 4137. A `dc` bug where strings, in a rare case, were mishandled in parsing was 414 fixed. 415 416In addition, the following changes were made: 417 4181. Division was slightly optimized. 4192. An option was added to the build to disable printing of prompts. 4203. The special case of empty arguments is now handled. This is to prevent 421 errors in scripts that end up passing empty arguments. 4224. A harmless bug was fixed. This bug was that, with the pop instructions 423 (mostly) removed (see below), `bc` would leave extra values on its stack for 424 `void` functions and in a few other cases. These extra items would not 425 affect anything put on the stack and would not cause any sort of crash or 426 even buggy behavior, but they would cause `bc` to take more memory than it 427 needed. 428 429On top of the above changes, the following optimizations were added: 430 4311. The need for pop instructions in `bc` was removed. 4322. Extra tests on every iteration of the interpreter loop were removed. 4333. Updating function and code pointers on every iteration of the interpreter 434 loop was changed to only updating them when necessary. 4354. Extra assignments to pointers were removed. 436 437Altogether, these changes sped up the interpreter by around 2x. 438 439***NOTE***: This is the last release with new features because this `bc` is now 440considered complete. From now on, only bug fixes and new translations will be 441added to this `bc`. 442 443## 2.0.3 444 445This is a production, bug-fix release. 446 447Two bugs were fixed in this release: 448 4491. A rare and subtle signal handling bug was fixed. 4502. A misbehavior on `0` to a negative power was fixed. 451 452The last bug bears some mentioning. 453 454When I originally wrote power, I did not thoroughly check its error cases; 455instead, I had it check if the first number was `0` and then if so, just return 456`0`. However, `0` to a negative power means that `1` will be divided by `0`, 457which is an error. 458 459I caught this, but only after I stopped being cocky. You see, sometime later, I 460had noticed that GNU `bc` returned an error, correctly, but I thought it was 461wrong simply because that's not what my `bc` did. I saw it again later and had a 462double take. I checked for real, finally, and found out that my `bc` was wrong 463all along. 464 465That was bad on me. But the bug was easy to fix, so it is fixed now. 466 467There are two other things in this release: 468 4691. Subtraction was optimized by [Stefan Eßer][14]. 4702. Division was also optimized, also by Stefan Eßer. 471 472## 2.0.2 473 474This release contains a fix for a possible overflow in the signal handling. I 475would be surprised if any users ran into it because it would only happen after 2 476billion (`2^31-1`) `SIGINT`'s, but I saw it and had to fix it. 477 478## 2.0.1 479 480This release contains very few things that will apply to any users. 481 4821. A slight bug in `dc`'s interactive mode was fixed. 4832. A bug in the test suite that was only triggered on NetBSD was fixed. 4843. **The `-P`/`--no-prompt` option** was added for users that do not want a 485 prompt. 4864. A `make check` target was added as an alias for `make test`. 4875. `dc` got its own read prompt: `?> `. 488 489## 2.0.0 490 491This release is a production release. 492 493This release is also a little different from previous releases. From here on 494out, I do not plan on adding any more features to this `bc`; I believe that it 495is complete. However, there may be bug fix releases in the future, if I or any 496others manage to find bugs. 497 498This release has only a few new features: 499 5001. `atan2(y, x)` was added to the extended math library as both `a2(y, x)` and 501 `atan2(y, x)`. 5022. Locales were fixed. 5033. A **POSIX shell-compatible script was added as an alternative to compiling 504 `gen/strgen.c`** on a host machine. More details about making the choice 505 between the two can be found by running `./configure.sh --help` or reading 506 the [build manual][13]. 5074. Multiplication was optimized by using **diagonal multiplication**, rather 508 than straight brute force. 5095. The `locale_install.sh` script was fixed. 5106. `dc` was given the ability to **use the environment variable 511 `DC_ENV_ARGS`**. 5127. `dc` was also given the ability to **use the `-i` or `--interactive`** 513 options. 5148. Printing the prompt was fixed so that it did not print when it shouldn't. 5159. Signal handling was fixed. 51610. **Handling of `SIGTERM` and `SIGQUIT`** was fixed. 51711. The **built-in functions `maxibase()`, `maxobase()`, and `maxscale()`** (the 518 commands `T`, `U`, `V` in `dc`, respectively) were added to allow scripts to 519 query for the max allowable values of those globals. 52012. Some incompatibilities with POSIX were fixed. 521 522In addition, this release is `2.0.0` for a big reason: the internal format for 523numbers changed. They used to be a `char` array. Now, they are an array of 524larger integers, packing more decimal digits into each integer. This has 525delivered ***HUGE*** performance improvements, especially for multiplication, 526division, and power. 527 528This `bc` should now be the fastest `bc` available, but I may be wrong. 529 530## 1.2.8 531 532This release contains a fix for a harmless bug (it is harmless in that it still 533works, but it just copies extra data) in the [`locale_install.sh`][12] script. 534 535## 1.2.7 536 537This version contains fixes for the build on Arch Linux. 538 539## 1.2.6 540 541This release removes the use of `local` in shell scripts because it's not POSIX 542shell-compatible, and also updates a man page that should have been updated a 543long time ago but was missed. 544 545## 1.2.5 546 547This release contains some missing locale `*.msg` files. 548 549## 1.2.4 550 551This release contains a few bug fixes and new French translations. 552 553## 1.2.3 554 555This release contains a fix for a bug: use of uninitialized data. Such data was 556only used when outputting an error message, but I am striving for perfection. As 557Michelangelo said, "Trifles make perfection, and perfection is no trifle." 558 559## 1.2.2 560 561This release contains fixes for OpenBSD. 562 563## 1.2.1 564 565This release contains bug fixes for some rare bugs. 566 567## 1.2.0 568 569This is a production release. 570 571There have been several changes since `1.1.0`: 572 5731. The build system had some changes. 5742. Locale support has been added. (Patches welcome for translations.) 5753. **The ability to turn `ibase`, `obase`, and `scale` into stacks** was added 576 with the `-g` command-line option. (See the [`bc` manual][9] for more 577 details.) 5784. Support for compiling on Mac OSX out of the box was added. 5795. The extended math library got `t(x)`, `ceil(x)`, and some aliases. 5806. The extended math library also got `r2d(x)` (for converting from radians to 581 degrees) and `d2r(x)` (for converting from degrees to radians). This is to 582 allow using degrees with the standard library. 5837. Both calculators now accept numbers in **scientific notation**. See the 584 [`bc` manual][9] and the [`dc` manual][10] for details. 5858. Both calculators can **output in either scientific or engineering 586 notation**. See the [`bc` manual][9] and the [`dc` manual][10] for details. 5879. Some inefficiencies were removed. 58810. Some bugs were fixed. 58911. Some bugs in the extended library were fixed. 59012. Some defects from [Coverity Scan][11] were fixed. 591 592## 1.1.4 593 594This release contains a fix to the build system that allows it to build on older 595versions of `glibc`. 596 597## 1.1.3 598 599This release contains a fix for a bug in the test suite where `bc` tests and 600`dc` tests could not be run in parallel. 601 602## 1.1.2 603 604This release has a fix for a history bug; the down arrow did not work. 605 606## 1.1.1 607 608This release fixes a bug in the `1.1.0` build system. The source is exactly the 609same. 610 611The bug that was fixed was a failure to install if no `EXECSUFFIX` was used. 612 613## 1.1.0 614 615This is a production release. However, many new features were added since `1.0`. 616 6171. **The build system has been changed** to use a custom, POSIX 618 shell-compatible configure script ([`configure.sh`][6]) to generate a POSIX 619 make-compatible `Makefile`, which means that `bc` and `dc` now build out of 620 the box on any POSIX-compatible system. 6212. Out-of-memory and output errors now cause the `bc` to report the error, 622 clean up, and die, rather than just reporting and trying to continue. 6233. **Strings and constants are now garbage collected** when possible. 6244. Signal handling and checking has been made more simple and more thorough. 6255. `BcGlobals` was refactored into `BcVm` and `BcVm` was made global. Some 626 procedure names were changed to reflect its difference to everything else. 6276. Addition got a speed improvement. 6287. Some common code for addition and multiplication was refactored into its own 629 procedure. 6308. A bug was removed where `dc` could have been selected, but the internal 631 `#define` that returned `true` for a query about `dc` would not have 632 returned `true`. 6339. Useless calls to `bc_num_zero()` were removed. 63410. **History support was added.** The history support is based off of a 635 [UTF-8 aware fork][7] of [`linenoise`][8], which has been customized with 636 `bc`'s own data structures and signal handling. 63711. Generating C source from the math library now removes tabs from the library, 638 shrinking the size of the executable. 63912. The math library was shrunk. 64013. Error handling and reporting was improved. 64114. Reallocations were reduced by giving access to the request size for each 642 operation. 64315. **`abs()` (`b` command for `dc`) was added as a builtin.** 64416. Both calculators were tested on FreeBSD. 64517. Many obscure parse bugs were fixed. 64618. Markdown and man page manuals were added, and the man pages are installed by 647 `make install`. 64819. Executable size was reduced, though the added features probably made the 649 executable end up bigger. 65020. **GNU-style array references were added as a supported feature.** 65121. Allocations were reduced. 65222. **New operators were added**: `$` (`$` for `dc`), `@` (`@` for `dc`), `@=`, 653 `<<` (`H` for `dc`), `<<=`, `>>` (`h` for `dc`), and `>>=`. See the 654 [`bc` manual][9] and the [`dc` manual][10] for more details. 65523. **An extended math library was added.** This library contains code that 656 makes it so I can replace my desktop calculator with this `bc`. See the 657 [`bc` manual][3] for more details. 65824. Support for all capital letters as numbers was added. 65925. **Support for GNU-style void functions was added.** 66026. A bug fix for improper handling of function parameters was added. 66127. Precedence for the or (`||`) operator was changed to match GNU `bc`. 66228. `dc` was given an explicit negation command. 66329. `dc` was changed to be able to handle strings in arrays. 664 665## 1.1 Release Candidate 3 666 667This release is the eighth release candidate for 1.1, though it is the third 668release candidate meant as a general release candidate. The new code has not 669been tested as thoroughly as it should for release. 670 671## 1.1 Release Candidate 2 672 673This release is the seventh release candidate for 1.1, though it is the second 674release candidate meant as a general release candidate. The new code has not 675been tested as thoroughly as it should for release. 676 677## 1.1 FreeBSD Beta 5 678 679This release is the sixth release candidate for 1.1, though it is the fifth 680release candidate meant specifically to test if `bc` works on FreeBSD. The new 681code has not been tested as thoroughly as it should for release. 682 683## 1.1 FreeBSD Beta 4 684 685This release is the fifth release candidate for 1.1, though it is the fourth 686release candidate meant specifically to test if `bc` works on FreeBSD. The new 687code has not been tested as thoroughly as it should for release. 688 689## 1.1 FreeBSD Beta 3 690 691This release is the fourth release candidate for 1.1, though it is the third 692release candidate meant specifically to test if `bc` works on FreeBSD. The new 693code has not been tested as thoroughly as it should for release. 694 695## 1.1 FreeBSD Beta 2 696 697This release is the third release candidate for 1.1, though it is the second 698release candidate meant specifically to test if `bc` works on FreeBSD. The new 699code has not been tested as thoroughly as it should for release. 700 701## 1.1 FreeBSD Beta 1 702 703This release is the second release candidate for 1.1, though it is meant 704specifically to test if `bc` works on FreeBSD. The new code has not been tested as 705thoroughly as it should for release. 706 707## 1.1 Release Candidate 1 708 709This is the first release candidate for 1.1. The new code has not been tested as 710thoroughly as it should for release. 711 712## 1.0 713 714This is the first non-beta release. `bc` is ready for production use. 715 716As such, a lot has changed since 0.5. 717 7181. `dc` has been added. It has been tested even more thoroughly than `bc` was 719 for `0.5`. It does not have the `!` command, and for security reasons, it 720 never will, so it is complete. 7212. `bc` has been more thoroughly tested. An entire section of the test suite 722 (for both programs) has been added to test for errors. 7233. A prompt (`>>> `) has been added for interactive mode, making it easier to 724 see inputs and outputs. 7254. Interrupt handling has been improved, including elimination of race 726 conditions (as much as possible). 7275. MinGW and [Windows Subsystem for Linux][1] support has been added (see 728 [xstatic][2] for binaries). 7296. Memory leaks and errors have been eliminated (as far as ASan and Valgrind 730 can tell). 7317. Crashes have been eliminated (as far as [afl][3] can tell). 7328. Karatsuba multiplication was added (and thoroughly) tested, speeding up 733 multiplication and power by orders of magnitude. 7349. Performance was further enhanced by using a "divmod" function to reduce 735 redundant divisions and by removing superfluous `memset()` calls. 73610. To switch between Karatsuba and `O(n^2)` multiplication, the config variable 737 `BC_NUM_KARATSUBA_LEN` was added. It is set to a sane default, but the 738 optimal number can be found with [`karatsuba.py`][4] (requires Python 3) 739 and then configured through `make`. 74011. The random math test generator script was changed to Python 3 and improved. 741 `bc` and `dc` have together been run through 30+ million random tests. 74212. All known math bugs have been fixed, including out of control memory 743 allocations in `sine` and `cosine` (that was actually a parse bug), certain 744 cases of infinite loop on square root, and slight inaccuracies (as much as 745 possible; see the [README][5]) in transcendental functions. 74613. Parsing has been fixed as much as possible. 74714. Test coverage was improved to 94.8%. The only paths not covered are ones 748 that happen when `malloc()` or `realloc()` fails. 74915. An extension to get the length of an array was added. 75016. The boolean not (`!`) had its precedence change to match negation. 75117. Data input was hardened. 75218. `bc` was made fully compliant with POSIX when the `-s` flag is used or 753 `POSIXLY_CORRECT` is defined. 75419. Error handling was improved. 75520. `bc` now checks that files it is given are not directories. 756 757## 1.0 Release Candidate 7 758 759This is the seventh release candidate for 1.0. It fixes a few bugs in 1.0 760Release Candidate 6. 761 762## 1.0 Release Candidate 6 763 764This is the sixth release candidate for 1.0. It fixes a few bugs in 1.0 Release 765Candidate 5. 766 767## 1.0 Release Candidate 5 768 769This is the fifth release candidate for 1.0. It fixes a few bugs in 1.0 Release 770Candidate 4. 771 772## 1.0 Release Candidate 4 773 774This is the fourth release candidate for 1.0. It fixes a few bugs in 1.0 Release 775Candidate 3. 776 777## 1.0 Release Candidate 3 778 779This is the third release candidate for 1.0. It fixes a few bugs in 1.0 Release 780Candidate 2. 781 782## 1.0 Release Candidate 2 783 784This is the second release candidate for 1.0. It fixes a few bugs in 1.0 Release 785Candidate 1. 786 787## 1.0 Release Candidate 1 788 789This is the first Release Candidate for 1.0. `bc` is complete, with `dc`, but it 790is not tested. 791 792## 0.5 793 794This beta release completes more features, but it is still not complete nor 795tested as thoroughly as necessary. 796 797## 0.4.1 798 799This beta release fixes a few bugs in 0.4. 800 801## 0.4 802 803This is a beta release. It does not have the complete set of features, and it is 804not thoroughly tested. 805 806[1]: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/install-win10 807[2]: https://pkg.musl.cc/bc/ 808[3]: http://lcamtuf.coredump.cx/afl/ 809[4]: ./karatsuba.py 810[5]: ./README.md 811[6]: ./configure.sh 812[7]: https://github.com/rain-1/linenoise-mob 813[8]: https://github.com/antirez/linenoise 814[9]: ./manuals/bc.1.ronn 815[10]: ./manuals/dc.1.ronn 816[11]: https://scan.coverity.com/projects/gavinhoward-bc 817[12]: ./locale_install.sh 818[13]: ./manuals/build.md 819[14]: https://github.com/stesser 820[15]: https://github.com/bugcrazy 821[16]: ./manuals/bc.1.ronn#extended-library 822[17]: https://github.com/skeeto/optparse 823[18]: https://www.deepl.com/translator 824[19]: ./manuals/benchmarks.md 825