1# News 2 3## 4.0.2 4 5This is a production release that fixes two bugs: 6 71. If no files are used and the first statement on `stdin` is invalid, `scale` 8 would not be set to `20` even if `-l` was used. 92. When using history, `bc` failed to respond properly to `SIGSTOP` and 10 `SIGTSTP`. 11 12## 4.0.1 13 14This is a production release that only adds one thing: flushing output when it 15is printed with a print statement. 16 17## 4.0.0 18 19This is a production release with many fixes, a new command-line option, and a 20big surprise: 21 22* A bug was fixed in `dc`'s `P` command where the item on the stack was *not* 23 popped. 24* Various bugs in the manuals have been fixed. 25* A known bug was fixed where history did not interact well with prompts printed 26 by user code without newlines. 27* A new command-line option, `-R` and `--no-read-prompt` was added to disable 28 just the prompt when using `read()` (`bc`) or `?` (`dc`). 29* And finally, **official support for Windows was added**. 30 31The last item is why this is a major version bump. 32 33Currently, only one set of build options (extra math and prompt enabled, history 34and NLS/locale support disabled, both calculators enabled) is supported on 35Windows. However, both debug and release builds are supported. 36 37In addition, Windows builds are supported for the the library (`bcl`). 38 39For more details about how to build on Windows, see the [README][5] or the 40[build manual][13]. 41 42## 3.3.4 43 44This is a production release that fixes a small bug. 45 46The bug was that output was not flushed before a `read()` call, so prompts 47without a newline on the end were not flushed before the `read()` call. 48 49This is such a tiny bug that users only need to upgrade if they are affected. 50 51## 3.3.3 52 53This is a production release with one tweak and fixes for manuals. 54 55The tweak is that `length(0)` returns `1` instead of `0`. In `3.3.1`, I changed 56it so `length(0.x)`, where `x` could be any number of digits, returned the 57`scale`, but `length(0)` still returned `0` because I believe that `0` has `0` 58significant digits. 59 60After request of FreeBSD and considering the arguments of a mathematician, 61compatibility with other `bc`'s, and the expectations of users, I decided to 62make the change. 63 64The fixes for manuals fixed a bug where `--` was rendered as `-`. 65 66## 3.3.2 67 68This is a production release that fixes a divide-by-zero bug in `root()` in the 69[extended math library][16]. All previous versions with `root()` have the bug. 70 71## 3.3.1 72 73This is a production release that fixes a bug. 74 75The bug was in the reporting of number length when the value was 0. 76 77## 3.3.0 78 79This is a production release that changes one behavior and fixes documentation 80bugs. 81 82The changed behavior is the treatment of `-e` and `-f` when given through 83`BC_ENV_ARGS` or `DC_ENV_ARGS`. Now `bc` and `dc` do not exit when those options 84(or their equivalents) are given through those environment variables. However, 85`bc` and `dc` still exit when they or their equivalents are given on the 86command-line. 87 88## 3.2.7 89 90This is a production release that removes a small non-portable shell operation 91in `configure.sh`. This problem was only noticed on OpenBSD, not FreeBSD or 92Linux. 93 94Non-OpenBSD users do ***NOT*** need to upgrade, although NetBSD users may also 95need to upgrade. 96 97## 3.2.6 98 99This is a production release that fixes the build on FreeBSD. 100 101There was a syntax error in `configure.sh` that the Linux shell did not catch, 102and FreeBSD depends on the existence of `tests/all.sh`. 103 104All users that already upgraded to `3.2.5` should update to this release, with 105my apologies for the poor release of `3.2.5`. Other users should skip `3.2.5` in 106favor of this version. 107 108## 3.2.5 109 110This is a production release that fixes several bugs and adds a couple small 111things. 112 113The two most important bugs were bugs that causes `dc` to access memory 114out-of-bounds (crash in debug builds). This was found by upgrading to `afl++` 115from `afl`. Both were caused by a failure to distinguish between the same two 116cases. 117 118Another bug was the failure to put all of the licenses in the `LICENSE.md` file. 119 120Third, some warnings by `scan-build` were found and eliminated. This needed one 121big change: `bc` and `dc` now bail out as fast as possible on fatal errors 122instead of unwinding the stack. 123 124Fourth, the pseudo-random number now attempts to seed itself with `/dev/random` 125if `/dev/urandom` fails. 126 127Finally, this release has a few quality-of-life changes to the build system. The 128usage should not change at all; the only thing that changed was making sure the 129`Makefile.in` was written to rebuild properly when headers changed and to not 130rebuild when not necessary. 131 132## 3.2.4 133 134This is a production release that fixes a warning on `gcc` 6 or older, which 135does not have an attribute that is used. 136 137Users do ***NOT*** need to upgrade if they don't use `gcc` 6 or older. 138 139## 3.2.3 140 141This is a production release that fixes a bug in `gen/strgen.sh`. I recently 142changed `gen/strgen.c`, but I did not change `gen/strgen.sh`. 143 144Users that do not use `gen/strgen.sh` do not need to upgrade. 145 146## 3.2.2 147 148This is a production release that fixes a portability bug in `configure.sh`. The 149bug was using the GNU `find` extension `-wholename`. 150 151## 3.2.1 152 153This is a production release that has one fix for `bcl(3)`. It is technically 154not a bug fix since the behavior is undefined, but the `BclNumber`s that 155`bcl_divmod()` returns will be set to `BCL_ERROR_INVALID_NUM` if there is an 156error. Previously, they were not set. 157 158## 3.2.0 159 160This is a production release that has one bug fix and a major addition. 161 162The bug fix was a missing `auto` variable in the bessel `j()` function in the 163math library. 164 165The major addition is a way to build a version of `bc`'s math code as a library. 166This is done with the `-a` option to `configure.sh`. The API for the library can 167be read in `./manuals/bcl.3.md` or `man bcl` once the library is installed with 168`make install`. 169 170This library was requested by developers before I even finished version 1.0, but 171I could not figure out how to do it until now. 172 173If the library has API breaking changes, the major version of `bc` will be 174incremented. 175 176## 3.1.6 177 178This is a production release that fixes a new warning from Clang 12 for FreeBSD 179and also removes some possible undefined behavior found by UBSan that compilers 180did not seem to take advantage of. 181 182Users do ***NOT*** need to upgrade, if they do not want to. 183 184## 3.1.5 185 186This is a production release that fixes the Chinese locales (which caused `bc` 187to crash) and a crash caused by `bc` executing code when it should not have been 188able to. 189 190***ALL USERS SHOULD UPGRADE.*** 191 192## 3.1.4 193 194This is a production release that fixes one bug, changes two behaviors, and 195removes one environment variable. 196 197The bug is like the one in the last release except it applies if files are being 198executed. I also made the fix more general. 199 200The behavior that was changed is that `bc` now exits when given `-e`, `-f`, 201`--expression` or `--file`. However, if the last one of those is `-f-` (using 202`stdin` as the file), `bc` does not exit. If `-f-` exists and is not the last of 203the `-e` and `-f` options (and equivalents), `bc` gives a fatal error and exits. 204 205Next, I removed the `BC_EXPR_EXIT` and `DC_EXPR_EXIT` environment variables 206since their use is not needed with the behavior change. 207 208Finally, I made it so `bc` does not print the header, though the `-q` and 209`--quiet` options were kept for compatibility with GNU `bc`. 210 211## 3.1.3 212 213This is a production release that fixes one minor bug: if `bc` was invoked like 214the following, it would error: 215 216``` 217echo "if (1 < 3) 1" | bc 218``` 219 220Unless users run into this bug, they do not need to upgrade, but it is suggested 221that they do. 222 223## 3.1.2 224 225This is a production release that adds a way to install *all* locales. Users do 226***NOT*** need to upgrade. 227 228For package maintainers wishing to make use of the change, just pass `-l` to 229`configure.sh`. 230 231## 3.1.1 232 233This is a production release that adds two Spanish locales. Users do ***NOT*** 234need to upgrade, unless they want those locales. 235 236## 3.1.0 237 238This is a production release that adjusts one behavior, fixes eight bugs, and 239improves manpages for FreeBSD. Because this release fixes bugs, **users and 240package maintainers should update to this version as soon as possible**. 241 242The behavior that was adjusted was how code from the `-e` and `-f` arguments 243(and equivalents) were executed. They used to be executed as one big chunk, but 244in this release, they are now executed line-by-line. 245 246The first bug fix in how output to `stdout` was handled in `SIGINT`. If a 247`SIGINT` came in, the `stdout` buffer was not correctly flushed. In fact, a 248clean-up function was not getting called. This release fixes that bug. 249 250The second bug is in how `dc` handled input from `stdin`. This affected `bc` as 251well since it was a mishandling of the `stdin` buffer. 252 253The third fixed bug was that `bc` and `dc` could `abort()` (in debug mode) when 254receiving a `SIGTERM`. This one was a race condition with pushing and popping 255items onto and out of vectors. 256 257The fourth bug fixed was that `bc` could leave extra items on the stack and 258thus, not properly clean up some memory. (The memory would still get 259`free()`'ed, but it would not be `free()`'ed when it could have been.) 260 261The next two bugs were bugs in `bc`'s parser that caused crashes when executing 262the resulting code. 263 264The last two bugs were crashes in `dc` that resulted from mishandling of 265strings. 266 267The manpage improvement was done by switching from [ronn][20] to [Pandoc][21] to 268generate manpages. Pandoc generates much cleaner manpages and doesn't leave 269blank lines where they shouldn't be. 270 271## 3.0.3 272 273This is a production release that adds one new feature: specific manpages. 274 275Before this release, `bc` and `dc` only used one manpage each that referred to 276various build options. This release changes it so there is one manpage set per 277relevant build type. Each manual only has information about its particular 278build, and `configure.sh` selects the correct set for install. 279 280## 3.0.2 281 282This is a production release that adds `utf8` locale symlinks and removes an 283unused `auto` variable from the `ceil()` function in the [extended math 284library][16]. 285 286Users do ***NOT*** need to update unless they want the locales. 287 288## 3.0.1 289 290This is a production release with two small changes. Users do ***NOT*** need to 291upgrade to this release; however, if they haven't upgraded to `3.0.0` yet, it 292may be worthwhile to upgrade to this release. 293 294The first change is fixing a compiler warning on FreeBSD with strict warnings 295on. 296 297The second change is to make the new implementation of `ceil()` in `lib2.bc` 298much more efficient. 299 300## 3.0.0 301 302*Notes for package maintainers:* 303 304*First, the `2.7.0` release series saw a change in the option parsing. This made 305me change one error message and add a few others. The error message that was 306changed removed one format specifier. This means that `printf()` will seqfault 307on old locale files. Unfortunately, `bc` cannot use any locale files except the 308global ones that are already installed, so it will use the previous ones while 309running tests during install. **If `bc` segfaults while running arg tests when 310updating, it is because the global locale files have not been replaced. Make 311sure to either prevent the test suite from running on update or remove the old 312locale files before updating.** (Removing the locale files can be done with 313`make uninstall` or by running the `locale_uninstall.sh` script.) Once this is 314done, `bc` should install without problems.* 315 316*Second, **the option to build without signal support has been removed**. See 317below for the reasons why.* 318 319This is a production release with some small bug fixes, a few improvements, 320three major bug fixes, and a complete redesign of `bc`'s error and signal 321handling. **Users and package maintainers should update to this version as soon 322as possible.** 323 324The first major bug fix was in how `bc` executed files. Previously, a whole file 325was parsed before it was executed, but if a function is defined *after* code, 326especially if the function definition was actually a redefinition, and the code 327before the definition referred to the previous function, this `bc` would replace 328the function before executing any code. The fix was to make sure that all code 329that existed before a function definition was executed. 330 331The second major bug fix was in `bc`'s `lib2.bc`. The `ceil()` function had a 332bug where a `0` in the decimal place after the truncation position, caused it to 333output the wrong numbers if there was any non-zero digit after. 334 335The third major bug is that when passing parameters to functions, if an 336expression included an array (not an array element) as a parameter, it was 337accepted, when it should have been rejected. It is now correctly rejected. 338 339Beyond that, this `bc` got several improvements that both sped it up, improved 340the handling of signals, and improved the error handling. 341 342First, the requirements for `bc` were pushed back to POSIX 2008. `bc` uses one 343function, `strdup()`, which is not in POSIX 2001, and it is in the X/Open System 344Interfaces group 2001. It is, however, in POSIX 2008, and since POSIX 2008 is 345old enough to be supported anywhere that I care, that should be the requirement. 346 347Second, the BcVm global variable was put into `bss`. This actually slightly 348reduces the size of the executable from a massive code shrink, and it will stop 349`bc` from allocating a large set of memory when `bc` starts. 350 351Third, the default Karatsuba length was updated from 64 to 32 after making the 352optimization changes below, since 32 is going to be better than 64 after the 353changes. 354 355Fourth, Spanish translations were added. 356 357Fifth, the interpreter received a speedup to make performance on non-math-heavy 358scripts more competitive with GNU `bc`. While improvements did, in fact, get it 359much closer (see the [benchmarks][19]), it isn't quite there. 360 361There were several things done to speed up the interpreter: 362 363First, several small inefficiencies were removed. These inefficiencies included 364calling the function `bc_vec_pop(v)` twice instead of calling 365`bc_vec_npop(v, 2)`. They also included an extra function call for checking the 366size of the stack and checking the size of the stack more than once on several 367operations. 368 369Second, since the current `bc` function is the one that stores constants and 370strings, the program caches pointers to the current function's vectors of 371constants and strings to prevent needing to grab the current function in order 372to grab a constant or a string. 373 374Third, `bc` tries to reuse `BcNum`'s (the internal representation of 375arbitary-precision numbers). If a `BcNum` has the default capacity of 376`BC_NUM_DEF_SIZE` (32 on 64-bit and 16 on 32-bit) when it is freed, it is added 377to a list of available `BcNum`'s. And then, when a `BcNum` is allocated with a 378capacity of `BC_NUM_DEF_SIZE` and any `BcNum`'s exist on the list of reusable 379ones, one of those ones is grabbed instead. 380 381In order to support these changes, the `BC_NUM_DEF_SIZE` was changed. It used to 382be 16 bytes on all systems, but it was changed to more closely align with the 383minimum allocation size on Linux, which is either 32 bytes (64-bit musl), 24 384bytes (64-bit glibc), 16 bytes (32-bit musl), or 12 bytes (32-bit glibc). Since 385these are the minimum allocation sizes, these are the sizes that would be 386allocated anyway, making it worth it to just use the whole space, so the value 387of `BC_NUM_DEF_SIZE` on 64-bit systems was changed to 32 bytes. 388 389On top of that, at least on 64-bit, `BC_NUM_DEF_SIZE` supports numbers with 390either 72 integer digits or 45 integer digits and 27 fractional digits. This 391should be more than enough for most cases since `bc`'s default `scale` values 392are 0 or 20, meaning that, by default, it has at most 20 fractional digits. And 39345 integer digits are *a lot*; it's enough to calculate the amount of mass in 394the Milky Way galaxy in kilograms. Also, 72 digits is enough to calculate the 395diameter of the universe in Planck lengths. 396 397(For 32-bit, these numbers are either 32 integer digits or 12 integer digits and 39820 fractional digits. These are also quite big, and going much bigger on a 39932-bit system seems a little pointless since 12 digits in just under a trillion 400and 20 fractional digits is still enough for about any use since `10^-20` light 401years is just under a millimeter.) 402 403All of this together means that for ordinary uses, and even uses in scientific 404work, the default number size will be all that is needed, which means that 405nearly all, if not all, numbers will be reused, relieving pressure on the system 406allocator. 407 408I did several experiments to find the changes that had the most impact, 409especially with regard to reusing `BcNum`'s. One was putting `BcNum`'s into 410buckets according to their capacity in powers of 2 up to 512. That performed 411worse than `bc` did in `2.7.2`. Another was putting any `BcNum` on the reuse 412list that had a capacity of `BC_NUM_DEF_SIZE * 2` and reusing them for `BcNum`'s 413that requested `BC_NUM_DEF_SIZE`. This did reduce the amount of time spent, but 414it also spent a lot of time in the system allocator for an unknown reason. (When 415using `strace`, a bunch more `brk` calls showed up.) Just reusing `BcNum`'s that 416had exactly `BC_NUM_DEF_SIZE` capacity spent the smallest amount of time in both 417user and system time. This makes sense, especially with the changes to make 418`BC_NUM_DEF_SIZE` bigger on 64-bit systems, since the vast majority of numbers 419will only ever use numbers with a size less than or equal to `BC_NUM_DEF_SIZE`. 420 421Last of all, `bc`'s signal handling underwent a complete redesign. (This is the 422reason that this version is `3.0.0` and not `2.8.0`.) The change was to move 423from a polling approach to signal handling to an interrupt-based approach. 424 425Previously, every single loop condition had a check for signals. I suspect that 426this could be expensive when in tight loops. 427 428Now, the signal handler just uses `longjmp()` (actually `siglongjmp()`) to start 429an unwinding of the stack until it is stopped or the stack is unwound to 430`main()`, which just returns. If `bc` is currently executing code that cannot be 431safely interrupted (according to POSIX), then signals are "locked." The signal 432handler checks if the lock is taken, and if it is, it just sets the status to 433indicate that a signal arrived. Later, when the signal lock is released, the 434status is checked to see if a signal came in. If so, the stack unwinding starts. 435 436This design eliminates polling in favor of maintaining a stack of `jmp_buf`'s. 437This has its own performance implications, but it gives better interaction. And 438the cost of pushing and popping a `jmp_buf` in a function is paid at most twice. 439Most functions do not pay that price, and most of the rest only pay it once. 440(There are only some 3 functions in `bc` that push and pop a `jmp_buf` twice.) 441 442As a side effect of this change, I had to eliminate the use of `stdio.h` in `bc` 443because `stdio` does not play nice with signals and `longjmp()`. I implemented 444custom I/O buffer code that takes a fraction of the size. This means that static 445builds will be smaller, but non-static builds will be bigger, though they will 446have less linking time. 447 448This change is also good because my history implementation was already bypassing 449`stdio` for good reasons, and unifying the architecture was a win. 450 451Another reason for this change is that my `bc` should *always* behave correctly 452in the presence of signals like `SIGINT`, `SIGTERM`, and `SIGQUIT`. With the 453addition of my own I/O buffering, I needed to also make sure that the buffers 454were correctly flushed even when such signals happened. 455 456For this reason, I **removed the option to build without signal support**. 457 458As a nice side effect of this change, the error handling code could be changed 459to take advantage of the stack unwinding that signals used. This means that 460signals and error handling use the same code paths, which means that the stack 461unwinding is well-tested. (Errors are tested heavily in the test suite.) 462 463It also means that functions do not need to return a status code that 464***every*** caller needs to check. This eliminated over 100 branches that simply 465checked return codes and then passed that return code up the stack if necessary. 466The code bloat savings from this is at least 1700 bytes on `x86_64`, *before* 467taking into account the extra code from removing `stdio.h`. 468 469## 2.7.2 470 471This is a production release with one major bug fix. 472 473The `length()` built-in function can take either a number or an array. If it 474takes an array, it returns the length of the array. Arrays can be passed by 475reference. The bug is that the `length()` function would not properly 476dereference arrays that were references. This is a bug that affects all users. 477 478**ALL USERS SHOULD UPDATE `bc`**. 479 480## 2.7.1 481 482This is a production release with fixes for new locales and fixes for compiler 483warnings on FreeBSD. 484 485## 2.7.0 486 487This is a production release with a bug fix for Linux, new translations, and new 488features. 489 490Bug fixes: 491 492* Option parsing in `BC_ENV_ARGS` was broken on Linux in 2.6.1 because `glibc`'s 493 `getopt_long()` is broken. To get around that, and to support long options on 494 every platform, an adapted version of [`optparse`][17] was added. Now, `bc` 495 does not even use `getopt()`. 496* Parsing `BC_ENV_ARGS` with quotes now works. It isn't the smartest, but it 497 does the job if there are spaces in file names. 498 499The following new languages are supported: 500 501* Dutch 502* Polish 503* Russian 504* Japanes 505* Simplified Chinese 506 507All of these translations were generated using [DeepL][18], so improvements are 508welcome. 509 510There is only one new feature: **`bc` now has a built-in pseudo-random number 511generator** (PRNG). 512 513The PRNG is seeded, making it useful for applications where 514`/dev/urandom` does not work because output needs to be reproducible. However, 515it also uses `/dev/urandom` to seed itself by default, so it will start with a 516good seed by default. 517 518It also outputs 32 bits on 32-bit platforms and 64 bits on 64-bit platforms, far 519better than the 15 bits of C's `rand()` and `bash`'s `$RANDOM`. 520 521In addition, the PRNG can take a bound, and when it gets a bound, it 522automatically adjusts to remove bias. It can also generate numbers of arbitrary 523size. (As of the time of release, the largest pseudo-random number generated by 524this `bc` was generated with a bound of `2^(2^20)`.) 525 526***IMPORTANT: read the [`bc` manual][9] and the [`dc` manual][10] to find out 527exactly what guarantees the PRNG provides. The underlying implementation is not 528guaranteed to stay the same, but the guarantees that it provides are guaranteed 529to stay the same regardless of the implementation.*** 530 531On top of that, four functions were added to `bc`'s [extended math library][16] 532to make using the PRNG easier: 533 534* `frand(p)`: Generates a number between `[0,1)` to `p` decimal places. 535* `ifrand(i, p)`: Generates an integer with bound `i` and adds it to `frand(p)`. 536* `srand(x)`: Randomizes the sign of `x`. In other words, it flips the sign of 537 `x` with probability `0.5`. 538* `brand()`: Returns a random boolean value (either `0` or `1`). 539 540## 2.6.1 541 542This is a production release with a bug fix for FreeBSD. 543 544The bug was that when `bc` was built without long options, it would give a fatal 545error on every run. This was caused by a mishandling of `optind`. 546 547## 2.6.0 548 549This release is a production release ***with no bugfixes***. If you do not want 550to upgrade, you don't have to. 551 552No source code changed; the only thing that changed was `lib2.bc`. 553 554This release adds one function to the [extended math library][16]: `p(x, y)`, 555which calculates `x` to the power of `y`, whether or not `y` is an integer. (The 556`^` operator can only accept integer powers.) 557 558This release also includes a couple of small tweaks to the [extended math 559library][16], mostly to fix returning numbers with too high of `scale`. 560 561## 2.5.3 562 563This release is a production release which addresses inconsistencies in the 564Portuguese locales. No `bc` code was changed. 565 566The issues were that the ISO files used different naming, and also that the 567files that should have been symlinks were not. I did not catch that because 568GitHub rendered them the exact same way. 569 570## 2.5.2 571 572This release is a production release. 573 574No code was changed, but the build system was changed to allow `CFLAGS` to be 575given to `CC`, like this: 576 577``` 578CC="gcc -O3 -march=native" ./configure.sh 579``` 580 581If this happens, the flags are automatically put into `CFLAGS`, and the compiler 582is set appropriately. In the example above this means that `CC` will be "gcc" 583and `CFLAGS` will be "-O3 -march=native". 584 585This behavior was added to conform to GNU autotools practices. 586 587## 2.5.1 588 589This is a production release which addresses portability concerns discovered 590in the `bc` build system. No `bc` code was changed. 591 592* Support for Solaris SPARC and AIX were added. 593* Minor documentations edits were performed. 594* An option for `configure.sh` was added to disable long options if 595 `getopt_long()` is missing. 596 597## 2.5.0 598 599This is a production release with new translations. No code changed. 600 601The translations were contributed by [bugcrazy][15], and they are for 602Portuguese, both Portugal and Brazil locales. 603 604## 2.4.0 605 606This is a production release primarily aimed at improving `dc`. 607 608* A couple of copy and paste errors in the [`dc` manual][10] were fixed. 609* `dc` startup was optimized by making sure it didn't have to set up `bc`-only 610 things. 611* The `bc` `&&` and `||` operators were made available to `dc` through the `M` 612 and `m` commands, respectively. 613* `dc` macros were changed to be tail call-optimized. 614 615The last item, tail call optimization, means that if the last thing in a macro 616is a call to another macro, then the old macro is popped before executing the 617new macro. This change was made to stop `dc` from consuming more and more memory 618as macros are executed in a loop. 619 620The `q` and `Q` commands still respect the "hidden" macros by way of recording 621how many macros were removed by tail call optimization. 622 623## 2.3.2 624 625This is a production release meant to fix warnings in the Gentoo `ebuild` by 626making it possible to disable binary stripping. Other users do *not* need to 627upgrade. 628 629## 2.3.1 630 631This is a production release. It fixes a bug that caused `-1000000000 < -1` to 632return `0`. This only happened with negative numbers and only if the value on 633the left was more negative by a certain amount. That said, this bug *is* a bad 634bug, and needs to be fixed. 635 636**ALL USERS SHOULD UPDATE `bc`**. 637 638## 2.3.0 639 640This is a production release with changes to the build system. 641 642## 2.2.0 643 644This release is a production release. It only has new features and performance 645improvements. 646 6471. The performance of `sqrt(x)` was improved. 6482. The new function `root(x, n)` was added to the extended math library to 649 calculate `n`th roots. 6503. The new function `cbrt(x)` was added to the extended math library to 651 calculate cube roots. 652 653## 2.1.3 654 655This is a non-critical release; it just changes the build system, and in 656non-breaking ways: 657 6581. Linked locale files were changed to link to their sources with a relative 659 link. 6602. A bug in `configure.sh` that caused long option parsing to fail under `bash` 661 was fixed. 662 663## 2.1.2 664 665This release is not a critical release. 666 6671. A few codes were added to history. 6682. Multiplication was optimized a bit more. 6693. Addition and subtraction were both optimized a bit more. 670 671## 2.1.1 672 673This release contains a fix for the test suite made for Linux from Scratch: now 674the test suite prints `pass` when a test is passed. 675 676Other than that, there is no change in this release, so distros and other users 677do not need to upgrade. 678 679## 2.1.0 680 681This release is a production release. 682 683The following bugs were fixed: 684 6851. A `dc` bug that caused stack mishandling was fixed. 6862. A warning on OpenBSD was fixed. 6873. Bugs in `ctrl+arrow` operations in history were fixed. 6884. The ability to paste multiple lines in history was added. 6895. A `bc` bug, mishandling of array arguments to functions, was fixed. 6906. A crash caused by freeing the wrong pointer was fixed. 6917. A `dc` bug where strings, in a rare case, were mishandled in parsing was 692 fixed. 693 694In addition, the following changes were made: 695 6961. Division was slightly optimized. 6972. An option was added to the build to disable printing of prompts. 6983. The special case of empty arguments is now handled. This is to prevent 699 errors in scripts that end up passing empty arguments. 7004. A harmless bug was fixed. This bug was that, with the pop instructions 701 (mostly) removed (see below), `bc` would leave extra values on its stack for 702 `void` functions and in a few other cases. These extra items would not 703 affect anything put on the stack and would not cause any sort of crash or 704 even buggy behavior, but they would cause `bc` to take more memory than it 705 needed. 706 707On top of the above changes, the following optimizations were added: 708 7091. The need for pop instructions in `bc` was removed. 7102. Extra tests on every iteration of the interpreter loop were removed. 7113. Updating function and code pointers on every iteration of the interpreter 712 loop was changed to only updating them when necessary. 7134. Extra assignments to pointers were removed. 714 715Altogether, these changes sped up the interpreter by around 2x. 716 717***NOTE***: This is the last release with new features because this `bc` is now 718considered complete. From now on, only bug fixes and new translations will be 719added to this `bc`. 720 721## 2.0.3 722 723This is a production, bug-fix release. 724 725Two bugs were fixed in this release: 726 7271. A rare and subtle signal handling bug was fixed. 7282. A misbehavior on `0` to a negative power was fixed. 729 730The last bug bears some mentioning. 731 732When I originally wrote power, I did not thoroughly check its error cases; 733instead, I had it check if the first number was `0` and then if so, just return 734`0`. However, `0` to a negative power means that `1` will be divided by `0`, 735which is an error. 736 737I caught this, but only after I stopped being cocky. You see, sometime later, I 738had noticed that GNU `bc` returned an error, correctly, but I thought it was 739wrong simply because that's not what my `bc` did. I saw it again later and had a 740double take. I checked for real, finally, and found out that my `bc` was wrong 741all along. 742 743That was bad on me. But the bug was easy to fix, so it is fixed now. 744 745There are two other things in this release: 746 7471. Subtraction was optimized by [Stefan Eßer][14]. 7482. Division was also optimized, also by Stefan Eßer. 749 750## 2.0.2 751 752This release contains a fix for a possible overflow in the signal handling. I 753would be surprised if any users ran into it because it would only happen after 2 754billion (`2^31-1`) `SIGINT`'s, but I saw it and had to fix it. 755 756## 2.0.1 757 758This release contains very few things that will apply to any users. 759 7601. A slight bug in `dc`'s interactive mode was fixed. 7612. A bug in the test suite that was only triggered on NetBSD was fixed. 7623. **The `-P`/`--no-prompt` option** was added for users that do not want a 763 prompt. 7644. A `make check` target was added as an alias for `make test`. 7655. `dc` got its own read prompt: `?> `. 766 767## 2.0.0 768 769This release is a production release. 770 771This release is also a little different from previous releases. From here on 772out, I do not plan on adding any more features to this `bc`; I believe that it 773is complete. However, there may be bug fix releases in the future, if I or any 774others manage to find bugs. 775 776This release has only a few new features: 777 7781. `atan2(y, x)` was added to the extended math library as both `a2(y, x)` and 779 `atan2(y, x)`. 7802. Locales were fixed. 7813. A **POSIX shell-compatible script was added as an alternative to compiling 782 `gen/strgen.c`** on a host machine. More details about making the choice 783 between the two can be found by running `./configure.sh --help` or reading 784 the [build manual][13]. 7854. Multiplication was optimized by using **diagonal multiplication**, rather 786 than straight brute force. 7875. The `locale_install.sh` script was fixed. 7886. `dc` was given the ability to **use the environment variable 789 `DC_ENV_ARGS`**. 7907. `dc` was also given the ability to **use the `-i` or `--interactive`** 791 options. 7928. Printing the prompt was fixed so that it did not print when it shouldn't. 7939. Signal handling was fixed. 79410. **Handling of `SIGTERM` and `SIGQUIT`** was fixed. 79511. The **built-in functions `maxibase()`, `maxobase()`, and `maxscale()`** (the 796 commands `T`, `U`, `V` in `dc`, respectively) were added to allow scripts to 797 query for the max allowable values of those globals. 79812. Some incompatibilities with POSIX were fixed. 799 800In addition, this release is `2.0.0` for a big reason: the internal format for 801numbers changed. They used to be a `char` array. Now, they are an array of 802larger integers, packing more decimal digits into each integer. This has 803delivered ***HUGE*** performance improvements, especially for multiplication, 804division, and power. 805 806This `bc` should now be the fastest `bc` available, but I may be wrong. 807 808## 1.2.8 809 810This release contains a fix for a harmless bug (it is harmless in that it still 811works, but it just copies extra data) in the [`locale_install.sh`][12] script. 812 813## 1.2.7 814 815This version contains fixes for the build on Arch Linux. 816 817## 1.2.6 818 819This release removes the use of `local` in shell scripts because it's not POSIX 820shell-compatible, and also updates a man page that should have been updated a 821long time ago but was missed. 822 823## 1.2.5 824 825This release contains some missing locale `*.msg` files. 826 827## 1.2.4 828 829This release contains a few bug fixes and new French translations. 830 831## 1.2.3 832 833This release contains a fix for a bug: use of uninitialized data. Such data was 834only used when outputting an error message, but I am striving for perfection. As 835Michelangelo said, "Trifles make perfection, and perfection is no trifle." 836 837## 1.2.2 838 839This release contains fixes for OpenBSD. 840 841## 1.2.1 842 843This release contains bug fixes for some rare bugs. 844 845## 1.2.0 846 847This is a production release. 848 849There have been several changes since `1.1.0`: 850 8511. The build system had some changes. 8522. Locale support has been added. (Patches welcome for translations.) 8533. **The ability to turn `ibase`, `obase`, and `scale` into stacks** was added 854 with the `-g` command-line option. (See the [`bc` manual][9] for more 855 details.) 8564. Support for compiling on Mac OSX out of the box was added. 8575. The extended math library got `t(x)`, `ceil(x)`, and some aliases. 8586. The extended math library also got `r2d(x)` (for converting from radians to 859 degrees) and `d2r(x)` (for converting from degrees to radians). This is to 860 allow using degrees with the standard library. 8617. Both calculators now accept numbers in **scientific notation**. See the 862 [`bc` manual][9] and the [`dc` manual][10] for details. 8638. Both calculators can **output in either scientific or engineering 864 notation**. See the [`bc` manual][9] and the [`dc` manual][10] for details. 8659. Some inefficiencies were removed. 86610. Some bugs were fixed. 86711. Some bugs in the extended library were fixed. 86812. Some defects from [Coverity Scan][11] were fixed. 869 870## 1.1.4 871 872This release contains a fix to the build system that allows it to build on older 873versions of `glibc`. 874 875## 1.1.3 876 877This release contains a fix for a bug in the test suite where `bc` tests and 878`dc` tests could not be run in parallel. 879 880## 1.1.2 881 882This release has a fix for a history bug; the down arrow did not work. 883 884## 1.1.1 885 886This release fixes a bug in the `1.1.0` build system. The source is exactly the 887same. 888 889The bug that was fixed was a failure to install if no `EXECSUFFIX` was used. 890 891## 1.1.0 892 893This is a production release. However, many new features were added since `1.0`. 894 8951. **The build system has been changed** to use a custom, POSIX 896 shell-compatible configure script ([`configure.sh`][6]) to generate a POSIX 897 make-compatible `Makefile`, which means that `bc` and `dc` now build out of 898 the box on any POSIX-compatible system. 8992. Out-of-memory and output errors now cause the `bc` to report the error, 900 clean up, and die, rather than just reporting and trying to continue. 9013. **Strings and constants are now garbage collected** when possible. 9024. Signal handling and checking has been made more simple and more thorough. 9035. `BcGlobals` was refactored into `BcVm` and `BcVm` was made global. Some 904 procedure names were changed to reflect its difference to everything else. 9056. Addition got a speed improvement. 9067. Some common code for addition and multiplication was refactored into its own 907 procedure. 9088. A bug was removed where `dc` could have been selected, but the internal 909 `#define` that returned `true` for a query about `dc` would not have 910 returned `true`. 9119. Useless calls to `bc_num_zero()` were removed. 91210. **History support was added.** The history support is based off of a 913 [UTF-8 aware fork][7] of [`linenoise`][8], which has been customized with 914 `bc`'s own data structures and signal handling. 91511. Generating C source from the math library now removes tabs from the library, 916 shrinking the size of the executable. 91712. The math library was shrunk. 91813. Error handling and reporting was improved. 91914. Reallocations were reduced by giving access to the request size for each 920 operation. 92115. **`abs()` (`b` command for `dc`) was added as a builtin.** 92216. Both calculators were tested on FreeBSD. 92317. Many obscure parse bugs were fixed. 92418. Markdown and man page manuals were added, and the man pages are installed by 925 `make install`. 92619. Executable size was reduced, though the added features probably made the 927 executable end up bigger. 92820. **GNU-style array references were added as a supported feature.** 92921. Allocations were reduced. 93022. **New operators were added**: `$` (`$` for `dc`), `@` (`@` for `dc`), `@=`, 931 `<<` (`H` for `dc`), `<<=`, `>>` (`h` for `dc`), and `>>=`. See the 932 [`bc` manual][9] and the [`dc` manual][10] for more details. 93323. **An extended math library was added.** This library contains code that 934 makes it so I can replace my desktop calculator with this `bc`. See the 935 [`bc` manual][3] for more details. 93624. Support for all capital letters as numbers was added. 93725. **Support for GNU-style void functions was added.** 93826. A bug fix for improper handling of function parameters was added. 93927. Precedence for the or (`||`) operator was changed to match GNU `bc`. 94028. `dc` was given an explicit negation command. 94129. `dc` was changed to be able to handle strings in arrays. 942 943## 1.1 Release Candidate 3 944 945This release is the eighth release candidate for 1.1, though it is the third 946release candidate meant as a general release candidate. The new code has not 947been tested as thoroughly as it should for release. 948 949## 1.1 Release Candidate 2 950 951This release is the seventh release candidate for 1.1, though it is the second 952release candidate meant as a general release candidate. The new code has not 953been tested as thoroughly as it should for release. 954 955## 1.1 FreeBSD Beta 5 956 957This release is the sixth release candidate for 1.1, though it is the fifth 958release candidate meant specifically to test if `bc` works on FreeBSD. The new 959code has not been tested as thoroughly as it should for release. 960 961## 1.1 FreeBSD Beta 4 962 963This release is the fifth release candidate for 1.1, though it is the fourth 964release candidate meant specifically to test if `bc` works on FreeBSD. The new 965code has not been tested as thoroughly as it should for release. 966 967## 1.1 FreeBSD Beta 3 968 969This release is the fourth release candidate for 1.1, though it is the third 970release candidate meant specifically to test if `bc` works on FreeBSD. The new 971code has not been tested as thoroughly as it should for release. 972 973## 1.1 FreeBSD Beta 2 974 975This release is the third release candidate for 1.1, though it is the second 976release candidate meant specifically to test if `bc` works on FreeBSD. The new 977code has not been tested as thoroughly as it should for release. 978 979## 1.1 FreeBSD Beta 1 980 981This release is the second release candidate for 1.1, though it is meant 982specifically to test if `bc` works on FreeBSD. The new code has not been tested as 983thoroughly as it should for release. 984 985## 1.1 Release Candidate 1 986 987This is the first release candidate for 1.1. The new code has not been tested as 988thoroughly as it should for release. 989 990## 1.0 991 992This is the first non-beta release. `bc` is ready for production use. 993 994As such, a lot has changed since 0.5. 995 9961. `dc` has been added. It has been tested even more thoroughly than `bc` was 997 for `0.5`. It does not have the `!` command, and for security reasons, it 998 never will, so it is complete. 9992. `bc` has been more thoroughly tested. An entire section of the test suite 1000 (for both programs) has been added to test for errors. 10013. A prompt (`>>> `) has been added for interactive mode, making it easier to 1002 see inputs and outputs. 10034. Interrupt handling has been improved, including elimination of race 1004 conditions (as much as possible). 10055. MinGW and [Windows Subsystem for Linux][1] support has been added (see 1006 [xstatic][2] for binaries). 10076. Memory leaks and errors have been eliminated (as far as ASan and Valgrind 1008 can tell). 10097. Crashes have been eliminated (as far as [afl][3] can tell). 10108. Karatsuba multiplication was added (and thoroughly) tested, speeding up 1011 multiplication and power by orders of magnitude. 10129. Performance was further enhanced by using a "divmod" function to reduce 1013 redundant divisions and by removing superfluous `memset()` calls. 101410. To switch between Karatsuba and `O(n^2)` multiplication, the config variable 1015 `BC_NUM_KARATSUBA_LEN` was added. It is set to a sane default, but the 1016 optimal number can be found with [`karatsuba.py`][4] (requires Python 3) 1017 and then configured through `make`. 101811. The random math test generator script was changed to Python 3 and improved. 1019 `bc` and `dc` have together been run through 30+ million random tests. 102012. All known math bugs have been fixed, including out of control memory 1021 allocations in `sine` and `cosine` (that was actually a parse bug), certain 1022 cases of infinite loop on square root, and slight inaccuracies (as much as 1023 possible; see the [README][5]) in transcendental functions. 102413. Parsing has been fixed as much as possible. 102514. Test coverage was improved to 94.8%. The only paths not covered are ones 1026 that happen when `malloc()` or `realloc()` fails. 102715. An extension to get the length of an array was added. 102816. The boolean not (`!`) had its precedence change to match negation. 102917. Data input was hardened. 103018. `bc` was made fully compliant with POSIX when the `-s` flag is used or 1031 `POSIXLY_CORRECT` is defined. 103219. Error handling was improved. 103320. `bc` now checks that files it is given are not directories. 1034 1035## 1.0 Release Candidate 7 1036 1037This is the seventh release candidate for 1.0. It fixes a few bugs in 1.0 1038Release Candidate 6. 1039 1040## 1.0 Release Candidate 6 1041 1042This is the sixth release candidate for 1.0. It fixes a few bugs in 1.0 Release 1043Candidate 5. 1044 1045## 1.0 Release Candidate 5 1046 1047This is the fifth release candidate for 1.0. It fixes a few bugs in 1.0 Release 1048Candidate 4. 1049 1050## 1.0 Release Candidate 4 1051 1052This is the fourth release candidate for 1.0. It fixes a few bugs in 1.0 Release 1053Candidate 3. 1054 1055## 1.0 Release Candidate 3 1056 1057This is the third release candidate for 1.0. It fixes a few bugs in 1.0 Release 1058Candidate 2. 1059 1060## 1.0 Release Candidate 2 1061 1062This is the second release candidate for 1.0. It fixes a few bugs in 1.0 Release 1063Candidate 1. 1064 1065## 1.0 Release Candidate 1 1066 1067This is the first Release Candidate for 1.0. `bc` is complete, with `dc`, but it 1068is not tested. 1069 1070## 0.5 1071 1072This beta release completes more features, but it is still not complete nor 1073tested as thoroughly as necessary. 1074 1075## 0.4.1 1076 1077This beta release fixes a few bugs in 0.4. 1078 1079## 0.4 1080 1081This is a beta release. It does not have the complete set of features, and it is 1082not thoroughly tested. 1083 1084[1]: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/install-win10 1085[2]: https://pkg.musl.cc/bc/ 1086[3]: http://lcamtuf.coredump.cx/afl/ 1087[4]: ./karatsuba.py 1088[5]: ./README.md 1089[6]: ./configure.sh 1090[7]: https://github.com/rain-1/linenoise-mob 1091[8]: https://github.com/antirez/linenoise 1092[9]: ./manuals/bc/A.1.md 1093[10]: ./manuals/dc/A.1.md 1094[11]: https://scan.coverity.com/projects/gavinhoward-bc 1095[12]: ./locale_install.sh 1096[13]: ./manuals/build.md 1097[14]: https://github.com/stesser 1098[15]: https://github.com/bugcrazy 1099[16]: ./manuals/bc/A.1.md#extended-library 1100[17]: https://github.com/skeeto/optparse 1101[18]: https://www.deepl.com/translator 1102[19]: ./manuals/benchmarks.md 1103[20]: https://github.com/apjanke/ronn-ng 1104[21]: https://pandoc.org/ 1105