xref: /freebsd/contrib/bc/NEWS.md (revision f5541f9f473430a3e608e07f623294322853d25a)
1# News
2
3## 7.0.1
4
5This is a production release that fixes a warning using GCC on FreeBSD.
6
7Other users do ***NOT*** need to upgrade.
8
9## 7.0.0
10
11This is a production release to fix three bugs.
12
13The first bug is that `bc`/`dc` will exit on macOS when the terminal is resized.
14
15The second bug is that an array, which should only be a function parameter, was
16accepted as part of larger expressions.
17
18The third bug is that value stack for `dc` was cleared on any error. However,
19this is not how other `dc` behave. To bring `dc` more in line with other
20implementations, this behavior was changed. This change is why this version is a
21new major version.
22
23## 6.7.6
24
25This is a production release to fix one bug.
26
27The bug was that `bc` attempted to jump out when flushing `stdout` on exit, but
28there is no jump buf at that point.
29
30## 6.7.5
31
32This is a production release to fix one small bug.
33
34The bug is that sometimes numbers are printed to incorrect line lengths. The
35number is always correct; the line is just longer than the limit.
36
37Users who do not care do not need to update.
38
39## 6.7.4
40
41This is a production release to fix problems in the `bc` manual.
42
43Users only need to update if desired.
44
45## 6.7.3
46
47This is a production release to fix the library build on Mac OSX.
48
49Users on other platforms do *not* need to update.
50
51## 6.7.2
52
53This is a production release to remove some debugging code that I accidentally
54committed.
55
56## 6.7.1
57
58This is a production release with a bug fix for `SIGINT` only being handled
59once.
60
61## 6.7.0
62
63This is a production release with three new functions in the [extended math
64library][16]: `min()`, `max()`, and `i2rand()`.
65
66## 6.6.1
67
68This is a production release with an improved `p()` function in the [extended
69math library][16].
70
71Users who don't care do not need to upgrade.
72
73## 6.6.0
74
75This is a production release with two bug fixes and one change.
76
77The first bug fix is to fix the build on Mac OSX.
78
79The second bug was to remove printing a leading zero in scientific or
80engineering output modes.
81
82The change was that the implementation of `irand()` was improved to call the
83PRNG less.
84
85## 6.5.0
86
87This is a production release that fixes an infinite loop bug in `root()` and
88`cbrt()`, fixes a bug with `BC_LINE_LENGTH=0`, and adds the `fib()` function to
89the extended math library to calculate Fibonacci numbers.
90
91## 6.4.0
92
93This is a production release that fixes a `read()`/`?` bug and adds features to
94`bcl`.
95
96The bug was that multiple read calls could repeat old data.
97
98The new features in `bcl` are functions to preserve `BclNumber` arguments and
99not free them.
100
101***WARNING for `bcl` Users***: The `bcl_rand_seedWithNum()` function used to not
102consume its arguments. Now it does. This change could have made this version
103`7.0.0`, but I'm 99.9% confident that there are no `bcl` users, or if there are,
104they probably don't use the PRNG. So I took a risk and didn't update the major
105version.
106
107`bcl` now includes more capacity to check for invalid numbers when built to run
108under Valgrind.
109
110## 6.3.1
111
112This is a production release that fixes a `bc` dependency loop for minimal
113environments and Linux from Scratch.
114
115## 6.3.0
116
117This is a production release with a couple of fixes for manuals and a new
118feature for `dc`: there is now a command to query whether extended registers are
119enabled or not.
120
121Users who don't care do not need to upgrade.
122
123## 6.2.6
124
125This is a production release that fixes an install bug that affected locale
126installation of all locales when using `mksh`. Users do ***NOT*** need to
127upgrade if they don't use `mksh` and/or don't need to install all locales.
128
129## 6.2.5
130
131This is a production release that fixes a test bug that affected Android and
132`mksh`. Users do ***NOT*** need to upgrade unless they use `mksh` or another
133affected shell and need to run the test suite.
134
135## 6.2.4
136
137This is a production release that fixes a test failure that happens when
138`tests/bc/scripts/timeconst.bc` doesn't exist. This should only affect
139packagers.
140
141This bug happened because I forgot something I added in the previous release:
142better error checking in tests to help packagers. Unfortunately, I was too
143zealous with the error checking.
144
145## 6.2.3
146
147This is a production release that moves `bc` to <https://git.gavinhoward.com>.
148
149That's all it does: update links. Users do ***NOT*** need to upgrade; there are
150redirects that will stay in place indefinitely. This release is only for new
151users.
152
153## 6.2.2
154
155This is a production release that fixes a bug.
156
157The bug was that if an array element was used as a parameter, and then a later
158parameter had the same name as the array whose element was used, `bc` would grab
159the element from the new array parameter, not the actual element from before the
160function call.
161
162## 6.2.1
163
164This is a production release with one bug fix for a memory bug in history.
165
166## 6.2.0
167
168This is a production release with a new feature and a few bug fixes.
169
170The bug fixes include:
171
172* A crash when `bc` and `dc` are built using editline, but history is not
173  activated.
174* A missing local in the `uint*()` family of functions in the extended math
175  library.
176* A failure to clear the tail call list in `dc` on error.
177* A crash when attempting to swap characters in command-line history when no
178  characters exist.
179* `SIGWINCH` was activated even when history was not.
180
181The new feature is that stack traces are now given for runtime errors. In debug
182mode, the C source file and line of errors are given as well.
183
184## 6.1.1
185
186This is a production release that fixes a build issue with predefined builds and
187generated tests.
188
189## 6.1.0
190
191This is a production release that fixes a discrepancy from the `bc` standard,
192a couple of memory bugs, and adds new features.
193
194The discrepancy from the `bc` standard was with regards to the behavior of the
195`quit` command. This `bc` used to quit whenever it encountered `quit` during
196parsing, even if it was parsing a full file. Now, `bc` only quits when
197encountering `quit` *after* it has executed all executable statements up to that
198point.
199
200This behavior is slightly different from GNU `bc`, but users will only notice
201the difference if they put `quit` on the same line as other statements.
202
203The first memory bug could be reproduced by assigning a string to a non-local
204variable in a function, then redefining the function with use of the same
205non-local variable, which would still refer to a string in the previous version
206of the function.
207
208The second memory bug was caused by passing an array argument to the `asciify()`
209built-in function. In certain cases, that was wrongly allowed, and the
210interpreter just assumed everything was correct and accessed memory. Now that
211arrays are allowed as arguments (see below), this is not an issue.
212
213The first feature was the addition of the `is_number()` built-in function (`u`
214in `dc`) that returns 1 if the runtime argument is a number and 0 otherwise.
215
216The second feature was the addition of the `is_string()` built-in function (`t`
217in `dc`) that returns 1 if the runtime argument is a string and 0 otherwise.
218
219These features were added because I realized that type-checking is necessary now
220that strings can be assigned to variables in `bc` and because they've always
221been assignable to variables in `dc`.
222
223The last added feature is the ability of the `asciify()` built-in function in
224`bc` to convert a full array of numbers into a string. This means that
225character-by-character printing will not be necessary, and more strings than
226just single-character ones will be able to be created.
227
228## 6.0.4
229
230This is a production release that most users will not need to upgrade to.
231
232This fixes a build bug for `bcl` only on OpenBSD. Users that do not need `bcl`
233or have not run into build errors with `bcl` do ***NOT*** need to upgrade.
234
235## 6.0.3
236
237This is a production release that fixes a build bug for cross-compilation.
238
239Users that do not need cross-compilation do ***NOT*** need to upgrade.
240
241## 6.0.2
242
243This is a production release that fixes two bugs:
244
245* The `-l` option overrode the `-S` option.
246* A double-free and crash when sending a `SIGINT` while executing expressions
247  given on the command-line.
248
249## 6.0.1
250
251This is a production release that fixes memory bugs and memory leaks in `bcl`.
252
253Users that do not use `bcl` (use only `bc` and/or `dc`) do ***NOT*** need to
254upgrade.
255
256These happened because I was unaware that the `bcl` test was not hooked into the
257Valgrind test infrastructure. Then, when I ran the release script, which tests
258everything under Valgrind (or so I thought), it caught nothing, and I thought it
259was safe.
260
261But it was not.
262
263Nevertheless, I have now run it under Valgrind and fixed all of the memory bugs
264(caused by not using `memset()` where I should have but previously didn't have
265to) and memory leaks.
266
267## 6.0.0
268
269This is a production release that fixes an oversight in the `bc` parser (that
270sometimes caused the wrong error message) and adds a feature for compatibility
271with the BSD `bc` and `dc`: turning off digit clamping when parsing numbers.
272
273The default for clamping can be set during the build (see the [build
274manual][13]), it can be set with the `BC_DIGIT_CLAMP` and `DC_DIGIT_CLAMP`
275environment variables, and it can be set with the `-c` and `-C` command-line
276options.
277
278Turning off clamping was also added to the `bcl` library.
279
280In addition, signal handling was removed from the `bcl` library in order to add
281the capability for multi-threading. This required a major version bump. I
282apologize to all library users (I don't know of any), but signals and threads do
283not play well together.
284
285To help with building, a convenience option (`-p`) to `configure.sh` was added
286to build a `bc` and `dc` that is by default compatible with either the BSD `bc`
287and `dc` or the GNU `bc` and `dc`.
288
289## 5.3.3
290
291This is a production release that fixes a build problem in the FreeBSD base
292system.
293
294All other users do **NOT** need to upgrade.
295
296## 5.3.2
297
298This is a production release that fixes prompt bugs with editline and readline
299where the `BC_PROMPT` environment variable was not being respected.
300
301This also fixes editline and readline output on `EOF`.
302
303## 5.3.1
304
305This is a production release that fixes a build problem in the FreeBSD base
306system, as well as a problem in the `en_US` locale. If you don't have problems
307with either, you do not need to upgrade.
308
309## 5.3.0
310
311This is a production release that adds features and has a few bug fixes.
312
313First, support for editline and readline history has been added. To use
314editline, pass `-e` to `configure.sh`, and to use readline, pass `-r`.
315
316Second, history support for Windows has been fixed and re-enabled.
317
318Third, command-line options to set `scale`, `ibase`, `obase`, and `seed` were
319added. This was requested long ago, and I originally disagreed with the idea.
320
321Fourth, the manuals had typos and were missing information. That has been fixed.
322
323Fifth, the manuals received different formatting to be more readable as
324manpages.
325
326## 5.2.5
327
328This is a production release that fixes this `bc`'s behavior on `^D` to match
329GNU `bc`.
330
331## 5.2.4
332
333This is a production release that fixes two bugs in history:
334
335* Without prompt, the cursor could not be placed on the first character in a
336  line.
337* Home and End key handling in `tmux` was fixed.
338
339Any users that do not care about these improvements do not need to upgrade.
340
341## 5.2.3
342
343This is a production release that fixes one bug, a parse error when passing a
344file to `bc` using `-f` if that file had a multiline comment or string in it.
345
346## 5.2.2
347
348This is a production release that fixes one bug, a segmentation fault if
349`argv[0]` equals `NULL`.
350
351This is not a critical bug; there will be no vulnerability as far as I can tell.
352There is no need to update if you do not wish to.
353
354## 5.2.1
355
356This is a production release that fixes two parse bugs when in POSIX standard
357mode. One of these bugs was due to a quirk of the POSIX grammar, and the other
358was because `bc` was too strict.
359
360## 5.2.0
361
362This is a production release that adds a new feature, fixes some bugs, and adds
363out-of-source builds and a `pkg-config` file for `bcl`.
364
365The new feature is the ability to turn off exiting on expressions. It is also
366possible to set the default using `configure.sh`. This behavior used to exist
367with the `BC_EXPR_EXIT` environment variable, which is now used again.
368
369Bugs fixed include:
370
371* Some possible race conditions with error handling.
372* Install and uninstall targets for `bcl` did not work.
373
374## 5.1.1
375
376This is a production release that completes a bug fix from `5.1.0`. The bug
377exists in all versions of `bc`.
378
379The bug was that `if` statements without `else` statements would not be handled
380correctly at the end of files or right before a function definition.
381
382## 5.1.0
383
384This is a production release with some fixes and new features.
385
386* Fixed a bug where an `if` statement without an `else` before defining a
387  function caused an error.
388* Fixed a bug with the `bc` banner and `-q`.
389* Fixed a bug on Windows where files were not read correctly.
390* Added a command-line flag (`-z`) to make `bc` and `dc` print leading zeroes on
391  numbers `-1 < x < 1`.
392* Added four functions to `lib2.bc` (`plz()`, `plznl()`, `pnlz()`, and
393  `pnlznl()`) to allow printing numbers with or without leading zeros, despite
394  the use of `-z` or not.
395* Added builtin functions to query global state like line length, global stacks,
396  and leading zeroes.
397* Added a command-line flag (`-L`) to disable wrapping when printing numbers.
398* Improved builds on Windows.
399
400## 5.0.2
401
402This is a production release with one fix for a flaky test. If you have not
403experienced problems with the test suite, you do ***NOT*** need to upgrade.
404
405The test was one that tested whether `bc` fails gracefully when it can't
406allocate memory. Unfortunately, there are cases when Linux and FreeBSD lie and
407pretend to allocate the memory.
408
409The reason they do this is because a lot of programs don't use all of the memory
410they allocate, so those OS's usually get away with it.
411
412However, this `bc` uses all of the memory it allocates (at least at page
413granularity), so when it tries to use the memory, FreeBSD and Linux kill it.
414
415This only happens sometimes, however. Other times (on my machine), they do, in
416fact, refuse the request.
417
418So I changed the test to not test for that because I think the graceful failure
419code won't really change much.
420
421## 5.0.1
422
423This is a production release with two fixes:
424
425* Fix for the build on Mac OSX.
426* Fix for the build on Android.
427
428Users that do not use those platforms do ***NOT*** need to update.
429
430## 5.0.0
431
432This is a major production release with several changes:
433
434* Added support for OpenBSD's `pledge()` and `unveil()`.
435* Fixed print bug where a backslash newline combo was printed even if only one
436  digit was left, something I blindly copied from GNU `bc`, like a fool.
437* Fixed bugs in the manuals.
438* Fixed a possible multiplication overflow in power.
439* Temporary numbers are garbage collected if allocation fails, and the
440  allocation is retried. This is to make `bc` and `dc` more resilient to running
441  out of memory.
442* Limited the number of temporary numbers and made the space for them static so
443  that allocating more space for them cannot fail.
444* Allowed integers with non-zero `scale` to be used with power, places, and
445  shift operators.
446* Added greatest common divisor and least common multiple to `lib2.bc`.
447* Added `SIGQUIT` handling to history.
448* Added a command to `dc` (`y`) to get the length of register stacks.
449* Fixed multi-digit bugs in `lib2.bc`.
450* Removed the no prompt build option.
451* Created settings that builders can set defaults for and users can set their
452  preferences for. This includes the `bc` banner, resetting on `SIGINT`, TTY
453  mode, and prompt.
454* Added history support to Windows.
455* Fixed bugs with the handling of register names in `dc`.
456* Fixed bugs with multi-line comments and strings in both calculators.
457* Added a new error type and message for `dc` when register stacks don't have
458  enough items.
459* Optimized string allocation.
460* Made `bc` and `dc` UTF-8 capable.
461* Fixed a bug with `void` functions.
462* Fixed a misspelled symbol in `bcl`. This is technically a breaking change,
463  which requires this to be `5.0.0`.
464* Added the ability for users to get the copyright banner back.
465* Added the ability for users to have `bc` and `dc` quit on `SIGINT`.
466* Added the ability for users to disable prompt and TTY mode by environment
467  variables.
468* Added the ability for users to redefine keywords. This is another reason this
469  is `5.0.0`.
470* Added `dc`'s modular exponentiation and divmod to `bc`.
471* Added the ability to assign strings to variables and array elements and pass
472  them to functions in `bc`.
473* Added `dc`'s asciify command and stream printing to `bc`.
474* Added a command to `dc` (`Y`) to get the length of an array.
475* Added a command to `dc` (`,`) to get the depth of the execution stack.
476* Added bitwise and, or, xor, left shift, right shift, reverse, left rotate,
477  right rotate, and mod functions to `lib2.bc`.
478* Added the functions `s2u(x)` and `s2un(x,n)`, to `lib2.bc`.
479
480## 4.0.2
481
482This is a production release that fixes two bugs:
483
4841.	If no files are used and the first statement on `stdin` is invalid, `scale`
485	would not be set to `20` even if `-l` was used.
4862.	When using history, `bc` failed to respond properly to `SIGSTOP` and
487	`SIGTSTP`.
488
489## 4.0.1
490
491This is a production release that only adds one thing: flushing output when it
492is printed with a print statement.
493
494## 4.0.0
495
496This is a production release with many fixes, a new command-line option, and a
497big surprise:
498
499* A bug was fixed in `dc`'s `P` command where the item on the stack was *not*
500  popped.
501* Various bugs in the manuals have been fixed.
502* A known bug was fixed where history did not interact well with prompts printed
503  by user code without newlines.
504* A new command-line option, `-R` and `--no-read-prompt` was added to disable
505  just the prompt when using `read()` (`bc`) or `?` (`dc`).
506* And finally, **official support for Windows was added**.
507
508The last item is why this is a major version bump.
509
510Currently, only one set of build options (extra math and prompt enabled, history
511and NLS/locale support disabled, both calculators enabled) is supported on
512Windows. However, both debug and release builds are supported.
513
514In addition, Windows builds are supported for the the library (`bcl`).
515
516For more details about how to build on Windows, see the [README][5] or the
517[build manual][13].
518
519## 3.3.4
520
521This is a production release that fixes a small bug.
522
523The bug was that output was not flushed before a `read()` call, so prompts
524without a newline on the end were not flushed before the `read()` call.
525
526This is such a tiny bug that users only need to upgrade if they are affected.
527
528## 3.3.3
529
530This is a production release with one tweak and fixes for manuals.
531
532The tweak is that `length(0)` returns `1` instead of `0`. In `3.3.1`, I changed
533it so `length(0.x)`, where `x` could be any number of digits, returned the
534`scale`, but `length(0)` still returned `0` because I believe that `0` has `0`
535significant digits.
536
537After request of FreeBSD and considering the arguments of a mathematician,
538compatibility with other `bc`'s, and the expectations of users, I decided to
539make the change.
540
541The fixes for manuals fixed a bug where `--` was rendered as `-`.
542
543## 3.3.2
544
545This is a production release that fixes a divide-by-zero bug in `root()` in the
546[extended math library][16]. All previous versions with `root()` have the bug.
547
548## 3.3.1
549
550This is a production release that fixes a bug.
551
552The bug was in the reporting of number length when the value was 0.
553
554## 3.3.0
555
556This is a production release that changes one behavior and fixes documentation
557bugs.
558
559The changed behavior is the treatment of `-e` and `-f` when given through
560`BC_ENV_ARGS` or `DC_ENV_ARGS`. Now `bc` and `dc` do not exit when those options
561(or their equivalents) are given through those environment variables. However,
562`bc` and `dc` still exit when they or their equivalents are given on the
563command-line.
564
565## 3.2.7
566
567This is a production release that removes a small non-portable shell operation
568in `configure.sh`. This problem was only noticed on OpenBSD, not FreeBSD or
569Linux.
570
571Non-OpenBSD users do ***NOT*** need to upgrade, although NetBSD users may also
572need to upgrade.
573
574## 3.2.6
575
576This is a production release that fixes the build on FreeBSD.
577
578There was a syntax error in `configure.sh` that the Linux shell did not catch,
579and FreeBSD depends on the existence of `tests/all.sh`.
580
581All users that already upgraded to `3.2.5` should update to this release, with
582my apologies for the poor release of `3.2.5`. Other users should skip `3.2.5` in
583favor of this version.
584
585## 3.2.5
586
587This is a production release that fixes several bugs and adds a couple small
588things.
589
590The two most important bugs were bugs that causes `dc` to access memory
591out-of-bounds (crash in debug builds). This was found by upgrading to `afl++`
592from `afl`. Both were caused by a failure to distinguish between the same two
593cases.
594
595Another bug was the failure to put all of the licenses in the `LICENSE.md` file.
596
597Third, some warnings by `scan-build` were found and eliminated. This needed one
598big change: `bc` and `dc` now bail out as fast as possible on fatal errors
599instead of unwinding the stack.
600
601Fourth, the pseudo-random number now attempts to seed itself with `/dev/random`
602if `/dev/urandom` fails.
603
604Finally, this release has a few quality-of-life changes to the build system. The
605usage should not change at all; the only thing that changed was making sure the
606`Makefile.in` was written to rebuild properly when headers changed and to not
607rebuild when not necessary.
608
609## 3.2.4
610
611This is a production release that fixes a warning on `gcc` 6 or older, which
612does not have an attribute that is used.
613
614Users do ***NOT*** need to upgrade if they don't use `gcc` 6 or older.
615
616## 3.2.3
617
618This is a production release that fixes a bug in `gen/strgen.sh`. I recently
619changed `gen/strgen.c`, but I did not change `gen/strgen.sh`.
620
621Users that do not use `gen/strgen.sh` do not need to upgrade.
622
623## 3.2.2
624
625This is a production release that fixes a portability bug in `configure.sh`. The
626bug was using the GNU `find` extension `-wholename`.
627
628## 3.2.1
629
630This is a production release that has one fix for `bcl(3)`. It is technically
631not a bug fix since the behavior is undefined, but the `BclNumber`s that
632`bcl_divmod()` returns will be set to `BCL_ERROR_INVALID_NUM` if there is an
633error. Previously, they were not set.
634
635## 3.2.0
636
637This is a production release that has one bug fix and a major addition.
638
639The bug fix was a missing `auto` variable in the bessel `j()` function in the
640math library.
641
642The major addition is a way to build a version of `bc`'s math code as a library.
643This is done with the `-a` option to `configure.sh`. The API for the library can
644be read in `./manuals/bcl.3.md` or `man bcl` once the library is installed with
645`make install`.
646
647This library was requested by developers before I even finished version 1.0, but
648I could not figure out how to do it until now.
649
650If the library has API breaking changes, the major version of `bc` will be
651incremented.
652
653## 3.1.6
654
655This is a production release that fixes a new warning from Clang 12 for FreeBSD
656and also removes some possible undefined behavior found by UBSan that compilers
657did not seem to take advantage of.
658
659Users do ***NOT*** need to upgrade, if they do not want to.
660
661## 3.1.5
662
663This is a production release that fixes the Chinese locales (which caused `bc`
664to crash) and a crash caused by `bc` executing code when it should not have been
665able to.
666
667***ALL USERS SHOULD UPGRADE.***
668
669## 3.1.4
670
671This is a production release that fixes one bug, changes two behaviors, and
672removes one environment variable.
673
674The bug is like the one in the last release except it applies if files are being
675executed. I also made the fix more general.
676
677The behavior that was changed is that `bc` now exits when given `-e`, `-f`,
678`--expression` or `--file`. However, if the last one of those is `-f-` (using
679`stdin` as the file), `bc` does not exit. If `-f-` exists and is not the last of
680the `-e` and `-f` options (and equivalents), `bc` gives a fatal error and exits.
681
682Next, I removed the `BC_EXPR_EXIT` and `DC_EXPR_EXIT` environment variables
683since their use is not needed with the behavior change.
684
685Finally, I made it so `bc` does not print the header, though the `-q` and
686`--quiet` options were kept for compatibility with GNU `bc`.
687
688## 3.1.3
689
690This is a production release that fixes one minor bug: if `bc` was invoked like
691the following, it would error:
692
693```
694echo "if (1 < 3) 1" | bc
695```
696
697Unless users run into this bug, they do not need to upgrade, but it is suggested
698that they do.
699
700## 3.1.2
701
702This is a production release that adds a way to install *all* locales. Users do
703***NOT*** need to upgrade.
704
705For package maintainers wishing to make use of the change, just pass `-l` to
706`configure.sh`.
707
708## 3.1.1
709
710This is a production release that adds two Spanish locales. Users do ***NOT***
711need to upgrade, unless they want those locales.
712
713## 3.1.0
714
715This is a production release that adjusts one behavior, fixes eight bugs, and
716improves manpages for FreeBSD. Because this release fixes bugs, **users and
717package maintainers should update to this version as soon as possible**.
718
719The behavior that was adjusted was how code from the `-e` and `-f` arguments
720(and equivalents) were executed. They used to be executed as one big chunk, but
721in this release, they are now executed line-by-line.
722
723The first bug fix in how output to `stdout` was handled in `SIGINT`. If a
724`SIGINT` came in, the `stdout` buffer was not correctly flushed. In fact, a
725clean-up function was not getting called. This release fixes that bug.
726
727The second bug is in how `dc` handled input from `stdin`. This affected `bc` as
728well since it was a mishandling of the `stdin` buffer.
729
730The third fixed bug was that `bc` and `dc` could `abort()` (in debug mode) when
731receiving a `SIGTERM`. This one was a race condition with pushing and popping
732items onto and out of vectors.
733
734The fourth bug fixed was that `bc` could leave extra items on the stack and
735thus, not properly clean up some memory. (The memory would still get
736`free()`'ed, but it would not be `free()`'ed when it could have been.)
737
738The next two bugs were bugs in `bc`'s parser that caused crashes when executing
739the resulting code.
740
741The last two bugs were crashes in `dc` that resulted from mishandling of
742strings.
743
744The manpage improvement was done by switching from [ronn][20] to [Pandoc][21] to
745generate manpages. Pandoc generates much cleaner manpages and doesn't leave
746blank lines where they shouldn't be.
747
748## 3.0.3
749
750This is a production release that adds one new feature: specific manpages.
751
752Before this release, `bc` and `dc` only used one manpage each that referred to
753various build options. This release changes it so there is one manpage set per
754relevant build type. Each manual only has information about its particular
755build, and `configure.sh` selects the correct set for install.
756
757## 3.0.2
758
759This is a production release that adds `utf8` locale symlinks and removes an
760unused `auto` variable from the `ceil()` function in the [extended math
761library][16].
762
763Users do ***NOT*** need to update unless they want the locales.
764
765## 3.0.1
766
767This is a production release with two small changes. Users do ***NOT*** need to
768upgrade to this release; however, if they haven't upgraded to `3.0.0` yet, it
769may be worthwhile to upgrade to this release.
770
771The first change is fixing a compiler warning on FreeBSD with strict warnings
772on.
773
774The second change is to make the new implementation of `ceil()` in `lib2.bc`
775much more efficient.
776
777## 3.0.0
778
779*Notes for package maintainers:*
780
781*First, the `2.7.0` release series saw a change in the option parsing. This made
782me change one error message and add a few others. The error message that was
783changed removed one format specifier. This means that `printf()` will seqfault
784on old locale files. Unfortunately, `bc` cannot use any locale files except the
785global ones that are already installed, so it will use the previous ones while
786running tests during install. **If `bc` segfaults while running arg tests when
787updating, it is because the global locale files have not been replaced. Make
788sure to either prevent the test suite from running on update or remove the old
789locale files before updating.** (Removing the locale files can be done with
790`make uninstall` or by running the [`locale_uninstall.sh`][22] script.) Once
791this is done, `bc` should install without problems.*
792
793*Second, **the option to build without signal support has been removed**. See
794below for the reasons why.*
795
796This is a production release with some small bug fixes, a few improvements,
797three major bug fixes, and a complete redesign of `bc`'s error and signal
798handling. **Users and package maintainers should update to this version as soon
799as possible.**
800
801The first major bug fix was in how `bc` executed files. Previously, a whole file
802was parsed before it was executed, but if a function is defined *after* code,
803especially if the function definition was actually a redefinition, and the code
804before the definition referred to the previous function, this `bc` would replace
805the function before executing any code. The fix was to make sure that all code
806that existed before a function definition was executed.
807
808The second major bug fix was in `bc`'s `lib2.bc`. The `ceil()` function had a
809bug where a `0` in the decimal place after the truncation position, caused it to
810output the wrong numbers if there was any non-zero digit after.
811
812The third major bug is that when passing parameters to functions, if an
813expression included an array (not an array element) as a parameter, it was
814accepted, when it should have been rejected. It is now correctly rejected.
815
816Beyond that, this `bc` got several improvements that both sped it up, improved
817the handling of signals, and improved the error handling.
818
819First, the requirements for `bc` were pushed back to POSIX 2008. `bc` uses one
820function, `strdup()`, which is not in POSIX 2001, and it is in the X/Open System
821Interfaces group 2001. It is, however, in POSIX 2008, and since POSIX 2008 is
822old enough to be supported anywhere that I care, that should be the requirement.
823
824Second, the `BcVm` global variable was put into `bss`. This actually slightly
825reduces the size of the executable from a massive code shrink, and it will stop
826`bc` from allocating a large set of memory when `bc` starts.
827
828Third, the default Karatsuba length was updated from 64 to 32 after making the
829optimization changes below, since 32 is going to be better than 64 after the
830changes.
831
832Fourth, Spanish translations were added.
833
834Fifth, the interpreter received a speedup to make performance on non-math-heavy
835scripts more competitive with GNU `bc`. While improvements did, in fact, get it
836much closer (see the [benchmarks][19]), it isn't quite there.
837
838There were several things done to speed up the interpreter:
839
840First, several small inefficiencies were removed. These inefficiencies included
841calling the function `bc_vec_pop(v)` twice instead of calling
842`bc_vec_npop(v, 2)`. They also included an extra function call for checking the
843size of the stack and checking the size of the stack more than once on several
844operations.
845
846Second, since the current `bc` function is the one that stores constants and
847strings, the program caches pointers to the current function's vectors of
848constants and strings to prevent needing to grab the current function in order
849to grab a constant or a string.
850
851Third, `bc` tries to reuse `BcNum`'s (the internal representation of
852arbitary-precision numbers). If a `BcNum` has the default capacity of
853`BC_NUM_DEF_SIZE` (32 on 64-bit and 16 on 32-bit) when it is freed, it is added
854to a list of available `BcNum`'s. And then, when a `BcNum` is allocated with a
855capacity of `BC_NUM_DEF_SIZE` and any `BcNum`'s exist on the list of reusable
856ones, one of those ones is grabbed instead.
857
858In order to support these changes, the `BC_NUM_DEF_SIZE` was changed. It used to
859be 16 bytes on all systems, but it was changed to more closely align with the
860minimum allocation size on Linux, which is either 32 bytes (64-bit musl), 24
861bytes (64-bit glibc), 16 bytes (32-bit musl), or 12 bytes (32-bit glibc). Since
862these are the minimum allocation sizes, these are the sizes that would be
863allocated anyway, making it worth it to just use the whole space, so the value
864of `BC_NUM_DEF_SIZE` on 64-bit systems was changed to 32 bytes.
865
866On top of that, at least on 64-bit, `BC_NUM_DEF_SIZE` supports numbers with
867either 72 integer digits or 45 integer digits and 27 fractional digits. This
868should be more than enough for most cases since `bc`'s default `scale` values
869are 0 or 20, meaning that, by default, it has at most 20 fractional digits. And
87045 integer digits are *a lot*; it's enough to calculate the amount of mass in
871the Milky Way galaxy in kilograms. Also, 72 digits is enough to calculate the
872diameter of the universe in Planck lengths.
873
874(For 32-bit, these numbers are either 32 integer digits or 12 integer digits and
87520 fractional digits. These are also quite big, and going much bigger on a
87632-bit system seems a little pointless since 12 digits is just under a trillion
877and 20 fractional digits is still enough for about any use since `10^-20` light
878years is just under a millimeter.)
879
880All of this together means that for ordinary uses, and even uses in scientific
881work, the default number size will be all that is needed, which means that
882nearly all, if not all, numbers will be reused, relieving pressure on the system
883allocator.
884
885I did several experiments to find the changes that had the most impact,
886especially with regard to reusing `BcNum`'s. One was putting `BcNum`'s into
887buckets according to their capacity in powers of 2 up to 512. That performed
888worse than `bc` did in `2.7.2`. Another was putting any `BcNum` on the reuse
889list that had a capacity of `BC_NUM_DEF_SIZE * 2` and reusing them for `BcNum`'s
890that requested `BC_NUM_DEF_SIZE`. This did reduce the amount of time spent, but
891it also spent a lot of time in the system allocator for an unknown reason. (When
892using `strace`, a bunch more `brk` calls showed up.) Just reusing `BcNum`'s that
893had exactly `BC_NUM_DEF_SIZE` capacity spent the smallest amount of time in both
894user and system time. This makes sense, especially with the changes to make
895`BC_NUM_DEF_SIZE` bigger on 64-bit systems, since the vast majority of numbers
896will only ever use numbers with a size less than or equal to `BC_NUM_DEF_SIZE`.
897
898Last of all, `bc`'s signal handling underwent a complete redesign. (This is the
899reason that this version is `3.0.0` and not `2.8.0`.) The change was to move
900from a polling approach to signal handling to an interrupt-based approach.
901
902Previously, every single loop condition had a check for signals. I suspect that
903this could be expensive when in tight loops.
904
905Now, the signal handler just uses `longjmp()` (actually `siglongjmp()`) to start
906an unwinding of the stack until it is stopped or the stack is unwound to
907`main()`, which just returns. If `bc` is currently executing code that cannot be
908safely interrupted (according to POSIX), then signals are "locked." The signal
909handler checks if the lock is taken, and if it is, it just sets the status to
910indicate that a signal arrived. Later, when the signal lock is released, the
911status is checked to see if a signal came in. If so, the stack unwinding starts.
912
913This design eliminates polling in favor of maintaining a stack of `jmp_buf`'s.
914This has its own performance implications, but it gives better interaction. And
915the cost of pushing and popping a `jmp_buf` in a function is paid at most twice.
916Most functions do not pay that price, and most of the rest only pay it once.
917(There are only some 3 functions in `bc` that push and pop a `jmp_buf` twice.)
918
919As a side effect of this change, I had to eliminate the use of `stdio.h` in `bc`
920because `stdio` does not play nice with signals and `longjmp()`. I implemented
921custom I/O buffer code that takes a fraction of the size. This means that static
922builds will be smaller, but non-static builds will be bigger, though they will
923have less linking time.
924
925This change is also good because my history implementation was already bypassing
926`stdio` for good reasons, and unifying the architecture was a win.
927
928Another reason for this change is that my `bc` should *always* behave correctly
929in the presence of signals like `SIGINT`, `SIGTERM`, and `SIGQUIT`. With the
930addition of my own I/O buffering, I needed to also make sure that the buffers
931were correctly flushed even when such signals happened.
932
933For this reason, I **removed the option to build without signal support**.
934
935As a nice side effect of this change, the error handling code could be changed
936to take advantage of the stack unwinding that signals used. This means that
937signals and error handling use the same code paths, which means that the stack
938unwinding is well-tested. (Errors are tested heavily in the test suite.)
939
940It also means that functions do not need to return a status code that
941***every*** caller needs to check. This eliminated over 100 branches that simply
942checked return codes and then passed that return code up the stack if necessary.
943The code bloat savings from this is at least 1700 bytes on `x86_64`, *before*
944taking into account the extra code from removing `stdio.h`.
945
946## 2.7.2
947
948This is a production release with one major bug fix.
949
950The `length()` built-in function can take either a number or an array. If it
951takes an array, it returns the length of the array. Arrays can be passed by
952reference. The bug is that the `length()` function would not properly
953dereference arrays that were references. This is a bug that affects all users.
954
955**ALL USERS SHOULD UPDATE `bc`**.
956
957## 2.7.1
958
959This is a production release with fixes for new locales and fixes for compiler
960warnings on FreeBSD.
961
962## 2.7.0
963
964This is a production release with a bug fix for Linux, new translations, and new
965features.
966
967Bug fixes:
968
969* Option parsing in `BC_ENV_ARGS` was broken on Linux in 2.6.1 because `glibc`'s
970  `getopt_long()` is broken. To get around that, and to support long options on
971  every platform, an adapted version of [`optparse`][17] was added. Now, `bc`
972  does not even use `getopt()`.
973* Parsing `BC_ENV_ARGS` with quotes now works. It isn't the smartest, but it
974  does the job if there are spaces in file names.
975
976The following new languages are supported:
977
978* Dutch
979* Polish
980* Russian
981* Japanes
982* Simplified Chinese
983
984All of these translations were generated using [DeepL][18], so improvements are
985welcome.
986
987There is only one new feature: **`bc` now has a built-in pseudo-random number
988generator** (PRNG).
989
990The PRNG is seeded, making it useful for applications where
991`/dev/urandom` does not work because output needs to be reproducible. However,
992it also uses `/dev/urandom` to seed itself by default, so it will start with a
993good seed by default.
994
995It also outputs 32 bits on 32-bit platforms and 64 bits on 64-bit platforms, far
996better than the 15 bits of C's `rand()` and `bash`'s `$RANDOM`.
997
998In addition, the PRNG can take a bound, and when it gets a bound, it
999automatically adjusts to remove bias. It can also generate numbers of arbitrary
1000size. (As of the time of release, the largest pseudo-random number generated by
1001this `bc` was generated with a bound of `2^(2^20)`.)
1002
1003***IMPORTANT: read the [`bc` manual][9] and the [`dc` manual][10] to find out
1004exactly what guarantees the PRNG provides. The underlying implementation is not
1005guaranteed to stay the same, but the guarantees that it provides are guaranteed
1006to stay the same regardless of the implementation.***
1007
1008On top of that, four functions were added to `bc`'s [extended math library][16]
1009to make using the PRNG easier:
1010
1011* `frand(p)`: Generates a number between `[0,1)` to `p` decimal places.
1012* `ifrand(i, p)`: Generates an integer with bound `i` and adds it to `frand(p)`.
1013* `srand(x)`: Randomizes the sign of `x`. In other words, it flips the sign of
1014  `x` with probability `0.5`.
1015* `brand()`: Returns a random boolean value (either `0` or `1`).
1016
1017## 2.6.1
1018
1019This is a production release with a bug fix for FreeBSD.
1020
1021The bug was that when `bc` was built without long options, it would give a fatal
1022error on every run. This was caused by a mishandling of `optind`.
1023
1024## 2.6.0
1025
1026This release is a production release ***with no bugfixes***. If you do not want
1027to upgrade, you don't have to.
1028
1029No source code changed; the only thing that changed was `lib2.bc`.
1030
1031This release adds one function to the [extended math library][16]: `p(x, y)`,
1032which calculates `x` to the power of `y`, whether or not `y` is an integer. (The
1033`^` operator can only accept integer powers.)
1034
1035This release also includes a couple of small tweaks to the [extended math
1036library][16], mostly to fix returning numbers with too high of `scale`.
1037
1038## 2.5.3
1039
1040This release is a production release which addresses inconsistencies in the
1041Portuguese locales. No `bc` code was changed.
1042
1043The issues were that the ISO files used different naming, and also that the
1044files that should have been symlinks were not. I did not catch that because
1045GitHub rendered them the exact same way.
1046
1047## 2.5.2
1048
1049This release is a production release.
1050
1051No code was changed, but the build system was changed to allow `CFLAGS` to be
1052given to `CC`, like this:
1053
1054```
1055CC="gcc -O3 -march=native" ./configure.sh
1056```
1057
1058If this happens, the flags are automatically put into `CFLAGS`, and the compiler
1059is set appropriately. In the example above this means that `CC` will be "gcc"
1060and `CFLAGS` will be "-O3 -march=native".
1061
1062This behavior was added to conform to GNU autotools practices.
1063
1064## 2.5.1
1065
1066This is a production release which addresses portability concerns discovered
1067in the `bc` build system. No `bc` code was changed.
1068
1069* Support for Solaris SPARC and AIX were added.
1070* Minor documentations edits were performed.
1071* An option for `configure.sh` was added to disable long options if
1072  `getopt_long()` is missing.
1073
1074## 2.5.0
1075
1076This is a production release with new translations. No code changed.
1077
1078The translations were contributed by [bugcrazy][15], and they are for
1079Portuguese, both Portugal and Brazil locales.
1080
1081## 2.4.0
1082
1083This is a production release primarily aimed at improving `dc`.
1084
1085* A couple of copy and paste errors in the [`dc` manual][10] were fixed.
1086* `dc` startup was optimized by making sure it didn't have to set up `bc`-only
1087  things.
1088* The `bc` `&&` and `||` operators were made available to `dc` through the `M`
1089  and `m` commands, respectively.
1090* `dc` macros were changed to be tail call-optimized.
1091
1092The last item, tail call optimization, means that if the last thing in a macro
1093is a call to another macro, then the old macro is popped before executing the
1094new macro. This change was made to stop `dc` from consuming more and more memory
1095as macros are executed in a loop.
1096
1097The `q` and `Q` commands still respect the "hidden" macros by way of recording
1098how many macros were removed by tail call optimization.
1099
1100## 2.3.2
1101
1102This is a production release meant to fix warnings in the Gentoo `ebuild` by
1103making it possible to disable binary stripping. Other users do *not* need to
1104upgrade.
1105
1106## 2.3.1
1107
1108This is a production release. It fixes a bug that caused `-1000000000 < -1` to
1109return `0`. This only happened with negative numbers and only if the value on
1110the left was more negative by a certain amount. That said, this bug *is* a bad
1111bug, and needs to be fixed.
1112
1113**ALL USERS SHOULD UPDATE `bc`**.
1114
1115## 2.3.0
1116
1117This is a production release with changes to the build system.
1118
1119## 2.2.0
1120
1121This release is a production release. It only has new features and performance
1122improvements.
1123
11241.	The performance of `sqrt(x)` was improved.
11252.	The new function `root(x, n)` was added to the extended math library to
1126	calculate `n`th roots.
11273.	The new function `cbrt(x)` was added to the extended math library to
1128	calculate cube roots.
1129
1130## 2.1.3
1131
1132This is a non-critical release; it just changes the build system, and in
1133non-breaking ways:
1134
11351.	Linked locale files were changed to link to their sources with a relative
1136	link.
11372.	A bug in `configure.sh` that caused long option parsing to fail under `bash`
1138	was fixed.
1139
1140## 2.1.2
1141
1142This release is not a critical release.
1143
11441.	A few codes were added to history.
11452.	Multiplication was optimized a bit more.
11463.	Addition and subtraction were both optimized a bit more.
1147
1148## 2.1.1
1149
1150This release contains a fix for the test suite made for Linux from Scratch: now
1151the test suite prints `pass` when a test is passed.
1152
1153Other than that, there is no change in this release, so distros and other users
1154do not need to upgrade.
1155
1156## 2.1.0
1157
1158This release is a production release.
1159
1160The following bugs were fixed:
1161
11621.	A `dc` bug that caused stack mishandling was fixed.
11632.	A warning on OpenBSD was fixed.
11643.	Bugs in `ctrl+arrow` operations in history were fixed.
11654.	The ability to paste multiple lines in history was added.
11665.	A `bc` bug, mishandling of array arguments to functions, was fixed.
11676.	A crash caused by freeing the wrong pointer was fixed.
11687.	A `dc` bug where strings, in a rare case, were mishandled in parsing was
1169	fixed.
1170
1171In addition, the following changes were made:
1172
11731.	Division was slightly optimized.
11742.	An option was added to the build to disable printing of prompts.
11753.	The special case of empty arguments is now handled. This is to prevent
1176	errors in scripts that end up passing empty arguments.
11774.	A harmless bug was fixed. This bug was that, with the pop instructions
1178	(mostly) removed (see below), `bc` would leave extra values on its stack for
1179	`void` functions and in a few other cases. These extra items would not
1180	affect anything put on the stack and would not cause any sort of crash or
1181	even buggy behavior, but they would cause `bc` to take more memory than it
1182	needed.
1183
1184On top of the above changes, the following optimizations were added:
1185
11861.	The need for pop instructions in `bc` was removed.
11872.	Extra tests on every iteration of the interpreter loop were removed.
11883.	Updating function and code pointers on every iteration of the interpreter
1189	loop was changed to only updating them when necessary.
11904.	Extra assignments to pointers were removed.
1191
1192Altogether, these changes sped up the interpreter by around 2x.
1193
1194***NOTE***: This is the last release with new features because this `bc` is now
1195considered complete. From now on, only bug fixes and new translations will be
1196added to this `bc`.
1197
1198## 2.0.3
1199
1200This is a production, bug-fix release.
1201
1202Two bugs were fixed in this release:
1203
12041.	A rare and subtle signal handling bug was fixed.
12052.	A misbehavior on `0` to a negative power was fixed.
1206
1207The last bug bears some mentioning.
1208
1209When I originally wrote power, I did not thoroughly check its error cases;
1210instead, I had it check if the first number was `0` and then if so, just return
1211`0`. However, `0` to a negative power means that `1` will be divided by `0`,
1212which is an error.
1213
1214I caught this, but only after I stopped being cocky. You see, sometime later, I
1215had noticed that GNU `bc` returned an error, correctly, but I thought it was
1216wrong simply because that's not what my `bc` did. I saw it again later and had a
1217double take. I checked for real, finally, and found out that my `bc` was wrong
1218all along.
1219
1220That was bad on me. But the bug was easy to fix, so it is fixed now.
1221
1222There are two other things in this release:
1223
12241.	Subtraction was optimized by [Stefan Eßer][14].
12252.	Division was also optimized, also by Stefan Eßer.
1226
1227## 2.0.2
1228
1229This release contains a fix for a possible overflow in the signal handling. I
1230would be surprised if any users ran into it because it would only happen after 2
1231billion (`2^31-1`) `SIGINT`'s, but I saw it and had to fix it.
1232
1233## 2.0.1
1234
1235This release contains very few things that will apply to any users.
1236
12371.	A slight bug in `dc`'s interactive mode was fixed.
12382.	A bug in the test suite that was only triggered on NetBSD was fixed.
12393.	**The `-P`/`--no-prompt` option** was added for users that do not want a
1240	prompt.
12414.	A `make check` target was added as an alias for `make test`.
12425.	`dc` got its own read prompt: `?> `.
1243
1244## 2.0.0
1245
1246This release is a production release.
1247
1248This release is also a little different from previous releases. From here on
1249out, I do not plan on adding any more features to this `bc`; I believe that it
1250is complete. However, there may be bug fix releases in the future, if I or any
1251others manage to find bugs.
1252
1253This release has only a few new features:
1254
12551.	`atan2(y, x)` was added to the extended math library as both `a2(y, x)` and
1256	`atan2(y, x)`.
12572.	Locales were fixed.
12583.	A **POSIX shell-compatible script was added as an alternative to compiling
1259	`gen/strgen.c`** on a host machine. More details about making the choice
1260	between the two can be found by running `./configure.sh --help` or reading
1261	the [build manual][13].
12624.	Multiplication was optimized by using **diagonal multiplication**, rather
1263	than straight brute force.
12645.	The `locale_install.sh` script was fixed.
12656.	`dc` was given the ability to **use the environment variable
1266	`DC_ENV_ARGS`**.
12677.	`dc` was also given the ability to **use the `-i` or `--interactive`**
1268	options.
12698.	Printing the prompt was fixed so that it did not print when it shouldn't.
12709.	Signal handling was fixed.
127110.	**Handling of `SIGTERM` and `SIGQUIT`** was fixed.
127211.	The **built-in functions `maxibase()`, `maxobase()`, and `maxscale()`** (the
1273	commands `T`, `U`, `V` in `dc`, respectively) were added to allow scripts to
1274	query for the max allowable values of those globals.
127512.	Some incompatibilities with POSIX were fixed.
1276
1277In addition, this release is `2.0.0` for a big reason: the internal format for
1278numbers changed. They used to be a `char` array. Now, they are an array of
1279larger integers, packing more decimal digits into each integer. This has
1280delivered ***HUGE*** performance improvements, especially for multiplication,
1281division, and power.
1282
1283This `bc` should now be the fastest `bc` available, but I may be wrong.
1284
1285## 1.2.8
1286
1287This release contains a fix for a harmless bug (it is harmless in that it still
1288works, but it just copies extra data) in the [`locale_install.sh`][12] script.
1289
1290## 1.2.7
1291
1292This version contains fixes for the build on Arch Linux.
1293
1294## 1.2.6
1295
1296This release removes the use of `local` in shell scripts because it's not POSIX
1297shell-compatible, and also updates a man page that should have been updated a
1298long time ago but was missed.
1299
1300## 1.2.5
1301
1302This release contains some missing locale `*.msg` files.
1303
1304## 1.2.4
1305
1306This release contains a few bug fixes and new French translations.
1307
1308## 1.2.3
1309
1310This release contains a fix for a bug: use of uninitialized data. Such data was
1311only used when outputting an error message, but I am striving for perfection. As
1312Michelangelo said, "Trifles make perfection, and perfection is no trifle."
1313
1314## 1.2.2
1315
1316This release contains fixes for OpenBSD.
1317
1318## 1.2.1
1319
1320This release contains bug fixes for some rare bugs.
1321
1322## 1.2.0
1323
1324This is a production release.
1325
1326There have been several changes since `1.1.0`:
1327
13281.	The build system had some changes.
13292.	Locale support has been added. (Patches welcome for translations.)
13303.	**The ability to turn `ibase`, `obase`, and `scale` into stacks** was added
1331	with the `-g` command-line option. (See the [`bc` manual][9] for more
1332	details.)
13334.	Support for compiling on Mac OSX out of the box was added.
13345.	The extended math library got `t(x)`, `ceil(x)`, and some aliases.
13356.	The extended math library also got `r2d(x)` (for converting from radians to
1336	degrees) and `d2r(x)` (for converting from degrees to radians). This is to
1337	allow using degrees with the standard library.
13387.	Both calculators now accept numbers in **scientific notation**. See the
1339	[`bc` manual][9] and the [`dc` manual][10] for details.
13408.	Both calculators can **output in either scientific or engineering
1341	notation**. See the [`bc` manual][9] and the [`dc` manual][10] for details.
13429.	Some inefficiencies were removed.
134310.	Some bugs were fixed.
134411.	Some bugs in the extended library were fixed.
134512.	Some defects from [Coverity Scan][11] were fixed.
1346
1347## 1.1.4
1348
1349This release contains a fix to the build system that allows it to build on older
1350versions of `glibc`.
1351
1352## 1.1.3
1353
1354This release contains a fix for a bug in the test suite where `bc` tests and
1355`dc` tests could not be run in parallel.
1356
1357## 1.1.2
1358
1359This release has a fix for a history bug; the down arrow did not work.
1360
1361## 1.1.1
1362
1363This release fixes a bug in the `1.1.0` build system. The source is exactly the
1364same.
1365
1366The bug that was fixed was a failure to install if no `EXECSUFFIX` was used.
1367
1368## 1.1.0
1369
1370This is a production release. However, many new features were added since `1.0`.
1371
13721.	**The build system has been changed** to use a custom, POSIX
1373	shell-compatible configure script ([`configure.sh`][6]) to generate a POSIX
1374	make-compatible `Makefile`, which means that `bc` and `dc` now build out of
1375	the box on any POSIX-compatible system.
13762.	Out-of-memory and output errors now cause the `bc` to report the error,
1377	clean up, and die, rather than just reporting and trying to continue.
13783.	**Strings and constants are now garbage collected** when possible.
13794.	Signal handling and checking has been made more simple and more thorough.
13805.	`BcGlobals` was refactored into `BcVm` and `BcVm` was made global. Some
1381	procedure names were changed to reflect its difference to everything else.
13826.	Addition got a speed improvement.
13837.	Some common code for addition and multiplication was refactored into its own
1384	procedure.
13858.	A bug was removed where `dc` could have been selected, but the internal
1386	`#define` that returned `true` for a query about `dc` would not have
1387	returned `true`.
13889.	Useless calls to `bc_num_zero()` were removed.
138910.	**History support was added.** The history support is based off of a
1390	[UTF-8 aware fork][7] of [`linenoise`][8], which has been customized with
1391	`bc`'s own data structures and signal handling.
139211.	Generating C source from the math library now removes tabs from the library,
1393	shrinking the size of the executable.
139412.	The math library was shrunk.
139513.	Error handling and reporting was improved.
139614.	Reallocations were reduced by giving access to the request size for each
1397	operation.
139815.	**`abs()` (`b` command for `dc`) was added as a builtin.**
139916.	Both calculators were tested on FreeBSD.
140017.	Many obscure parse bugs were fixed.
140118.	Markdown and man page manuals were added, and the man pages are installed by
1402	`make install`.
140319.	Executable size was reduced, though the added features probably made the
1404	executable end up bigger.
140520.	**GNU-style array references were added as a supported feature.**
140621.	Allocations were reduced.
140722.	**New operators were added**: `$` (`$` for `dc`), `@` (`@` for `dc`), `@=`,
1408	`<<` (`H` for `dc`), `<<=`, `>>` (`h` for `dc`), and `>>=`. See the
1409	[`bc` manual][9] and the [`dc` manual][10] for more details.
141023.	**An extended math library was added.** This library contains code that
1411	makes it so I can replace my desktop calculator with this `bc`. See the
1412	[`bc` manual][3] for more details.
141324.	Support for all capital letters as numbers was added.
141425.	**Support for GNU-style void functions was added.**
141526.	A bug fix for improper handling of function parameters was added.
141627.	Precedence for the or (`||`) operator was changed to match GNU `bc`.
141728.	`dc` was given an explicit negation command.
141829.	`dc` was changed to be able to handle strings in arrays.
1419
1420## 1.1 Release Candidate 3
1421
1422This release is the eighth release candidate for 1.1, though it is the third
1423release candidate meant as a general release candidate. The new code has not
1424been tested as thoroughly as it should for release.
1425
1426## 1.1 Release Candidate 2
1427
1428This release is the seventh release candidate for 1.1, though it is the second
1429release candidate meant as a general release candidate. The new code has not
1430been tested as thoroughly as it should for release.
1431
1432## 1.1 FreeBSD Beta 5
1433
1434This release is the sixth release candidate for 1.1, though it is the fifth
1435release candidate meant specifically to test if `bc` works on FreeBSD. The new
1436code has not been tested as thoroughly as it should for release.
1437
1438## 1.1 FreeBSD Beta 4
1439
1440This release is the fifth release candidate for 1.1, though it is the fourth
1441release candidate meant specifically to test if `bc` works on FreeBSD. The new
1442code has not been tested as thoroughly as it should for release.
1443
1444## 1.1 FreeBSD Beta 3
1445
1446This release is the fourth release candidate for 1.1, though it is the third
1447release candidate meant specifically to test if `bc` works on FreeBSD. The new
1448code has not been tested as thoroughly as it should for release.
1449
1450## 1.1 FreeBSD Beta 2
1451
1452This release is the third release candidate for 1.1, though it is the second
1453release candidate meant specifically to test if `bc` works on FreeBSD. The new
1454code has not been tested as thoroughly as it should for release.
1455
1456## 1.1 FreeBSD Beta 1
1457
1458This release is the second release candidate for 1.1, though it is meant
1459specifically to test if `bc` works on FreeBSD. The new code has not been tested as
1460thoroughly as it should for release.
1461
1462## 1.1 Release Candidate 1
1463
1464This is the first release candidate for 1.1. The new code has not been tested as
1465thoroughly as it should for release.
1466
1467## 1.0
1468
1469This is the first non-beta release. `bc` is ready for production use.
1470
1471As such, a lot has changed since 0.5.
1472
14731.	`dc` has been added. It has been tested even more thoroughly than `bc` was
1474	for `0.5`. It does not have the `!` command, and for security reasons, it
1475	never will, so it is complete.
14762.	`bc` has been more thoroughly tested. An entire section of the test suite
1477	(for both programs) has been added to test for errors.
14783.	A prompt (`>>> `) has been added for interactive mode, making it easier to
1479	see inputs and outputs.
14804.	Interrupt handling has been improved, including elimination of race
1481	conditions (as much as possible).
14825.	MinGW and [Windows Subsystem for Linux][1] support has been added (see
1483	[xstatic][2] for binaries).
14846.	Memory leaks and errors have been eliminated (as far as ASan and Valgrind
1485	can tell).
14867.	Crashes have been eliminated (as far as [afl][3] can tell).
14878.	Karatsuba multiplication was added (and thoroughly) tested, speeding up
1488	multiplication and power by orders of magnitude.
14899.	Performance was further enhanced by using a "divmod" function to reduce
1490	redundant divisions and by removing superfluous `memset()` calls.
149110.	To switch between Karatsuba and `O(n^2)` multiplication, the config variable
1492	`BC_NUM_KARATSUBA_LEN` was added. It is set to a sane default, but the
1493	optimal number can be found with [`karatsuba.py`][4] (requires Python 3)
1494	and then configured through `make`.
149511.	The random math test generator script was changed to Python 3 and improved.
1496	`bc` and `dc` have together been run through 30+ million random tests.
149712.	All known math bugs have been fixed, including out of control memory
1498	allocations in `sine` and `cosine` (that was actually a parse bug), certain
1499	cases of infinite loop on square root, and slight inaccuracies (as much as
1500	possible; see the [README][5]) in transcendental functions.
150113.	Parsing has been fixed as much as possible.
150214.	Test coverage was improved to 94.8%. The only paths not covered are ones
1503	that happen when `malloc()` or `realloc()` fails.
150415.	An extension to get the length of an array was added.
150516.	The boolean not (`!`) had its precedence change to match negation.
150617.	Data input was hardened.
150718.	`bc` was made fully compliant with POSIX when the `-s` flag is used or
1508	`POSIXLY_CORRECT` is defined.
150919.	Error handling was improved.
151020.	`bc` now checks that files it is given are not directories.
1511
1512## 1.0 Release Candidate 7
1513
1514This is the seventh release candidate for 1.0. It fixes a few bugs in 1.0
1515Release Candidate 6.
1516
1517## 1.0 Release Candidate 6
1518
1519This is the sixth release candidate for 1.0. It fixes a few bugs in 1.0 Release
1520Candidate 5.
1521
1522## 1.0 Release Candidate 5
1523
1524This is the fifth release candidate for 1.0. It fixes a few bugs in 1.0 Release
1525Candidate 4.
1526
1527## 1.0 Release Candidate 4
1528
1529This is the fourth release candidate for 1.0. It fixes a few bugs in 1.0 Release
1530Candidate 3.
1531
1532## 1.0 Release Candidate 3
1533
1534This is the third release candidate for 1.0. It fixes a few bugs in 1.0 Release
1535Candidate 2.
1536
1537## 1.0 Release Candidate 2
1538
1539This is the second release candidate for 1.0. It fixes a few bugs in 1.0 Release
1540Candidate 1.
1541
1542## 1.0 Release Candidate 1
1543
1544This is the first Release Candidate for 1.0. `bc` is complete, with `dc`, but it
1545is not tested.
1546
1547## 0.5
1548
1549This beta release completes more features, but it is still not complete nor
1550tested as thoroughly as necessary.
1551
1552## 0.4.1
1553
1554This beta release fixes a few bugs in 0.4.
1555
1556## 0.4
1557
1558This is a beta release. It does not have the complete set of features, and it is
1559not thoroughly tested.
1560
1561[1]: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/install-win10
1562[2]: https://pkg.musl.cc/bc/
1563[3]: http://lcamtuf.coredump.cx/afl/
1564[4]: ./scripts/karatsuba.py
1565[5]: ./README.md
1566[6]: ./configure.sh
1567[7]: https://github.com/rain-1/linenoise-mob
1568[8]: https://github.com/antirez/linenoise
1569[9]: ./manuals/bc/A.1.md
1570[10]: ./manuals/dc/A.1.md
1571[11]: https://scan.coverity.com/projects/gavinhoward-bc
1572[12]: ./scripts/locale_install.sh
1573[13]: ./manuals/build.md
1574[14]: https://github.com/stesser
1575[15]: https://github.com/bugcrazy
1576[16]: ./manuals/bc/A.1.md#extended-library
1577[17]: https://github.com/skeeto/optparse
1578[18]: https://www.deepl.com/translator
1579[19]: ./manuals/benchmarks.md
1580[20]: https://github.com/apjanke/ronn-ng
1581[21]: https://pandoc.org/
1582[22]: ./scripts/locale_uninstall.sh
1583