Octave 2.1.63 available for ftp

[John W. Eaton]

Octave 2.1.63 is now available for ftp from ftp.octave.org in the
directory /pub/octave/bleeding-edge:

  -rw-r--r--  1 1005 5508209 Nov 17 10:12 octave-2.1.63.tar.gz
  -rw-r--r--  1 1005 4339124 Nov 17 10:12 octave-2.1.63.tar.bz2
  -rw-r--r--  1 1005    1976 Nov 17 10:14 octave-2.1.62-2.1.63.patch.gz
  -rw-r--r--  1 1005    2124 Nov 17 10:14 octave-2.1.62-2.1.63.patch.bz2

  e358f561d31cbb784acd35c51cec80f3  octave-2.1.63.tar.gz
  3f6322b30edb79ee26659dbebefdfcfc  octave-2.1.63.tar.bz2
  ef37b6540f9f530b118f6b9262d21152  octave-2.1.62-2.1.63.patch.gz
  467f7880db1b959271b0760aec609bac  octave-2.1.62-2.1.63.patch.bz2

Thanks again to David Bateman for all his hard work to get this
snapshot ready.

This version includes many new features, including integer data types,
inline functions, function handles, concatenation of structs, cell
arrays and user-defined types, and better compatibility with the
leading brand.

As always, if your favorite bug is still not fixed, please report it.

There have only been a few bug fixes since 2.1.62 so 2.1.63 will be
labelled the "testing" (or recommended) version of Octave.

The snapshot is tagged in the usual way (ss-2-1-63) in the CVS
archive and I have also created a branch tag (ss-2-1-63-patches) so we
can check out that branch and apply any patches for a 2.1.64 snapshot
if that is needed.  I plan to start applying more interesting changes
to the main branch now, including removing gplot from the core parser,
and adding the new implementation of sparse matrices.  In addition to
these changes, I think we still have the following items for Octave
3.0:

  * allow [x{:}] = f (...) to work

  * private functions

  * some support for MPI

  * bring the manual up to date

I've done some work on the first item but did not finish my changes
(it was a bit messy).

Private functions should not be too difficult, but will require some
changes to the way the pathsearching code works.

I'm willing to drop the MPI item as I think this can be handled in an
external package.

It is not absolutely necessary to have the manual up to date for the
initial 3.0 release.

For later 3.x releases:

  * 64-bit addressing for >2GB arrays

  * support for >2GB files

  * single precision N-d arrays

  * package system for contributed code

  * Matlab-compatible objects

  * handle graphics

  * ?

Comments?

jwe