5 This is a production release that completes a bug fix from `5.1.0`. The bug
6 exists in all versions of `bc`.
8 The bug was that `if` statements without `else` statements would not be handled
9 correctly at the end of files or right before a function definition.
13 This is a production release with some fixes and new features.
15 * Fixed a bug where an `if` statement without an `else` before defining a
16 function caused an error.
17 * Fixed a bug with the `bc` banner and `-q`.
18 * Fixed a bug on Windows where files were not read correctly.
19 * Added a command-line flag (`-z`) to make `bc` and `dc` print leading zeroes on
21 * Added four functions to `lib2.bc` (`plz()`, `plznl()`, `pnlz()`, and
22 `pnlznl()`) to allow printing numbers with or without leading zeros, despite
23 the use of `-z` or not.
24 * Added builtin functions to query global state like line length, global stacks,
26 * Added a command-line flag (`-L`) to disable wrapping when printing numbers.
27 * Improved builds on Windows.
31 This is a production release with one fix for a flaky test. If you have not
32 experienced problems with the test suite, you do ***NOT*** need to upgrade.
34 The test was one that tested whether `bc` fails gracefully when it can't
35 allocate memory. Unfortunately, there are cases when Linux and FreeBSD lie and
36 pretend to allocate the memory.
38 The reason they do this is because a lot of programs don't use all of the memory
39 they allocate, so those OS's usually get away with it.
41 However, this `bc` uses all of the memory it allocates (at least at page
42 granularity), so when it tries to use the memory, FreeBSD and Linux kill it.
44 This only happens sometimes, however. Other times (on my machine), they do, in
45 fact, refuse the request.
47 So I changed the test to not test for that because I think the graceful failure
48 code won't really change much.
52 This is a production release with two fixes:
54 * Fix for the build on Mac OSX.
55 * Fix for the build on Android.
57 Users that do not use those platforms do ***NOT*** need to update.
61 This is a major production release with several changes:
63 * Added support for OpenBSD's `pledge()` and `unveil()`.
64 * Fixed print bug where a backslash newline combo was printed even if only one
65 digit was left, something I blindly copied from GNU `bc`, like a fool.
66 * Fixed bugs in the manuals.
67 * Fixed a possible multiplication overflow in power.
68 * Temporary numbers are garbage collected if allocation fails, and the
69 allocation is retried. This is to make `bc` and `dc` more resilient to running
71 * Limited the number of temporary numbers and made the space for them static so
72 that allocating more space for them cannot fail.
73 * Allowed integers with non-zero `scale` to be used with power, places, and
75 * Added greatest common divisor and least common multiple to `lib2.bc`.
76 * Added `SIGQUIT` handling to history.
77 * Added a command to `dc` (`y`) to get the length of register stacks.
78 * Fixed multi-digit bugs in `lib2.bc`.
79 * Removed the no prompt build option.
80 * Created settings that builders can set defaults for and users can set their
81 preferences for. This includes the `bc` banner, resetting on `SIGINT`, TTY
83 * Added history support to Windows.
84 * Fixed bugs with the handling of register names in `dc`.
85 * Fixed bugs with multi-line comments and strings in both calculators.
86 * Added a new error type and message for `dc` when register stacks don't have
88 * Optimized string allocation.
89 * Made `bc` and `dc` UTF-8 capable.
90 * Fixed a bug with `void` functions.
91 * Fixed a misspelled symbol in `bcl`. This is technically a breaking change,
92 which requires this to be `5.0.0`.
93 * Added the ability for users to get the copyright banner back.
94 * Added the ability for users to have `bc` and `dc` quit on `SIGINT`.
95 * Added the ability for users to disable prompt and TTY mode by environment
97 * Added the ability for users to redefine keywords. This is another reason this
99 * Added `dc`'s modular exponentiation and divmod to `bc`.
100 * Added the ability to assign strings to variables and array elements and pass
101 them to functions in `bc`.
102 * Added `dc`'s asciify command and stream printing to `bc`.
103 * Added a command to `dc` (`Y`) to get the length of an array.
104 * Added a command to `dc` (`,`) to get the depth of the execution stack.
105 * Added bitwise and, or, xor, left shift, right shift, reverse, left rotate,
106 right rotate, and mod functions to `lib2.bc`.
107 * Added the functions `s2u(x)` and `s2un(x,n)`, to `lib2.bc`.
111 This is a production release that fixes two bugs:
113 1. If no files are used and the first statement on `stdin` is invalid, `scale`
114 would not be set to `20` even if `-l` was used.
115 2. When using history, `bc` failed to respond properly to `SIGSTOP` and
120 This is a production release that only adds one thing: flushing output when it
121 is printed with a print statement.
125 This is a production release with many fixes, a new command-line option, and a
128 * A bug was fixed in `dc`'s `P` command where the item on the stack was *not*
130 * Various bugs in the manuals have been fixed.
131 * A known bug was fixed where history did not interact well with prompts printed
132 by user code without newlines.
133 * A new command-line option, `-R` and `--no-read-prompt` was added to disable
134 just the prompt when using `read()` (`bc`) or `?` (`dc`).
135 * And finally, **official support for Windows was added**.
137 The last item is why this is a major version bump.
139 Currently, only one set of build options (extra math and prompt enabled, history
140 and NLS/locale support disabled, both calculators enabled) is supported on
141 Windows. However, both debug and release builds are supported.
143 In addition, Windows builds are supported for the the library (`bcl`).
145 For more details about how to build on Windows, see the [README][5] or the
150 This is a production release that fixes a small bug.
152 The bug was that output was not flushed before a `read()` call, so prompts
153 without a newline on the end were not flushed before the `read()` call.
155 This is such a tiny bug that users only need to upgrade if they are affected.
159 This is a production release with one tweak and fixes for manuals.
161 The tweak is that `length(0)` returns `1` instead of `0`. In `3.3.1`, I changed
162 it so `length(0.x)`, where `x` could be any number of digits, returned the
163 `scale`, but `length(0)` still returned `0` because I believe that `0` has `0`
166 After request of FreeBSD and considering the arguments of a mathematician,
167 compatibility with other `bc`'s, and the expectations of users, I decided to
170 The fixes for manuals fixed a bug where `--` was rendered as `-`.
174 This is a production release that fixes a divide-by-zero bug in `root()` in the
175 [extended math library][16]. All previous versions with `root()` have the bug.
179 This is a production release that fixes a bug.
181 The bug was in the reporting of number length when the value was 0.
185 This is a production release that changes one behavior and fixes documentation
188 The changed behavior is the treatment of `-e` and `-f` when given through
189 `BC_ENV_ARGS` or `DC_ENV_ARGS`. Now `bc` and `dc` do not exit when those options
190 (or their equivalents) are given through those environment variables. However,
191 `bc` and `dc` still exit when they or their equivalents are given on the
196 This is a production release that removes a small non-portable shell operation
197 in `configure.sh`. This problem was only noticed on OpenBSD, not FreeBSD or
200 Non-OpenBSD users do ***NOT*** need to upgrade, although NetBSD users may also
205 This is a production release that fixes the build on FreeBSD.
207 There was a syntax error in `configure.sh` that the Linux shell did not catch,
208 and FreeBSD depends on the existence of `tests/all.sh`.
210 All users that already upgraded to `3.2.5` should update to this release, with
211 my apologies for the poor release of `3.2.5`. Other users should skip `3.2.5` in
212 favor of this version.
216 This is a production release that fixes several bugs and adds a couple small
219 The two most important bugs were bugs that causes `dc` to access memory
220 out-of-bounds (crash in debug builds). This was found by upgrading to `afl++`
221 from `afl`. Both were caused by a failure to distinguish between the same two
224 Another bug was the failure to put all of the licenses in the `LICENSE.md` file.
226 Third, some warnings by `scan-build` were found and eliminated. This needed one
227 big change: `bc` and `dc` now bail out as fast as possible on fatal errors
228 instead of unwinding the stack.
230 Fourth, the pseudo-random number now attempts to seed itself with `/dev/random`
231 if `/dev/urandom` fails.
233 Finally, this release has a few quality-of-life changes to the build system. The
234 usage should not change at all; the only thing that changed was making sure the
235 `Makefile.in` was written to rebuild properly when headers changed and to not
236 rebuild when not necessary.
240 This is a production release that fixes a warning on `gcc` 6 or older, which
241 does not have an attribute that is used.
243 Users do ***NOT*** need to upgrade if they don't use `gcc` 6 or older.
247 This is a production release that fixes a bug in `gen/strgen.sh`. I recently
248 changed `gen/strgen.c`, but I did not change `gen/strgen.sh`.
250 Users that do not use `gen/strgen.sh` do not need to upgrade.
254 This is a production release that fixes a portability bug in `configure.sh`. The
255 bug was using the GNU `find` extension `-wholename`.
259 This is a production release that has one fix for `bcl(3)`. It is technically
260 not a bug fix since the behavior is undefined, but the `BclNumber`s that
261 `bcl_divmod()` returns will be set to `BCL_ERROR_INVALID_NUM` if there is an
262 error. Previously, they were not set.
266 This is a production release that has one bug fix and a major addition.
268 The bug fix was a missing `auto` variable in the bessel `j()` function in the
271 The major addition is a way to build a version of `bc`'s math code as a library.
272 This is done with the `-a` option to `configure.sh`. The API for the library can
273 be read in `./manuals/bcl.3.md` or `man bcl` once the library is installed with
276 This library was requested by developers before I even finished version 1.0, but
277 I could not figure out how to do it until now.
279 If the library has API breaking changes, the major version of `bc` will be
284 This is a production release that fixes a new warning from Clang 12 for FreeBSD
285 and also removes some possible undefined behavior found by UBSan that compilers
286 did not seem to take advantage of.
288 Users do ***NOT*** need to upgrade, if they do not want to.
292 This is a production release that fixes the Chinese locales (which caused `bc`
293 to crash) and a crash caused by `bc` executing code when it should not have been
296 ***ALL USERS SHOULD UPGRADE.***
300 This is a production release that fixes one bug, changes two behaviors, and
301 removes one environment variable.
303 The bug is like the one in the last release except it applies if files are being
304 executed. I also made the fix more general.
306 The behavior that was changed is that `bc` now exits when given `-e`, `-f`,
307 `--expression` or `--file`. However, if the last one of those is `-f-` (using
308 `stdin` as the file), `bc` does not exit. If `-f-` exists and is not the last of
309 the `-e` and `-f` options (and equivalents), `bc` gives a fatal error and exits.
311 Next, I removed the `BC_EXPR_EXIT` and `DC_EXPR_EXIT` environment variables
312 since their use is not needed with the behavior change.
314 Finally, I made it so `bc` does not print the header, though the `-q` and
315 `--quiet` options were kept for compatibility with GNU `bc`.
319 This is a production release that fixes one minor bug: if `bc` was invoked like
320 the following, it would error:
323 echo "if (1 < 3) 1" | bc
326 Unless users run into this bug, they do not need to upgrade, but it is suggested
331 This is a production release that adds a way to install *all* locales. Users do
332 ***NOT*** need to upgrade.
334 For package maintainers wishing to make use of the change, just pass `-l` to
339 This is a production release that adds two Spanish locales. Users do ***NOT***
340 need to upgrade, unless they want those locales.
344 This is a production release that adjusts one behavior, fixes eight bugs, and
345 improves manpages for FreeBSD. Because this release fixes bugs, **users and
346 package maintainers should update to this version as soon as possible**.
348 The behavior that was adjusted was how code from the `-e` and `-f` arguments
349 (and equivalents) were executed. They used to be executed as one big chunk, but
350 in this release, they are now executed line-by-line.
352 The first bug fix in how output to `stdout` was handled in `SIGINT`. If a
353 `SIGINT` came in, the `stdout` buffer was not correctly flushed. In fact, a
354 clean-up function was not getting called. This release fixes that bug.
356 The second bug is in how `dc` handled input from `stdin`. This affected `bc` as
357 well since it was a mishandling of the `stdin` buffer.
359 The third fixed bug was that `bc` and `dc` could `abort()` (in debug mode) when
360 receiving a `SIGTERM`. This one was a race condition with pushing and popping
361 items onto and out of vectors.
363 The fourth bug fixed was that `bc` could leave extra items on the stack and
364 thus, not properly clean up some memory. (The memory would still get
365 `free()`'ed, but it would not be `free()`'ed when it could have been.)
367 The next two bugs were bugs in `bc`'s parser that caused crashes when executing
370 The last two bugs were crashes in `dc` that resulted from mishandling of
373 The manpage improvement was done by switching from [ronn][20] to [Pandoc][21] to
374 generate manpages. Pandoc generates much cleaner manpages and doesn't leave
375 blank lines where they shouldn't be.
379 This is a production release that adds one new feature: specific manpages.
381 Before this release, `bc` and `dc` only used one manpage each that referred to
382 various build options. This release changes it so there is one manpage set per
383 relevant build type. Each manual only has information about its particular
384 build, and `configure.sh` selects the correct set for install.
388 This is a production release that adds `utf8` locale symlinks and removes an
389 unused `auto` variable from the `ceil()` function in the [extended math
392 Users do ***NOT*** need to update unless they want the locales.
396 This is a production release with two small changes. Users do ***NOT*** need to
397 upgrade to this release; however, if they haven't upgraded to `3.0.0` yet, it
398 may be worthwhile to upgrade to this release.
400 The first change is fixing a compiler warning on FreeBSD with strict warnings
403 The second change is to make the new implementation of `ceil()` in `lib2.bc`
408 *Notes for package maintainers:*
410 *First, the `2.7.0` release series saw a change in the option parsing. This made
411 me change one error message and add a few others. The error message that was
412 changed removed one format specifier. This means that `printf()` will seqfault
413 on old locale files. Unfortunately, `bc` cannot use any locale files except the
414 global ones that are already installed, so it will use the previous ones while
415 running tests during install. **If `bc` segfaults while running arg tests when
416 updating, it is because the global locale files have not been replaced. Make
417 sure to either prevent the test suite from running on update or remove the old
418 locale files before updating.** (Removing the locale files can be done with
419 `make uninstall` or by running the [`locale_uninstall.sh`][22] script.) Once
420 this is done, `bc` should install without problems.*
422 *Second, **the option to build without signal support has been removed**. See
423 below for the reasons why.*
425 This is a production release with some small bug fixes, a few improvements,
426 three major bug fixes, and a complete redesign of `bc`'s error and signal
427 handling. **Users and package maintainers should update to this version as soon
430 The first major bug fix was in how `bc` executed files. Previously, a whole file
431 was parsed before it was executed, but if a function is defined *after* code,
432 especially if the function definition was actually a redefinition, and the code
433 before the definition referred to the previous function, this `bc` would replace
434 the function before executing any code. The fix was to make sure that all code
435 that existed before a function definition was executed.
437 The second major bug fix was in `bc`'s `lib2.bc`. The `ceil()` function had a
438 bug where a `0` in the decimal place after the truncation position, caused it to
439 output the wrong numbers if there was any non-zero digit after.
441 The third major bug is that when passing parameters to functions, if an
442 expression included an array (not an array element) as a parameter, it was
443 accepted, when it should have been rejected. It is now correctly rejected.
445 Beyond that, this `bc` got several improvements that both sped it up, improved
446 the handling of signals, and improved the error handling.
448 First, the requirements for `bc` were pushed back to POSIX 2008. `bc` uses one
449 function, `strdup()`, which is not in POSIX 2001, and it is in the X/Open System
450 Interfaces group 2001. It is, however, in POSIX 2008, and since POSIX 2008 is
451 old enough to be supported anywhere that I care, that should be the requirement.
453 Second, the BcVm global variable was put into `bss`. This actually slightly
454 reduces the size of the executable from a massive code shrink, and it will stop
455 `bc` from allocating a large set of memory when `bc` starts.
457 Third, the default Karatsuba length was updated from 64 to 32 after making the
458 optimization changes below, since 32 is going to be better than 64 after the
461 Fourth, Spanish translations were added.
463 Fifth, the interpreter received a speedup to make performance on non-math-heavy
464 scripts more competitive with GNU `bc`. While improvements did, in fact, get it
465 much closer (see the [benchmarks][19]), it isn't quite there.
467 There were several things done to speed up the interpreter:
469 First, several small inefficiencies were removed. These inefficiencies included
470 calling the function `bc_vec_pop(v)` twice instead of calling
471 `bc_vec_npop(v, 2)`. They also included an extra function call for checking the
472 size of the stack and checking the size of the stack more than once on several
475 Second, since the current `bc` function is the one that stores constants and
476 strings, the program caches pointers to the current function's vectors of
477 constants and strings to prevent needing to grab the current function in order
478 to grab a constant or a string.
480 Third, `bc` tries to reuse `BcNum`'s (the internal representation of
481 arbitary-precision numbers). If a `BcNum` has the default capacity of
482 `BC_NUM_DEF_SIZE` (32 on 64-bit and 16 on 32-bit) when it is freed, it is added
483 to a list of available `BcNum`'s. And then, when a `BcNum` is allocated with a
484 capacity of `BC_NUM_DEF_SIZE` and any `BcNum`'s exist on the list of reusable
485 ones, one of those ones is grabbed instead.
487 In order to support these changes, the `BC_NUM_DEF_SIZE` was changed. It used to
488 be 16 bytes on all systems, but it was changed to more closely align with the
489 minimum allocation size on Linux, which is either 32 bytes (64-bit musl), 24
490 bytes (64-bit glibc), 16 bytes (32-bit musl), or 12 bytes (32-bit glibc). Since
491 these are the minimum allocation sizes, these are the sizes that would be
492 allocated anyway, making it worth it to just use the whole space, so the value
493 of `BC_NUM_DEF_SIZE` on 64-bit systems was changed to 32 bytes.
495 On top of that, at least on 64-bit, `BC_NUM_DEF_SIZE` supports numbers with
496 either 72 integer digits or 45 integer digits and 27 fractional digits. This
497 should be more than enough for most cases since `bc`'s default `scale` values
498 are 0 or 20, meaning that, by default, it has at most 20 fractional digits. And
499 45 integer digits are *a lot*; it's enough to calculate the amount of mass in
500 the Milky Way galaxy in kilograms. Also, 72 digits is enough to calculate the
501 diameter of the universe in Planck lengths.
503 (For 32-bit, these numbers are either 32 integer digits or 12 integer digits and
504 20 fractional digits. These are also quite big, and going much bigger on a
505 32-bit system seems a little pointless since 12 digits is just under a trillion
506 and 20 fractional digits is still enough for about any use since `10^-20` light
507 years is just under a millimeter.)
509 All of this together means that for ordinary uses, and even uses in scientific
510 work, the default number size will be all that is needed, which means that
511 nearly all, if not all, numbers will be reused, relieving pressure on the system
514 I did several experiments to find the changes that had the most impact,
515 especially with regard to reusing `BcNum`'s. One was putting `BcNum`'s into
516 buckets according to their capacity in powers of 2 up to 512. That performed
517 worse than `bc` did in `2.7.2`. Another was putting any `BcNum` on the reuse
518 list that had a capacity of `BC_NUM_DEF_SIZE * 2` and reusing them for `BcNum`'s
519 that requested `BC_NUM_DEF_SIZE`. This did reduce the amount of time spent, but
520 it also spent a lot of time in the system allocator for an unknown reason. (When
521 using `strace`, a bunch more `brk` calls showed up.) Just reusing `BcNum`'s that
522 had exactly `BC_NUM_DEF_SIZE` capacity spent the smallest amount of time in both
523 user and system time. This makes sense, especially with the changes to make
524 `BC_NUM_DEF_SIZE` bigger on 64-bit systems, since the vast majority of numbers
525 will only ever use numbers with a size less than or equal to `BC_NUM_DEF_SIZE`.
527 Last of all, `bc`'s signal handling underwent a complete redesign. (This is the
528 reason that this version is `3.0.0` and not `2.8.0`.) The change was to move
529 from a polling approach to signal handling to an interrupt-based approach.
531 Previously, every single loop condition had a check for signals. I suspect that
532 this could be expensive when in tight loops.
534 Now, the signal handler just uses `longjmp()` (actually `siglongjmp()`) to start
535 an unwinding of the stack until it is stopped or the stack is unwound to
536 `main()`, which just returns. If `bc` is currently executing code that cannot be
537 safely interrupted (according to POSIX), then signals are "locked." The signal
538 handler checks if the lock is taken, and if it is, it just sets the status to
539 indicate that a signal arrived. Later, when the signal lock is released, the
540 status is checked to see if a signal came in. If so, the stack unwinding starts.
542 This design eliminates polling in favor of maintaining a stack of `jmp_buf`'s.
543 This has its own performance implications, but it gives better interaction. And
544 the cost of pushing and popping a `jmp_buf` in a function is paid at most twice.
545 Most functions do not pay that price, and most of the rest only pay it once.
546 (There are only some 3 functions in `bc` that push and pop a `jmp_buf` twice.)
548 As a side effect of this change, I had to eliminate the use of `stdio.h` in `bc`
549 because `stdio` does not play nice with signals and `longjmp()`. I implemented
550 custom I/O buffer code that takes a fraction of the size. This means that static
551 builds will be smaller, but non-static builds will be bigger, though they will
552 have less linking time.
554 This change is also good because my history implementation was already bypassing
555 `stdio` for good reasons, and unifying the architecture was a win.
557 Another reason for this change is that my `bc` should *always* behave correctly
558 in the presence of signals like `SIGINT`, `SIGTERM`, and `SIGQUIT`. With the
559 addition of my own I/O buffering, I needed to also make sure that the buffers
560 were correctly flushed even when such signals happened.
562 For this reason, I **removed the option to build without signal support**.
564 As a nice side effect of this change, the error handling code could be changed
565 to take advantage of the stack unwinding that signals used. This means that
566 signals and error handling use the same code paths, which means that the stack
567 unwinding is well-tested. (Errors are tested heavily in the test suite.)
569 It also means that functions do not need to return a status code that
570 ***every*** caller needs to check. This eliminated over 100 branches that simply
571 checked return codes and then passed that return code up the stack if necessary.
572 The code bloat savings from this is at least 1700 bytes on `x86_64`, *before*
573 taking into account the extra code from removing `stdio.h`.
577 This is a production release with one major bug fix.
579 The `length()` built-in function can take either a number or an array. If it
580 takes an array, it returns the length of the array. Arrays can be passed by
581 reference. The bug is that the `length()` function would not properly
582 dereference arrays that were references. This is a bug that affects all users.
584 **ALL USERS SHOULD UPDATE `bc`**.
588 This is a production release with fixes for new locales and fixes for compiler
593 This is a production release with a bug fix for Linux, new translations, and new
598 * Option parsing in `BC_ENV_ARGS` was broken on Linux in 2.6.1 because `glibc`'s
599 `getopt_long()` is broken. To get around that, and to support long options on
600 every platform, an adapted version of [`optparse`][17] was added. Now, `bc`
601 does not even use `getopt()`.
602 * Parsing `BC_ENV_ARGS` with quotes now works. It isn't the smartest, but it
603 does the job if there are spaces in file names.
605 The following new languages are supported:
613 All of these translations were generated using [DeepL][18], so improvements are
616 There is only one new feature: **`bc` now has a built-in pseudo-random number
619 The PRNG is seeded, making it useful for applications where
620 `/dev/urandom` does not work because output needs to be reproducible. However,
621 it also uses `/dev/urandom` to seed itself by default, so it will start with a
622 good seed by default.
624 It also outputs 32 bits on 32-bit platforms and 64 bits on 64-bit platforms, far
625 better than the 15 bits of C's `rand()` and `bash`'s `$RANDOM`.
627 In addition, the PRNG can take a bound, and when it gets a bound, it
628 automatically adjusts to remove bias. It can also generate numbers of arbitrary
629 size. (As of the time of release, the largest pseudo-random number generated by
630 this `bc` was generated with a bound of `2^(2^20)`.)
632 ***IMPORTANT: read the [`bc` manual][9] and the [`dc` manual][10] to find out
633 exactly what guarantees the PRNG provides. The underlying implementation is not
634 guaranteed to stay the same, but the guarantees that it provides are guaranteed
635 to stay the same regardless of the implementation.***
637 On top of that, four functions were added to `bc`'s [extended math library][16]
638 to make using the PRNG easier:
640 * `frand(p)`: Generates a number between `[0,1)` to `p` decimal places.
641 * `ifrand(i, p)`: Generates an integer with bound `i` and adds it to `frand(p)`.
642 * `srand(x)`: Randomizes the sign of `x`. In other words, it flips the sign of
643 `x` with probability `0.5`.
644 * `brand()`: Returns a random boolean value (either `0` or `1`).
648 This is a production release with a bug fix for FreeBSD.
650 The bug was that when `bc` was built without long options, it would give a fatal
651 error on every run. This was caused by a mishandling of `optind`.
655 This release is a production release ***with no bugfixes***. If you do not want
656 to upgrade, you don't have to.
658 No source code changed; the only thing that changed was `lib2.bc`.
660 This release adds one function to the [extended math library][16]: `p(x, y)`,
661 which calculates `x` to the power of `y`, whether or not `y` is an integer. (The
662 `^` operator can only accept integer powers.)
664 This release also includes a couple of small tweaks to the [extended math
665 library][16], mostly to fix returning numbers with too high of `scale`.
669 This release is a production release which addresses inconsistencies in the
670 Portuguese locales. No `bc` code was changed.
672 The issues were that the ISO files used different naming, and also that the
673 files that should have been symlinks were not. I did not catch that because
674 GitHub rendered them the exact same way.
678 This release is a production release.
680 No code was changed, but the build system was changed to allow `CFLAGS` to be
681 given to `CC`, like this:
684 CC="gcc -O3 -march=native" ./configure.sh
687 If this happens, the flags are automatically put into `CFLAGS`, and the compiler
688 is set appropriately. In the example above this means that `CC` will be "gcc"
689 and `CFLAGS` will be "-O3 -march=native".
691 This behavior was added to conform to GNU autotools practices.
695 This is a production release which addresses portability concerns discovered
696 in the `bc` build system. No `bc` code was changed.
698 * Support for Solaris SPARC and AIX were added.
699 * Minor documentations edits were performed.
700 * An option for `configure.sh` was added to disable long options if
701 `getopt_long()` is missing.
705 This is a production release with new translations. No code changed.
707 The translations were contributed by [bugcrazy][15], and they are for
708 Portuguese, both Portugal and Brazil locales.
712 This is a production release primarily aimed at improving `dc`.
714 * A couple of copy and paste errors in the [`dc` manual][10] were fixed.
715 * `dc` startup was optimized by making sure it didn't have to set up `bc`-only
717 * The `bc` `&&` and `||` operators were made available to `dc` through the `M`
718 and `m` commands, respectively.
719 * `dc` macros were changed to be tail call-optimized.
721 The last item, tail call optimization, means that if the last thing in a macro
722 is a call to another macro, then the old macro is popped before executing the
723 new macro. This change was made to stop `dc` from consuming more and more memory
724 as macros are executed in a loop.
726 The `q` and `Q` commands still respect the "hidden" macros by way of recording
727 how many macros were removed by tail call optimization.
731 This is a production release meant to fix warnings in the Gentoo `ebuild` by
732 making it possible to disable binary stripping. Other users do *not* need to
737 This is a production release. It fixes a bug that caused `-1000000000 < -1` to
738 return `0`. This only happened with negative numbers and only if the value on
739 the left was more negative by a certain amount. That said, this bug *is* a bad
740 bug, and needs to be fixed.
742 **ALL USERS SHOULD UPDATE `bc`**.
746 This is a production release with changes to the build system.
750 This release is a production release. It only has new features and performance
753 1. The performance of `sqrt(x)` was improved.
754 2. The new function `root(x, n)` was added to the extended math library to
755 calculate `n`th roots.
756 3. The new function `cbrt(x)` was added to the extended math library to
757 calculate cube roots.
761 This is a non-critical release; it just changes the build system, and in
764 1. Linked locale files were changed to link to their sources with a relative
766 2. A bug in `configure.sh` that caused long option parsing to fail under `bash`
771 This release is not a critical release.
773 1. A few codes were added to history.
774 2. Multiplication was optimized a bit more.
775 3. Addition and subtraction were both optimized a bit more.
779 This release contains a fix for the test suite made for Linux from Scratch: now
780 the test suite prints `pass` when a test is passed.
782 Other than that, there is no change in this release, so distros and other users
783 do not need to upgrade.
787 This release is a production release.
789 The following bugs were fixed:
791 1. A `dc` bug that caused stack mishandling was fixed.
792 2. A warning on OpenBSD was fixed.
793 3. Bugs in `ctrl+arrow` operations in history were fixed.
794 4. The ability to paste multiple lines in history was added.
795 5. A `bc` bug, mishandling of array arguments to functions, was fixed.
796 6. A crash caused by freeing the wrong pointer was fixed.
797 7. A `dc` bug where strings, in a rare case, were mishandled in parsing was
800 In addition, the following changes were made:
802 1. Division was slightly optimized.
803 2. An option was added to the build to disable printing of prompts.
804 3. The special case of empty arguments is now handled. This is to prevent
805 errors in scripts that end up passing empty arguments.
806 4. A harmless bug was fixed. This bug was that, with the pop instructions
807 (mostly) removed (see below), `bc` would leave extra values on its stack for
808 `void` functions and in a few other cases. These extra items would not
809 affect anything put on the stack and would not cause any sort of crash or
810 even buggy behavior, but they would cause `bc` to take more memory than it
813 On top of the above changes, the following optimizations were added:
815 1. The need for pop instructions in `bc` was removed.
816 2. Extra tests on every iteration of the interpreter loop were removed.
817 3. Updating function and code pointers on every iteration of the interpreter
818 loop was changed to only updating them when necessary.
819 4. Extra assignments to pointers were removed.
821 Altogether, these changes sped up the interpreter by around 2x.
823 ***NOTE***: This is the last release with new features because this `bc` is now
824 considered complete. From now on, only bug fixes and new translations will be
829 This is a production, bug-fix release.
831 Two bugs were fixed in this release:
833 1. A rare and subtle signal handling bug was fixed.
834 2. A misbehavior on `0` to a negative power was fixed.
836 The last bug bears some mentioning.
838 When I originally wrote power, I did not thoroughly check its error cases;
839 instead, I had it check if the first number was `0` and then if so, just return
840 `0`. However, `0` to a negative power means that `1` will be divided by `0`,
843 I caught this, but only after I stopped being cocky. You see, sometime later, I
844 had noticed that GNU `bc` returned an error, correctly, but I thought it was
845 wrong simply because that's not what my `bc` did. I saw it again later and had a
846 double take. I checked for real, finally, and found out that my `bc` was wrong
849 That was bad on me. But the bug was easy to fix, so it is fixed now.
851 There are two other things in this release:
853 1. Subtraction was optimized by [Stefan Eßer][14].
854 2. Division was also optimized, also by Stefan Eßer.
858 This release contains a fix for a possible overflow in the signal handling. I
859 would be surprised if any users ran into it because it would only happen after 2
860 billion (`2^31-1`) `SIGINT`'s, but I saw it and had to fix it.
864 This release contains very few things that will apply to any users.
866 1. A slight bug in `dc`'s interactive mode was fixed.
867 2. A bug in the test suite that was only triggered on NetBSD was fixed.
868 3. **The `-P`/`--no-prompt` option** was added for users that do not want a
870 4. A `make check` target was added as an alias for `make test`.
871 5. `dc` got its own read prompt: `?> `.
875 This release is a production release.
877 This release is also a little different from previous releases. From here on
878 out, I do not plan on adding any more features to this `bc`; I believe that it
879 is complete. However, there may be bug fix releases in the future, if I or any
880 others manage to find bugs.
882 This release has only a few new features:
884 1. `atan2(y, x)` was added to the extended math library as both `a2(y, x)` and
886 2. Locales were fixed.
887 3. A **POSIX shell-compatible script was added as an alternative to compiling
888 `gen/strgen.c`** on a host machine. More details about making the choice
889 between the two can be found by running `./configure.sh --help` or reading
890 the [build manual][13].
891 4. Multiplication was optimized by using **diagonal multiplication**, rather
892 than straight brute force.
893 5. The `locale_install.sh` script was fixed.
894 6. `dc` was given the ability to **use the environment variable
896 7. `dc` was also given the ability to **use the `-i` or `--interactive`**
898 8. Printing the prompt was fixed so that it did not print when it shouldn't.
899 9. Signal handling was fixed.
900 10. **Handling of `SIGTERM` and `SIGQUIT`** was fixed.
901 11. The **built-in functions `maxibase()`, `maxobase()`, and `maxscale()`** (the
902 commands `T`, `U`, `V` in `dc`, respectively) were added to allow scripts to
903 query for the max allowable values of those globals.
904 12. Some incompatibilities with POSIX were fixed.
906 In addition, this release is `2.0.0` for a big reason: the internal format for
907 numbers changed. They used to be a `char` array. Now, they are an array of
908 larger integers, packing more decimal digits into each integer. This has
909 delivered ***HUGE*** performance improvements, especially for multiplication,
912 This `bc` should now be the fastest `bc` available, but I may be wrong.
916 This release contains a fix for a harmless bug (it is harmless in that it still
917 works, but it just copies extra data) in the [`locale_install.sh`][12] script.
921 This version contains fixes for the build on Arch Linux.
925 This release removes the use of `local` in shell scripts because it's not POSIX
926 shell-compatible, and also updates a man page that should have been updated a
927 long time ago but was missed.
931 This release contains some missing locale `*.msg` files.
935 This release contains a few bug fixes and new French translations.
939 This release contains a fix for a bug: use of uninitialized data. Such data was
940 only used when outputting an error message, but I am striving for perfection. As
941 Michelangelo said, "Trifles make perfection, and perfection is no trifle."
945 This release contains fixes for OpenBSD.
949 This release contains bug fixes for some rare bugs.
953 This is a production release.
955 There have been several changes since `1.1.0`:
957 1. The build system had some changes.
958 2. Locale support has been added. (Patches welcome for translations.)
959 3. **The ability to turn `ibase`, `obase`, and `scale` into stacks** was added
960 with the `-g` command-line option. (See the [`bc` manual][9] for more
962 4. Support for compiling on Mac OSX out of the box was added.
963 5. The extended math library got `t(x)`, `ceil(x)`, and some aliases.
964 6. The extended math library also got `r2d(x)` (for converting from radians to
965 degrees) and `d2r(x)` (for converting from degrees to radians). This is to
966 allow using degrees with the standard library.
967 7. Both calculators now accept numbers in **scientific notation**. See the
968 [`bc` manual][9] and the [`dc` manual][10] for details.
969 8. Both calculators can **output in either scientific or engineering
970 notation**. See the [`bc` manual][9] and the [`dc` manual][10] for details.
971 9. Some inefficiencies were removed.
972 10. Some bugs were fixed.
973 11. Some bugs in the extended library were fixed.
974 12. Some defects from [Coverity Scan][11] were fixed.
978 This release contains a fix to the build system that allows it to build on older
983 This release contains a fix for a bug in the test suite where `bc` tests and
984 `dc` tests could not be run in parallel.
988 This release has a fix for a history bug; the down arrow did not work.
992 This release fixes a bug in the `1.1.0` build system. The source is exactly the
995 The bug that was fixed was a failure to install if no `EXECSUFFIX` was used.
999 This is a production release. However, many new features were added since `1.0`.
1001 1. **The build system has been changed** to use a custom, POSIX
1002 shell-compatible configure script ([`configure.sh`][6]) to generate a POSIX
1003 make-compatible `Makefile`, which means that `bc` and `dc` now build out of
1004 the box on any POSIX-compatible system.
1005 2. Out-of-memory and output errors now cause the `bc` to report the error,
1006 clean up, and die, rather than just reporting and trying to continue.
1007 3. **Strings and constants are now garbage collected** when possible.
1008 4. Signal handling and checking has been made more simple and more thorough.
1009 5. `BcGlobals` was refactored into `BcVm` and `BcVm` was made global. Some
1010 procedure names were changed to reflect its difference to everything else.
1011 6. Addition got a speed improvement.
1012 7. Some common code for addition and multiplication was refactored into its own
1014 8. A bug was removed where `dc` could have been selected, but the internal
1015 `#define` that returned `true` for a query about `dc` would not have
1017 9. Useless calls to `bc_num_zero()` were removed.
1018 10. **History support was added.** The history support is based off of a
1019 [UTF-8 aware fork][7] of [`linenoise`][8], which has been customized with
1020 `bc`'s own data structures and signal handling.
1021 11. Generating C source from the math library now removes tabs from the library,
1022 shrinking the size of the executable.
1023 12. The math library was shrunk.
1024 13. Error handling and reporting was improved.
1025 14. Reallocations were reduced by giving access to the request size for each
1027 15. **`abs()` (`b` command for `dc`) was added as a builtin.**
1028 16. Both calculators were tested on FreeBSD.
1029 17. Many obscure parse bugs were fixed.
1030 18. Markdown and man page manuals were added, and the man pages are installed by
1032 19. Executable size was reduced, though the added features probably made the
1033 executable end up bigger.
1034 20. **GNU-style array references were added as a supported feature.**
1035 21. Allocations were reduced.
1036 22. **New operators were added**: `$` (`$` for `dc`), `@` (`@` for `dc`), `@=`,
1037 `<<` (`H` for `dc`), `<<=`, `>>` (`h` for `dc`), and `>>=`. See the
1038 [`bc` manual][9] and the [`dc` manual][10] for more details.
1039 23. **An extended math library was added.** This library contains code that
1040 makes it so I can replace my desktop calculator with this `bc`. See the
1041 [`bc` manual][3] for more details.
1042 24. Support for all capital letters as numbers was added.
1043 25. **Support for GNU-style void functions was added.**
1044 26. A bug fix for improper handling of function parameters was added.
1045 27. Precedence for the or (`||`) operator was changed to match GNU `bc`.
1046 28. `dc` was given an explicit negation command.
1047 29. `dc` was changed to be able to handle strings in arrays.
1049 ## 1.1 Release Candidate 3
1051 This release is the eighth release candidate for 1.1, though it is the third
1052 release candidate meant as a general release candidate. The new code has not
1053 been tested as thoroughly as it should for release.
1055 ## 1.1 Release Candidate 2
1057 This release is the seventh release candidate for 1.1, though it is the second
1058 release candidate meant as a general release candidate. The new code has not
1059 been tested as thoroughly as it should for release.
1061 ## 1.1 FreeBSD Beta 5
1063 This release is the sixth release candidate for 1.1, though it is the fifth
1064 release candidate meant specifically to test if `bc` works on FreeBSD. The new
1065 code has not been tested as thoroughly as it should for release.
1067 ## 1.1 FreeBSD Beta 4
1069 This release is the fifth release candidate for 1.1, though it is the fourth
1070 release candidate meant specifically to test if `bc` works on FreeBSD. The new
1071 code has not been tested as thoroughly as it should for release.
1073 ## 1.1 FreeBSD Beta 3
1075 This release is the fourth release candidate for 1.1, though it is the third
1076 release candidate meant specifically to test if `bc` works on FreeBSD. The new
1077 code has not been tested as thoroughly as it should for release.
1079 ## 1.1 FreeBSD Beta 2
1081 This release is the third release candidate for 1.1, though it is the second
1082 release candidate meant specifically to test if `bc` works on FreeBSD. The new
1083 code has not been tested as thoroughly as it should for release.
1085 ## 1.1 FreeBSD Beta 1
1087 This release is the second release candidate for 1.1, though it is meant
1088 specifically to test if `bc` works on FreeBSD. The new code has not been tested as
1089 thoroughly as it should for release.
1091 ## 1.1 Release Candidate 1
1093 This is the first release candidate for 1.1. The new code has not been tested as
1094 thoroughly as it should for release.
1098 This is the first non-beta release. `bc` is ready for production use.
1100 As such, a lot has changed since 0.5.
1102 1. `dc` has been added. It has been tested even more thoroughly than `bc` was
1103 for `0.5`. It does not have the `!` command, and for security reasons, it
1104 never will, so it is complete.
1105 2. `bc` has been more thoroughly tested. An entire section of the test suite
1106 (for both programs) has been added to test for errors.
1107 3. A prompt (`>>> `) has been added for interactive mode, making it easier to
1108 see inputs and outputs.
1109 4. Interrupt handling has been improved, including elimination of race
1110 conditions (as much as possible).
1111 5. MinGW and [Windows Subsystem for Linux][1] support has been added (see
1112 [xstatic][2] for binaries).
1113 6. Memory leaks and errors have been eliminated (as far as ASan and Valgrind
1115 7. Crashes have been eliminated (as far as [afl][3] can tell).
1116 8. Karatsuba multiplication was added (and thoroughly) tested, speeding up
1117 multiplication and power by orders of magnitude.
1118 9. Performance was further enhanced by using a "divmod" function to reduce
1119 redundant divisions and by removing superfluous `memset()` calls.
1120 10. To switch between Karatsuba and `O(n^2)` multiplication, the config variable
1121 `BC_NUM_KARATSUBA_LEN` was added. It is set to a sane default, but the
1122 optimal number can be found with [`karatsuba.py`][4] (requires Python 3)
1123 and then configured through `make`.
1124 11. The random math test generator script was changed to Python 3 and improved.
1125 `bc` and `dc` have together been run through 30+ million random tests.
1126 12. All known math bugs have been fixed, including out of control memory
1127 allocations in `sine` and `cosine` (that was actually a parse bug), certain
1128 cases of infinite loop on square root, and slight inaccuracies (as much as
1129 possible; see the [README][5]) in transcendental functions.
1130 13. Parsing has been fixed as much as possible.
1131 14. Test coverage was improved to 94.8%. The only paths not covered are ones
1132 that happen when `malloc()` or `realloc()` fails.
1133 15. An extension to get the length of an array was added.
1134 16. The boolean not (`!`) had its precedence change to match negation.
1135 17. Data input was hardened.
1136 18. `bc` was made fully compliant with POSIX when the `-s` flag is used or
1137 `POSIXLY_CORRECT` is defined.
1138 19. Error handling was improved.
1139 20. `bc` now checks that files it is given are not directories.
1141 ## 1.0 Release Candidate 7
1143 This is the seventh release candidate for 1.0. It fixes a few bugs in 1.0
1144 Release Candidate 6.
1146 ## 1.0 Release Candidate 6
1148 This is the sixth release candidate for 1.0. It fixes a few bugs in 1.0 Release
1151 ## 1.0 Release Candidate 5
1153 This is the fifth release candidate for 1.0. It fixes a few bugs in 1.0 Release
1156 ## 1.0 Release Candidate 4
1158 This is the fourth release candidate for 1.0. It fixes a few bugs in 1.0 Release
1161 ## 1.0 Release Candidate 3
1163 This is the third release candidate for 1.0. It fixes a few bugs in 1.0 Release
1166 ## 1.0 Release Candidate 2
1168 This is the second release candidate for 1.0. It fixes a few bugs in 1.0 Release
1171 ## 1.0 Release Candidate 1
1173 This is the first Release Candidate for 1.0. `bc` is complete, with `dc`, but it
1178 This beta release completes more features, but it is still not complete nor
1179 tested as thoroughly as necessary.
1183 This beta release fixes a few bugs in 0.4.
1187 This is a beta release. It does not have the complete set of features, and it is
1188 not thoroughly tested.
1190 [1]: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/install-win10
1191 [2]: https://pkg.musl.cc/bc/
1192 [3]: http://lcamtuf.coredump.cx/afl/
1193 [4]: ./scripts/karatsuba.py
1196 [7]: https://github.com/rain-1/linenoise-mob
1197 [8]: https://github.com/antirez/linenoise
1198 [9]: ./manuals/bc/A.1.md
1199 [10]: ./manuals/dc/A.1.md
1200 [11]: https://scan.coverity.com/projects/gavinhoward-bc
1201 [12]: ./scripts/locale_install.sh
1202 [13]: ./manuals/build.md
1203 [14]: https://github.com/stesser
1204 [15]: https://github.com/bugcrazy
1205 [16]: ./manuals/bc/A.1.md#extended-library
1206 [17]: https://github.com/skeeto/optparse
1207 [18]: https://www.deepl.com/translator
1208 [19]: ./manuals/benchmarks.md
1209 [20]: https://github.com/apjanke/ronn-ng
1210 [21]: https://pandoc.org/
1211 [22]: ./scripts/locale_uninstall.sh