5 This is a production release with some fixes and new features.
7 * Fixed a bug where an `if` statement without an `else` before defining a
8 function caused an error.
9 * Fixed a bug with the `bc` banner and `-q`.
10 * Fixed a bug on Windows where files were not read correctly.
11 * Added a command-line flag (`-z`) to make `bc` and `dc` print leading zeroes on
13 * Added four functions to `lib2.bc` (`plz()`, `plznl()`, `pnlz()`, and
14 `pnlznl()`) to allow printing numbers with or without leading zeros, despite
15 the use of `-z` or not.
16 * Added builtin functions to query global state like line length, global stacks,
18 * Added a command-line flag (`-L`) to disable wrapping when printing numbers.
19 * Improved builds on Windows.
23 This is a production release with one fix for a flaky test. If you have not
24 experienced problems with the test suite, you do ***NOT*** need to upgrade.
26 The test was one that tested whether `bc` fails gracefully when it can't
27 allocate memory. Unfortunately, there are cases when Linux and FreeBSD lie and
28 pretend to allocate the memory.
30 The reason they do this is because a lot of programs don't use all of the memory
31 they allocate, so those OS's usually get away with it.
33 However, this `bc` uses all of the memory it allocates (at least at page
34 granularity), so when it tries to use the memory, FreeBSD and Linux kill it.
36 This only happens sometimes, however. Other times (on my machine), they do, in
37 fact, refuse the request.
39 So I changed the test to not test for that because I think the graceful failure
40 code won't really change much.
44 This is a production release with two fixes:
46 * Fix for the build on Mac OSX.
47 * Fix for the build on Android.
49 Users that do not use those platforms do ***NOT*** need to update.
53 This is a major production release with several changes:
55 * Added support for OpenBSD's `pledge()` and `unveil()`.
56 * Fixed print bug where a backslash newline combo was printed even if only one
57 digit was left, something I blindly copied from GNU `bc`, like a fool.
58 * Fixed bugs in the manuals.
59 * Fixed a possible multiplication overflow in power.
60 * Temporary numbers are garbage collected if allocation fails, and the
61 allocation is retried. This is to make `bc` and `dc` more resilient to running
63 * Limited the number of temporary numbers and made the space for them static so
64 that allocating more space for them cannot fail.
65 * Allowed integers with non-zero `scale` to be used with power, places, and
67 * Added greatest common divisor and least common multiple to `lib2.bc`.
68 * Added `SIGQUIT` handling to history.
69 * Added a command to `dc` (`y`) to get the length of register stacks.
70 * Fixed multi-digit bugs in `lib2.bc`.
71 * Removed the no prompt build option.
72 * Created settings that builders can set defaults for and users can set their
73 preferences for. This includes the `bc` banner, resetting on `SIGINT`, TTY
75 * Added history support to Windows.
76 * Fixed bugs with the handling of register names in `dc`.
77 * Fixed bugs with multi-line comments and strings in both calculators.
78 * Added a new error type and message for `dc` when register stacks don't have
80 * Optimized string allocation.
81 * Made `bc` and `dc` UTF-8 capable.
82 * Fixed a bug with `void` functions.
83 * Fixed a misspelled symbol in `bcl`. This is technically a breaking change,
84 which requires this to be `5.0.0`.
85 * Added the ability for users to get the copyright banner back.
86 * Added the ability for users to have `bc` and `dc` quit on `SIGINT`.
87 * Added the ability for users to disable prompt and TTY mode by environment
89 * Added the ability for users to redefine keywords. This is another reason this
91 * Added `dc`'s modular exponentiation and divmod to `bc`.
92 * Added the ability to assign strings to variables and array elements and pass
93 them to functions in `bc`.
94 * Added `dc`'s asciify command and stream printing to `bc`.
95 * Added a command to `dc` (`Y`) to get the length of an array.
96 * Added a command to `dc` (`,`) to get the depth of the execution stack.
97 * Added bitwise and, or, xor, left shift, right shift, reverse, left rotate,
98 right rotate, and mod functions to `lib2.bc`.
99 * Added the functions `s2u(x)` and `s2un(x,n)`, to `lib2.bc`.
103 This is a production release that fixes two bugs:
105 1. If no files are used and the first statement on `stdin` is invalid, `scale`
106 would not be set to `20` even if `-l` was used.
107 2. When using history, `bc` failed to respond properly to `SIGSTOP` and
112 This is a production release that only adds one thing: flushing output when it
113 is printed with a print statement.
117 This is a production release with many fixes, a new command-line option, and a
120 * A bug was fixed in `dc`'s `P` command where the item on the stack was *not*
122 * Various bugs in the manuals have been fixed.
123 * A known bug was fixed where history did not interact well with prompts printed
124 by user code without newlines.
125 * A new command-line option, `-R` and `--no-read-prompt` was added to disable
126 just the prompt when using `read()` (`bc`) or `?` (`dc`).
127 * And finally, **official support for Windows was added**.
129 The last item is why this is a major version bump.
131 Currently, only one set of build options (extra math and prompt enabled, history
132 and NLS/locale support disabled, both calculators enabled) is supported on
133 Windows. However, both debug and release builds are supported.
135 In addition, Windows builds are supported for the the library (`bcl`).
137 For more details about how to build on Windows, see the [README][5] or the
142 This is a production release that fixes a small bug.
144 The bug was that output was not flushed before a `read()` call, so prompts
145 without a newline on the end were not flushed before the `read()` call.
147 This is such a tiny bug that users only need to upgrade if they are affected.
151 This is a production release with one tweak and fixes for manuals.
153 The tweak is that `length(0)` returns `1` instead of `0`. In `3.3.1`, I changed
154 it so `length(0.x)`, where `x` could be any number of digits, returned the
155 `scale`, but `length(0)` still returned `0` because I believe that `0` has `0`
158 After request of FreeBSD and considering the arguments of a mathematician,
159 compatibility with other `bc`'s, and the expectations of users, I decided to
162 The fixes for manuals fixed a bug where `--` was rendered as `-`.
166 This is a production release that fixes a divide-by-zero bug in `root()` in the
167 [extended math library][16]. All previous versions with `root()` have the bug.
171 This is a production release that fixes a bug.
173 The bug was in the reporting of number length when the value was 0.
177 This is a production release that changes one behavior and fixes documentation
180 The changed behavior is the treatment of `-e` and `-f` when given through
181 `BC_ENV_ARGS` or `DC_ENV_ARGS`. Now `bc` and `dc` do not exit when those options
182 (or their equivalents) are given through those environment variables. However,
183 `bc` and `dc` still exit when they or their equivalents are given on the
188 This is a production release that removes a small non-portable shell operation
189 in `configure.sh`. This problem was only noticed on OpenBSD, not FreeBSD or
192 Non-OpenBSD users do ***NOT*** need to upgrade, although NetBSD users may also
197 This is a production release that fixes the build on FreeBSD.
199 There was a syntax error in `configure.sh` that the Linux shell did not catch,
200 and FreeBSD depends on the existence of `tests/all.sh`.
202 All users that already upgraded to `3.2.5` should update to this release, with
203 my apologies for the poor release of `3.2.5`. Other users should skip `3.2.5` in
204 favor of this version.
208 This is a production release that fixes several bugs and adds a couple small
211 The two most important bugs were bugs that causes `dc` to access memory
212 out-of-bounds (crash in debug builds). This was found by upgrading to `afl++`
213 from `afl`. Both were caused by a failure to distinguish between the same two
216 Another bug was the failure to put all of the licenses in the `LICENSE.md` file.
218 Third, some warnings by `scan-build` were found and eliminated. This needed one
219 big change: `bc` and `dc` now bail out as fast as possible on fatal errors
220 instead of unwinding the stack.
222 Fourth, the pseudo-random number now attempts to seed itself with `/dev/random`
223 if `/dev/urandom` fails.
225 Finally, this release has a few quality-of-life changes to the build system. The
226 usage should not change at all; the only thing that changed was making sure the
227 `Makefile.in` was written to rebuild properly when headers changed and to not
228 rebuild when not necessary.
232 This is a production release that fixes a warning on `gcc` 6 or older, which
233 does not have an attribute that is used.
235 Users do ***NOT*** need to upgrade if they don't use `gcc` 6 or older.
239 This is a production release that fixes a bug in `gen/strgen.sh`. I recently
240 changed `gen/strgen.c`, but I did not change `gen/strgen.sh`.
242 Users that do not use `gen/strgen.sh` do not need to upgrade.
246 This is a production release that fixes a portability bug in `configure.sh`. The
247 bug was using the GNU `find` extension `-wholename`.
251 This is a production release that has one fix for `bcl(3)`. It is technically
252 not a bug fix since the behavior is undefined, but the `BclNumber`s that
253 `bcl_divmod()` returns will be set to `BCL_ERROR_INVALID_NUM` if there is an
254 error. Previously, they were not set.
258 This is a production release that has one bug fix and a major addition.
260 The bug fix was a missing `auto` variable in the bessel `j()` function in the
263 The major addition is a way to build a version of `bc`'s math code as a library.
264 This is done with the `-a` option to `configure.sh`. The API for the library can
265 be read in `./manuals/bcl.3.md` or `man bcl` once the library is installed with
268 This library was requested by developers before I even finished version 1.0, but
269 I could not figure out how to do it until now.
271 If the library has API breaking changes, the major version of `bc` will be
276 This is a production release that fixes a new warning from Clang 12 for FreeBSD
277 and also removes some possible undefined behavior found by UBSan that compilers
278 did not seem to take advantage of.
280 Users do ***NOT*** need to upgrade, if they do not want to.
284 This is a production release that fixes the Chinese locales (which caused `bc`
285 to crash) and a crash caused by `bc` executing code when it should not have been
288 ***ALL USERS SHOULD UPGRADE.***
292 This is a production release that fixes one bug, changes two behaviors, and
293 removes one environment variable.
295 The bug is like the one in the last release except it applies if files are being
296 executed. I also made the fix more general.
298 The behavior that was changed is that `bc` now exits when given `-e`, `-f`,
299 `--expression` or `--file`. However, if the last one of those is `-f-` (using
300 `stdin` as the file), `bc` does not exit. If `-f-` exists and is not the last of
301 the `-e` and `-f` options (and equivalents), `bc` gives a fatal error and exits.
303 Next, I removed the `BC_EXPR_EXIT` and `DC_EXPR_EXIT` environment variables
304 since their use is not needed with the behavior change.
306 Finally, I made it so `bc` does not print the header, though the `-q` and
307 `--quiet` options were kept for compatibility with GNU `bc`.
311 This is a production release that fixes one minor bug: if `bc` was invoked like
312 the following, it would error:
315 echo "if (1 < 3) 1" | bc
318 Unless users run into this bug, they do not need to upgrade, but it is suggested
323 This is a production release that adds a way to install *all* locales. Users do
324 ***NOT*** need to upgrade.
326 For package maintainers wishing to make use of the change, just pass `-l` to
331 This is a production release that adds two Spanish locales. Users do ***NOT***
332 need to upgrade, unless they want those locales.
336 This is a production release that adjusts one behavior, fixes eight bugs, and
337 improves manpages for FreeBSD. Because this release fixes bugs, **users and
338 package maintainers should update to this version as soon as possible**.
340 The behavior that was adjusted was how code from the `-e` and `-f` arguments
341 (and equivalents) were executed. They used to be executed as one big chunk, but
342 in this release, they are now executed line-by-line.
344 The first bug fix in how output to `stdout` was handled in `SIGINT`. If a
345 `SIGINT` came in, the `stdout` buffer was not correctly flushed. In fact, a
346 clean-up function was not getting called. This release fixes that bug.
348 The second bug is in how `dc` handled input from `stdin`. This affected `bc` as
349 well since it was a mishandling of the `stdin` buffer.
351 The third fixed bug was that `bc` and `dc` could `abort()` (in debug mode) when
352 receiving a `SIGTERM`. This one was a race condition with pushing and popping
353 items onto and out of vectors.
355 The fourth bug fixed was that `bc` could leave extra items on the stack and
356 thus, not properly clean up some memory. (The memory would still get
357 `free()`'ed, but it would not be `free()`'ed when it could have been.)
359 The next two bugs were bugs in `bc`'s parser that caused crashes when executing
362 The last two bugs were crashes in `dc` that resulted from mishandling of
365 The manpage improvement was done by switching from [ronn][20] to [Pandoc][21] to
366 generate manpages. Pandoc generates much cleaner manpages and doesn't leave
367 blank lines where they shouldn't be.
371 This is a production release that adds one new feature: specific manpages.
373 Before this release, `bc` and `dc` only used one manpage each that referred to
374 various build options. This release changes it so there is one manpage set per
375 relevant build type. Each manual only has information about its particular
376 build, and `configure.sh` selects the correct set for install.
380 This is a production release that adds `utf8` locale symlinks and removes an
381 unused `auto` variable from the `ceil()` function in the [extended math
384 Users do ***NOT*** need to update unless they want the locales.
388 This is a production release with two small changes. Users do ***NOT*** need to
389 upgrade to this release; however, if they haven't upgraded to `3.0.0` yet, it
390 may be worthwhile to upgrade to this release.
392 The first change is fixing a compiler warning on FreeBSD with strict warnings
395 The second change is to make the new implementation of `ceil()` in `lib2.bc`
400 *Notes for package maintainers:*
402 *First, the `2.7.0` release series saw a change in the option parsing. This made
403 me change one error message and add a few others. The error message that was
404 changed removed one format specifier. This means that `printf()` will seqfault
405 on old locale files. Unfortunately, `bc` cannot use any locale files except the
406 global ones that are already installed, so it will use the previous ones while
407 running tests during install. **If `bc` segfaults while running arg tests when
408 updating, it is because the global locale files have not been replaced. Make
409 sure to either prevent the test suite from running on update or remove the old
410 locale files before updating.** (Removing the locale files can be done with
411 `make uninstall` or by running the [`locale_uninstall.sh`][22] script.) Once
412 this is done, `bc` should install without problems.*
414 *Second, **the option to build without signal support has been removed**. See
415 below for the reasons why.*
417 This is a production release with some small bug fixes, a few improvements,
418 three major bug fixes, and a complete redesign of `bc`'s error and signal
419 handling. **Users and package maintainers should update to this version as soon
422 The first major bug fix was in how `bc` executed files. Previously, a whole file
423 was parsed before it was executed, but if a function is defined *after* code,
424 especially if the function definition was actually a redefinition, and the code
425 before the definition referred to the previous function, this `bc` would replace
426 the function before executing any code. The fix was to make sure that all code
427 that existed before a function definition was executed.
429 The second major bug fix was in `bc`'s `lib2.bc`. The `ceil()` function had a
430 bug where a `0` in the decimal place after the truncation position, caused it to
431 output the wrong numbers if there was any non-zero digit after.
433 The third major bug is that when passing parameters to functions, if an
434 expression included an array (not an array element) as a parameter, it was
435 accepted, when it should have been rejected. It is now correctly rejected.
437 Beyond that, this `bc` got several improvements that both sped it up, improved
438 the handling of signals, and improved the error handling.
440 First, the requirements for `bc` were pushed back to POSIX 2008. `bc` uses one
441 function, `strdup()`, which is not in POSIX 2001, and it is in the X/Open System
442 Interfaces group 2001. It is, however, in POSIX 2008, and since POSIX 2008 is
443 old enough to be supported anywhere that I care, that should be the requirement.
445 Second, the BcVm global variable was put into `bss`. This actually slightly
446 reduces the size of the executable from a massive code shrink, and it will stop
447 `bc` from allocating a large set of memory when `bc` starts.
449 Third, the default Karatsuba length was updated from 64 to 32 after making the
450 optimization changes below, since 32 is going to be better than 64 after the
453 Fourth, Spanish translations were added.
455 Fifth, the interpreter received a speedup to make performance on non-math-heavy
456 scripts more competitive with GNU `bc`. While improvements did, in fact, get it
457 much closer (see the [benchmarks][19]), it isn't quite there.
459 There were several things done to speed up the interpreter:
461 First, several small inefficiencies were removed. These inefficiencies included
462 calling the function `bc_vec_pop(v)` twice instead of calling
463 `bc_vec_npop(v, 2)`. They also included an extra function call for checking the
464 size of the stack and checking the size of the stack more than once on several
467 Second, since the current `bc` function is the one that stores constants and
468 strings, the program caches pointers to the current function's vectors of
469 constants and strings to prevent needing to grab the current function in order
470 to grab a constant or a string.
472 Third, `bc` tries to reuse `BcNum`'s (the internal representation of
473 arbitary-precision numbers). If a `BcNum` has the default capacity of
474 `BC_NUM_DEF_SIZE` (32 on 64-bit and 16 on 32-bit) when it is freed, it is added
475 to a list of available `BcNum`'s. And then, when a `BcNum` is allocated with a
476 capacity of `BC_NUM_DEF_SIZE` and any `BcNum`'s exist on the list of reusable
477 ones, one of those ones is grabbed instead.
479 In order to support these changes, the `BC_NUM_DEF_SIZE` was changed. It used to
480 be 16 bytes on all systems, but it was changed to more closely align with the
481 minimum allocation size on Linux, which is either 32 bytes (64-bit musl), 24
482 bytes (64-bit glibc), 16 bytes (32-bit musl), or 12 bytes (32-bit glibc). Since
483 these are the minimum allocation sizes, these are the sizes that would be
484 allocated anyway, making it worth it to just use the whole space, so the value
485 of `BC_NUM_DEF_SIZE` on 64-bit systems was changed to 32 bytes.
487 On top of that, at least on 64-bit, `BC_NUM_DEF_SIZE` supports numbers with
488 either 72 integer digits or 45 integer digits and 27 fractional digits. This
489 should be more than enough for most cases since `bc`'s default `scale` values
490 are 0 or 20, meaning that, by default, it has at most 20 fractional digits. And
491 45 integer digits are *a lot*; it's enough to calculate the amount of mass in
492 the Milky Way galaxy in kilograms. Also, 72 digits is enough to calculate the
493 diameter of the universe in Planck lengths.
495 (For 32-bit, these numbers are either 32 integer digits or 12 integer digits and
496 20 fractional digits. These are also quite big, and going much bigger on a
497 32-bit system seems a little pointless since 12 digits is just under a trillion
498 and 20 fractional digits is still enough for about any use since `10^-20` light
499 years is just under a millimeter.)
501 All of this together means that for ordinary uses, and even uses in scientific
502 work, the default number size will be all that is needed, which means that
503 nearly all, if not all, numbers will be reused, relieving pressure on the system
506 I did several experiments to find the changes that had the most impact,
507 especially with regard to reusing `BcNum`'s. One was putting `BcNum`'s into
508 buckets according to their capacity in powers of 2 up to 512. That performed
509 worse than `bc` did in `2.7.2`. Another was putting any `BcNum` on the reuse
510 list that had a capacity of `BC_NUM_DEF_SIZE * 2` and reusing them for `BcNum`'s
511 that requested `BC_NUM_DEF_SIZE`. This did reduce the amount of time spent, but
512 it also spent a lot of time in the system allocator for an unknown reason. (When
513 using `strace`, a bunch more `brk` calls showed up.) Just reusing `BcNum`'s that
514 had exactly `BC_NUM_DEF_SIZE` capacity spent the smallest amount of time in both
515 user and system time. This makes sense, especially with the changes to make
516 `BC_NUM_DEF_SIZE` bigger on 64-bit systems, since the vast majority of numbers
517 will only ever use numbers with a size less than or equal to `BC_NUM_DEF_SIZE`.
519 Last of all, `bc`'s signal handling underwent a complete redesign. (This is the
520 reason that this version is `3.0.0` and not `2.8.0`.) The change was to move
521 from a polling approach to signal handling to an interrupt-based approach.
523 Previously, every single loop condition had a check for signals. I suspect that
524 this could be expensive when in tight loops.
526 Now, the signal handler just uses `longjmp()` (actually `siglongjmp()`) to start
527 an unwinding of the stack until it is stopped or the stack is unwound to
528 `main()`, which just returns. If `bc` is currently executing code that cannot be
529 safely interrupted (according to POSIX), then signals are "locked." The signal
530 handler checks if the lock is taken, and if it is, it just sets the status to
531 indicate that a signal arrived. Later, when the signal lock is released, the
532 status is checked to see if a signal came in. If so, the stack unwinding starts.
534 This design eliminates polling in favor of maintaining a stack of `jmp_buf`'s.
535 This has its own performance implications, but it gives better interaction. And
536 the cost of pushing and popping a `jmp_buf` in a function is paid at most twice.
537 Most functions do not pay that price, and most of the rest only pay it once.
538 (There are only some 3 functions in `bc` that push and pop a `jmp_buf` twice.)
540 As a side effect of this change, I had to eliminate the use of `stdio.h` in `bc`
541 because `stdio` does not play nice with signals and `longjmp()`. I implemented
542 custom I/O buffer code that takes a fraction of the size. This means that static
543 builds will be smaller, but non-static builds will be bigger, though they will
544 have less linking time.
546 This change is also good because my history implementation was already bypassing
547 `stdio` for good reasons, and unifying the architecture was a win.
549 Another reason for this change is that my `bc` should *always* behave correctly
550 in the presence of signals like `SIGINT`, `SIGTERM`, and `SIGQUIT`. With the
551 addition of my own I/O buffering, I needed to also make sure that the buffers
552 were correctly flushed even when such signals happened.
554 For this reason, I **removed the option to build without signal support**.
556 As a nice side effect of this change, the error handling code could be changed
557 to take advantage of the stack unwinding that signals used. This means that
558 signals and error handling use the same code paths, which means that the stack
559 unwinding is well-tested. (Errors are tested heavily in the test suite.)
561 It also means that functions do not need to return a status code that
562 ***every*** caller needs to check. This eliminated over 100 branches that simply
563 checked return codes and then passed that return code up the stack if necessary.
564 The code bloat savings from this is at least 1700 bytes on `x86_64`, *before*
565 taking into account the extra code from removing `stdio.h`.
569 This is a production release with one major bug fix.
571 The `length()` built-in function can take either a number or an array. If it
572 takes an array, it returns the length of the array. Arrays can be passed by
573 reference. The bug is that the `length()` function would not properly
574 dereference arrays that were references. This is a bug that affects all users.
576 **ALL USERS SHOULD UPDATE `bc`**.
580 This is a production release with fixes for new locales and fixes for compiler
585 This is a production release with a bug fix for Linux, new translations, and new
590 * Option parsing in `BC_ENV_ARGS` was broken on Linux in 2.6.1 because `glibc`'s
591 `getopt_long()` is broken. To get around that, and to support long options on
592 every platform, an adapted version of [`optparse`][17] was added. Now, `bc`
593 does not even use `getopt()`.
594 * Parsing `BC_ENV_ARGS` with quotes now works. It isn't the smartest, but it
595 does the job if there are spaces in file names.
597 The following new languages are supported:
605 All of these translations were generated using [DeepL][18], so improvements are
608 There is only one new feature: **`bc` now has a built-in pseudo-random number
611 The PRNG is seeded, making it useful for applications where
612 `/dev/urandom` does not work because output needs to be reproducible. However,
613 it also uses `/dev/urandom` to seed itself by default, so it will start with a
614 good seed by default.
616 It also outputs 32 bits on 32-bit platforms and 64 bits on 64-bit platforms, far
617 better than the 15 bits of C's `rand()` and `bash`'s `$RANDOM`.
619 In addition, the PRNG can take a bound, and when it gets a bound, it
620 automatically adjusts to remove bias. It can also generate numbers of arbitrary
621 size. (As of the time of release, the largest pseudo-random number generated by
622 this `bc` was generated with a bound of `2^(2^20)`.)
624 ***IMPORTANT: read the [`bc` manual][9] and the [`dc` manual][10] to find out
625 exactly what guarantees the PRNG provides. The underlying implementation is not
626 guaranteed to stay the same, but the guarantees that it provides are guaranteed
627 to stay the same regardless of the implementation.***
629 On top of that, four functions were added to `bc`'s [extended math library][16]
630 to make using the PRNG easier:
632 * `frand(p)`: Generates a number between `[0,1)` to `p` decimal places.
633 * `ifrand(i, p)`: Generates an integer with bound `i` and adds it to `frand(p)`.
634 * `srand(x)`: Randomizes the sign of `x`. In other words, it flips the sign of
635 `x` with probability `0.5`.
636 * `brand()`: Returns a random boolean value (either `0` or `1`).
640 This is a production release with a bug fix for FreeBSD.
642 The bug was that when `bc` was built without long options, it would give a fatal
643 error on every run. This was caused by a mishandling of `optind`.
647 This release is a production release ***with no bugfixes***. If you do not want
648 to upgrade, you don't have to.
650 No source code changed; the only thing that changed was `lib2.bc`.
652 This release adds one function to the [extended math library][16]: `p(x, y)`,
653 which calculates `x` to the power of `y`, whether or not `y` is an integer. (The
654 `^` operator can only accept integer powers.)
656 This release also includes a couple of small tweaks to the [extended math
657 library][16], mostly to fix returning numbers with too high of `scale`.
661 This release is a production release which addresses inconsistencies in the
662 Portuguese locales. No `bc` code was changed.
664 The issues were that the ISO files used different naming, and also that the
665 files that should have been symlinks were not. I did not catch that because
666 GitHub rendered them the exact same way.
670 This release is a production release.
672 No code was changed, but the build system was changed to allow `CFLAGS` to be
673 given to `CC`, like this:
676 CC="gcc -O3 -march=native" ./configure.sh
679 If this happens, the flags are automatically put into `CFLAGS`, and the compiler
680 is set appropriately. In the example above this means that `CC` will be "gcc"
681 and `CFLAGS` will be "-O3 -march=native".
683 This behavior was added to conform to GNU autotools practices.
687 This is a production release which addresses portability concerns discovered
688 in the `bc` build system. No `bc` code was changed.
690 * Support for Solaris SPARC and AIX were added.
691 * Minor documentations edits were performed.
692 * An option for `configure.sh` was added to disable long options if
693 `getopt_long()` is missing.
697 This is a production release with new translations. No code changed.
699 The translations were contributed by [bugcrazy][15], and they are for
700 Portuguese, both Portugal and Brazil locales.
704 This is a production release primarily aimed at improving `dc`.
706 * A couple of copy and paste errors in the [`dc` manual][10] were fixed.
707 * `dc` startup was optimized by making sure it didn't have to set up `bc`-only
709 * The `bc` `&&` and `||` operators were made available to `dc` through the `M`
710 and `m` commands, respectively.
711 * `dc` macros were changed to be tail call-optimized.
713 The last item, tail call optimization, means that if the last thing in a macro
714 is a call to another macro, then the old macro is popped before executing the
715 new macro. This change was made to stop `dc` from consuming more and more memory
716 as macros are executed in a loop.
718 The `q` and `Q` commands still respect the "hidden" macros by way of recording
719 how many macros were removed by tail call optimization.
723 This is a production release meant to fix warnings in the Gentoo `ebuild` by
724 making it possible to disable binary stripping. Other users do *not* need to
729 This is a production release. It fixes a bug that caused `-1000000000 < -1` to
730 return `0`. This only happened with negative numbers and only if the value on
731 the left was more negative by a certain amount. That said, this bug *is* a bad
732 bug, and needs to be fixed.
734 **ALL USERS SHOULD UPDATE `bc`**.
738 This is a production release with changes to the build system.
742 This release is a production release. It only has new features and performance
745 1. The performance of `sqrt(x)` was improved.
746 2. The new function `root(x, n)` was added to the extended math library to
747 calculate `n`th roots.
748 3. The new function `cbrt(x)` was added to the extended math library to
749 calculate cube roots.
753 This is a non-critical release; it just changes the build system, and in
756 1. Linked locale files were changed to link to their sources with a relative
758 2. A bug in `configure.sh` that caused long option parsing to fail under `bash`
763 This release is not a critical release.
765 1. A few codes were added to history.
766 2. Multiplication was optimized a bit more.
767 3. Addition and subtraction were both optimized a bit more.
771 This release contains a fix for the test suite made for Linux from Scratch: now
772 the test suite prints `pass` when a test is passed.
774 Other than that, there is no change in this release, so distros and other users
775 do not need to upgrade.
779 This release is a production release.
781 The following bugs were fixed:
783 1. A `dc` bug that caused stack mishandling was fixed.
784 2. A warning on OpenBSD was fixed.
785 3. Bugs in `ctrl+arrow` operations in history were fixed.
786 4. The ability to paste multiple lines in history was added.
787 5. A `bc` bug, mishandling of array arguments to functions, was fixed.
788 6. A crash caused by freeing the wrong pointer was fixed.
789 7. A `dc` bug where strings, in a rare case, were mishandled in parsing was
792 In addition, the following changes were made:
794 1. Division was slightly optimized.
795 2. An option was added to the build to disable printing of prompts.
796 3. The special case of empty arguments is now handled. This is to prevent
797 errors in scripts that end up passing empty arguments.
798 4. A harmless bug was fixed. This bug was that, with the pop instructions
799 (mostly) removed (see below), `bc` would leave extra values on its stack for
800 `void` functions and in a few other cases. These extra items would not
801 affect anything put on the stack and would not cause any sort of crash or
802 even buggy behavior, but they would cause `bc` to take more memory than it
805 On top of the above changes, the following optimizations were added:
807 1. The need for pop instructions in `bc` was removed.
808 2. Extra tests on every iteration of the interpreter loop were removed.
809 3. Updating function and code pointers on every iteration of the interpreter
810 loop was changed to only updating them when necessary.
811 4. Extra assignments to pointers were removed.
813 Altogether, these changes sped up the interpreter by around 2x.
815 ***NOTE***: This is the last release with new features because this `bc` is now
816 considered complete. From now on, only bug fixes and new translations will be
821 This is a production, bug-fix release.
823 Two bugs were fixed in this release:
825 1. A rare and subtle signal handling bug was fixed.
826 2. A misbehavior on `0` to a negative power was fixed.
828 The last bug bears some mentioning.
830 When I originally wrote power, I did not thoroughly check its error cases;
831 instead, I had it check if the first number was `0` and then if so, just return
832 `0`. However, `0` to a negative power means that `1` will be divided by `0`,
835 I caught this, but only after I stopped being cocky. You see, sometime later, I
836 had noticed that GNU `bc` returned an error, correctly, but I thought it was
837 wrong simply because that's not what my `bc` did. I saw it again later and had a
838 double take. I checked for real, finally, and found out that my `bc` was wrong
841 That was bad on me. But the bug was easy to fix, so it is fixed now.
843 There are two other things in this release:
845 1. Subtraction was optimized by [Stefan Eßer][14].
846 2. Division was also optimized, also by Stefan Eßer.
850 This release contains a fix for a possible overflow in the signal handling. I
851 would be surprised if any users ran into it because it would only happen after 2
852 billion (`2^31-1`) `SIGINT`'s, but I saw it and had to fix it.
856 This release contains very few things that will apply to any users.
858 1. A slight bug in `dc`'s interactive mode was fixed.
859 2. A bug in the test suite that was only triggered on NetBSD was fixed.
860 3. **The `-P`/`--no-prompt` option** was added for users that do not want a
862 4. A `make check` target was added as an alias for `make test`.
863 5. `dc` got its own read prompt: `?> `.
867 This release is a production release.
869 This release is also a little different from previous releases. From here on
870 out, I do not plan on adding any more features to this `bc`; I believe that it
871 is complete. However, there may be bug fix releases in the future, if I or any
872 others manage to find bugs.
874 This release has only a few new features:
876 1. `atan2(y, x)` was added to the extended math library as both `a2(y, x)` and
878 2. Locales were fixed.
879 3. A **POSIX shell-compatible script was added as an alternative to compiling
880 `gen/strgen.c`** on a host machine. More details about making the choice
881 between the two can be found by running `./configure.sh --help` or reading
882 the [build manual][13].
883 4. Multiplication was optimized by using **diagonal multiplication**, rather
884 than straight brute force.
885 5. The `locale_install.sh` script was fixed.
886 6. `dc` was given the ability to **use the environment variable
888 7. `dc` was also given the ability to **use the `-i` or `--interactive`**
890 8. Printing the prompt was fixed so that it did not print when it shouldn't.
891 9. Signal handling was fixed.
892 10. **Handling of `SIGTERM` and `SIGQUIT`** was fixed.
893 11. The **built-in functions `maxibase()`, `maxobase()`, and `maxscale()`** (the
894 commands `T`, `U`, `V` in `dc`, respectively) were added to allow scripts to
895 query for the max allowable values of those globals.
896 12. Some incompatibilities with POSIX were fixed.
898 In addition, this release is `2.0.0` for a big reason: the internal format for
899 numbers changed. They used to be a `char` array. Now, they are an array of
900 larger integers, packing more decimal digits into each integer. This has
901 delivered ***HUGE*** performance improvements, especially for multiplication,
904 This `bc` should now be the fastest `bc` available, but I may be wrong.
908 This release contains a fix for a harmless bug (it is harmless in that it still
909 works, but it just copies extra data) in the [`locale_install.sh`][12] script.
913 This version contains fixes for the build on Arch Linux.
917 This release removes the use of `local` in shell scripts because it's not POSIX
918 shell-compatible, and also updates a man page that should have been updated a
919 long time ago but was missed.
923 This release contains some missing locale `*.msg` files.
927 This release contains a few bug fixes and new French translations.
931 This release contains a fix for a bug: use of uninitialized data. Such data was
932 only used when outputting an error message, but I am striving for perfection. As
933 Michelangelo said, "Trifles make perfection, and perfection is no trifle."
937 This release contains fixes for OpenBSD.
941 This release contains bug fixes for some rare bugs.
945 This is a production release.
947 There have been several changes since `1.1.0`:
949 1. The build system had some changes.
950 2. Locale support has been added. (Patches welcome for translations.)
951 3. **The ability to turn `ibase`, `obase`, and `scale` into stacks** was added
952 with the `-g` command-line option. (See the [`bc` manual][9] for more
954 4. Support for compiling on Mac OSX out of the box was added.
955 5. The extended math library got `t(x)`, `ceil(x)`, and some aliases.
956 6. The extended math library also got `r2d(x)` (for converting from radians to
957 degrees) and `d2r(x)` (for converting from degrees to radians). This is to
958 allow using degrees with the standard library.
959 7. Both calculators now accept numbers in **scientific notation**. See the
960 [`bc` manual][9] and the [`dc` manual][10] for details.
961 8. Both calculators can **output in either scientific or engineering
962 notation**. See the [`bc` manual][9] and the [`dc` manual][10] for details.
963 9. Some inefficiencies were removed.
964 10. Some bugs were fixed.
965 11. Some bugs in the extended library were fixed.
966 12. Some defects from [Coverity Scan][11] were fixed.
970 This release contains a fix to the build system that allows it to build on older
975 This release contains a fix for a bug in the test suite where `bc` tests and
976 `dc` tests could not be run in parallel.
980 This release has a fix for a history bug; the down arrow did not work.
984 This release fixes a bug in the `1.1.0` build system. The source is exactly the
987 The bug that was fixed was a failure to install if no `EXECSUFFIX` was used.
991 This is a production release. However, many new features were added since `1.0`.
993 1. **The build system has been changed** to use a custom, POSIX
994 shell-compatible configure script ([`configure.sh`][6]) to generate a POSIX
995 make-compatible `Makefile`, which means that `bc` and `dc` now build out of
996 the box on any POSIX-compatible system.
997 2. Out-of-memory and output errors now cause the `bc` to report the error,
998 clean up, and die, rather than just reporting and trying to continue.
999 3. **Strings and constants are now garbage collected** when possible.
1000 4. Signal handling and checking has been made more simple and more thorough.
1001 5. `BcGlobals` was refactored into `BcVm` and `BcVm` was made global. Some
1002 procedure names were changed to reflect its difference to everything else.
1003 6. Addition got a speed improvement.
1004 7. Some common code for addition and multiplication was refactored into its own
1006 8. A bug was removed where `dc` could have been selected, but the internal
1007 `#define` that returned `true` for a query about `dc` would not have
1009 9. Useless calls to `bc_num_zero()` were removed.
1010 10. **History support was added.** The history support is based off of a
1011 [UTF-8 aware fork][7] of [`linenoise`][8], which has been customized with
1012 `bc`'s own data structures and signal handling.
1013 11. Generating C source from the math library now removes tabs from the library,
1014 shrinking the size of the executable.
1015 12. The math library was shrunk.
1016 13. Error handling and reporting was improved.
1017 14. Reallocations were reduced by giving access to the request size for each
1019 15. **`abs()` (`b` command for `dc`) was added as a builtin.**
1020 16. Both calculators were tested on FreeBSD.
1021 17. Many obscure parse bugs were fixed.
1022 18. Markdown and man page manuals were added, and the man pages are installed by
1024 19. Executable size was reduced, though the added features probably made the
1025 executable end up bigger.
1026 20. **GNU-style array references were added as a supported feature.**
1027 21. Allocations were reduced.
1028 22. **New operators were added**: `$` (`$` for `dc`), `@` (`@` for `dc`), `@=`,
1029 `<<` (`H` for `dc`), `<<=`, `>>` (`h` for `dc`), and `>>=`. See the
1030 [`bc` manual][9] and the [`dc` manual][10] for more details.
1031 23. **An extended math library was added.** This library contains code that
1032 makes it so I can replace my desktop calculator with this `bc`. See the
1033 [`bc` manual][3] for more details.
1034 24. Support for all capital letters as numbers was added.
1035 25. **Support for GNU-style void functions was added.**
1036 26. A bug fix for improper handling of function parameters was added.
1037 27. Precedence for the or (`||`) operator was changed to match GNU `bc`.
1038 28. `dc` was given an explicit negation command.
1039 29. `dc` was changed to be able to handle strings in arrays.
1041 ## 1.1 Release Candidate 3
1043 This release is the eighth release candidate for 1.1, though it is the third
1044 release candidate meant as a general release candidate. The new code has not
1045 been tested as thoroughly as it should for release.
1047 ## 1.1 Release Candidate 2
1049 This release is the seventh release candidate for 1.1, though it is the second
1050 release candidate meant as a general release candidate. The new code has not
1051 been tested as thoroughly as it should for release.
1053 ## 1.1 FreeBSD Beta 5
1055 This release is the sixth release candidate for 1.1, though it is the fifth
1056 release candidate meant specifically to test if `bc` works on FreeBSD. The new
1057 code has not been tested as thoroughly as it should for release.
1059 ## 1.1 FreeBSD Beta 4
1061 This release is the fifth release candidate for 1.1, though it is the fourth
1062 release candidate meant specifically to test if `bc` works on FreeBSD. The new
1063 code has not been tested as thoroughly as it should for release.
1065 ## 1.1 FreeBSD Beta 3
1067 This release is the fourth release candidate for 1.1, though it is the third
1068 release candidate meant specifically to test if `bc` works on FreeBSD. The new
1069 code has not been tested as thoroughly as it should for release.
1071 ## 1.1 FreeBSD Beta 2
1073 This release is the third release candidate for 1.1, though it is the second
1074 release candidate meant specifically to test if `bc` works on FreeBSD. The new
1075 code has not been tested as thoroughly as it should for release.
1077 ## 1.1 FreeBSD Beta 1
1079 This release is the second release candidate for 1.1, though it is meant
1080 specifically to test if `bc` works on FreeBSD. The new code has not been tested as
1081 thoroughly as it should for release.
1083 ## 1.1 Release Candidate 1
1085 This is the first release candidate for 1.1. The new code has not been tested as
1086 thoroughly as it should for release.
1090 This is the first non-beta release. `bc` is ready for production use.
1092 As such, a lot has changed since 0.5.
1094 1. `dc` has been added. It has been tested even more thoroughly than `bc` was
1095 for `0.5`. It does not have the `!` command, and for security reasons, it
1096 never will, so it is complete.
1097 2. `bc` has been more thoroughly tested. An entire section of the test suite
1098 (for both programs) has been added to test for errors.
1099 3. A prompt (`>>> `) has been added for interactive mode, making it easier to
1100 see inputs and outputs.
1101 4. Interrupt handling has been improved, including elimination of race
1102 conditions (as much as possible).
1103 5. MinGW and [Windows Subsystem for Linux][1] support has been added (see
1104 [xstatic][2] for binaries).
1105 6. Memory leaks and errors have been eliminated (as far as ASan and Valgrind
1107 7. Crashes have been eliminated (as far as [afl][3] can tell).
1108 8. Karatsuba multiplication was added (and thoroughly) tested, speeding up
1109 multiplication and power by orders of magnitude.
1110 9. Performance was further enhanced by using a "divmod" function to reduce
1111 redundant divisions and by removing superfluous `memset()` calls.
1112 10. To switch between Karatsuba and `O(n^2)` multiplication, the config variable
1113 `BC_NUM_KARATSUBA_LEN` was added. It is set to a sane default, but the
1114 optimal number can be found with [`karatsuba.py`][4] (requires Python 3)
1115 and then configured through `make`.
1116 11. The random math test generator script was changed to Python 3 and improved.
1117 `bc` and `dc` have together been run through 30+ million random tests.
1118 12. All known math bugs have been fixed, including out of control memory
1119 allocations in `sine` and `cosine` (that was actually a parse bug), certain
1120 cases of infinite loop on square root, and slight inaccuracies (as much as
1121 possible; see the [README][5]) in transcendental functions.
1122 13. Parsing has been fixed as much as possible.
1123 14. Test coverage was improved to 94.8%. The only paths not covered are ones
1124 that happen when `malloc()` or `realloc()` fails.
1125 15. An extension to get the length of an array was added.
1126 16. The boolean not (`!`) had its precedence change to match negation.
1127 17. Data input was hardened.
1128 18. `bc` was made fully compliant with POSIX when the `-s` flag is used or
1129 `POSIXLY_CORRECT` is defined.
1130 19. Error handling was improved.
1131 20. `bc` now checks that files it is given are not directories.
1133 ## 1.0 Release Candidate 7
1135 This is the seventh release candidate for 1.0. It fixes a few bugs in 1.0
1136 Release Candidate 6.
1138 ## 1.0 Release Candidate 6
1140 This is the sixth release candidate for 1.0. It fixes a few bugs in 1.0 Release
1143 ## 1.0 Release Candidate 5
1145 This is the fifth release candidate for 1.0. It fixes a few bugs in 1.0 Release
1148 ## 1.0 Release Candidate 4
1150 This is the fourth release candidate for 1.0. It fixes a few bugs in 1.0 Release
1153 ## 1.0 Release Candidate 3
1155 This is the third release candidate for 1.0. It fixes a few bugs in 1.0 Release
1158 ## 1.0 Release Candidate 2
1160 This is the second release candidate for 1.0. It fixes a few bugs in 1.0 Release
1163 ## 1.0 Release Candidate 1
1165 This is the first Release Candidate for 1.0. `bc` is complete, with `dc`, but it
1170 This beta release completes more features, but it is still not complete nor
1171 tested as thoroughly as necessary.
1175 This beta release fixes a few bugs in 0.4.
1179 This is a beta release. It does not have the complete set of features, and it is
1180 not thoroughly tested.
1182 [1]: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/install-win10
1183 [2]: https://pkg.musl.cc/bc/
1184 [3]: http://lcamtuf.coredump.cx/afl/
1185 [4]: ./scripts/karatsuba.py
1188 [7]: https://github.com/rain-1/linenoise-mob
1189 [8]: https://github.com/antirez/linenoise
1190 [9]: ./manuals/bc/A.1.md
1191 [10]: ./manuals/dc/A.1.md
1192 [11]: https://scan.coverity.com/projects/gavinhoward-bc
1193 [12]: ./scripts/locale_install.sh
1194 [13]: ./manuals/build.md
1195 [14]: https://github.com/stesser
1196 [15]: https://github.com/bugcrazy
1197 [16]: ./manuals/bc/A.1.md#extended-library
1198 [17]: https://github.com/skeeto/optparse
1199 [18]: https://www.deepl.com/translator
1200 [19]: ./manuals/benchmarks.md
1201 [20]: https://github.com/apjanke/ronn-ng
1202 [21]: https://pandoc.org/
1203 [22]: ./scripts/locale_uninstall.sh