5 This is a production release that fixes a bug in `gen/strgen.sh`. I recently
6 changed `gen/strgen.c`, but I did not change `gen/strgen.sh`.
8 Users that do not use `gen/strgen.sh` do not need to upgrade.
12 This is a production release that fixes a portability bug in `configure.sh`. The
13 bug was using the GNU `find` extension `-wholename`.
17 This is a production release that has one fix for `bcl(3)`. It is technically
18 not a bug fix since the behavior is undefined, but the `BclNumber`s that
19 `bcl_divmod()` returns will be set to `BCL_ERROR_INVALID_NUM` if there is an
20 error. Previously, they were not set.
24 This is a production release that has one bug fix and a major addition.
26 The bug fix was a missing `auto` variable in the bessel `j()` function in the
29 The major addition is a way to build a version of `bc`'s math code as a library.
30 This is done with the `-a` option to `configure.sh`. The API for the library can
31 be read in `./manuals/bcl.3.md` or `man bcl` once the library is installed with
34 This library was requested by developers before I even finished version 1.0, but
35 I could not figure out how to do it until now.
37 If the library has API breaking changes, the major version of `bc` will be
42 This is a production release that fixes a new warning from Clang 12 for FreeBSD
43 and also removes some possible undefined behavior found by UBSan that compilers
44 did not seem to take advantage of.
46 Users do ***NOT*** need to upgrade, if they do not want to.
50 This is a production release that fixes the Chinese locales (which caused `bc`
51 to crash) and a crash caused by `bc` executing code when it should not have been
54 ***ALL USERS SHOULD UPGRADE.***
58 This is a production release that fixes one bug, changes two behaviors, and
59 removes one environment variable.
61 The bug is like the one in the last release except it applies if files are being
62 executed. I also made the fix more general.
64 The behavior that was changed is that `bc` now exits when given `-e`, `-f`,
65 `--expression` or `--file`. However, if the last one of those is `-f-` (using
66 `stdin` as the file), `bc` does not exit. If `-f-` exists and is not the last of
67 the `-e` and `-f` options (and equivalents), `bc` gives a fatal error and exits.
69 Next, I removed the `BC_EXPR_EXIT` and `DC_EXPR_EXIT` environment variables
70 since their use is not needed with the behavior change.
72 Finally, I made it so `bc` does not print the header, though the `-q` and
73 `--quiet` options were kept for compatibility with GNU `bc`.
77 This is a production release that fixes one minor bug: if `bc` was invoked like
78 the following, it would error:
81 echo "if (1 < 3) 1" | bc
84 Unless users run into this bug, they do not need to upgrade, but it is suggested
89 This is a production release that adds a way to install *all* locales. Users do
90 ***NOT*** need to upgrade.
92 For package maintainers wishing to make use of the change, just pass `-l` to
97 This is a production release that adds two Spanish locales. Users do ***NOT***
98 need to upgrade, unless they want those locales.
102 This is a production release that adjusts one behavior, fixes eight bugs, and
103 improves manpages for FreeBSD. Because this release fixes bugs, **users and
104 package maintainers should update to this version as soon as possible**.
106 The behavior that was adjusted was how code from the `-e` and `-f` arguments
107 (and equivalents) were executed. They used to be executed as one big chunk, but
108 in this release, they are now executed line-by-line.
110 The first bug fix in how output to `stdout` was handled in `SIGINT`. If a
111 `SIGINT` came in, the `stdout` buffer was not correctly flushed. In fact, a
112 clean-up function was not getting called. This release fixes that bug.
114 The second bug is in how `dc` handled input from `stdin`. This affected `bc` as
115 well since it was a mishandling of the `stdin` buffer.
117 The third fixed bug was that `bc` and `dc` could `abort()` (in debug mode) when
118 receiving a `SIGTERM`. This one was a race condition with pushing and popping
119 items onto and out of vectors.
121 The fourth bug fixed was that `bc` could leave extra items on the stack and
122 thus, not properly clean up some memory. (The memory would still get
123 `free()`'ed, but it would not be `free()`'ed when it could have been.)
125 The next two bugs were bugs in `bc`'s parser that caused crashes when executing
128 The last two bugs were crashes in `dc` that resulted from mishandling of
131 The manpage improvement was done by switching from [ronn][20] to [Pandoc][21] to
132 generate manpages. Pandoc generates much cleaner manpages and doesn't leave
133 blank lines where they shouldn't be.
137 This is a production release that adds one new feature: specific manpages.
139 Before this release, `bc` and `dc` only used one manpage each that referred to
140 various build options. This release changes it so there is one manpage set per
141 relevant build type. Each manual only has information about its particular
142 build, and `configure.sh` selects the correct set for install.
146 This is a production release that adds `utf8` locale symlinks and removes an
147 unused `auto` variable from the `ceil()` function in the [extended math
150 Users do ***NOT*** need to update unless they want the locales.
154 This is a production release with two small changes. Users do ***NOT*** need to
155 upgrade to this release; however, if they haven't upgraded to `3.0.0` yet, it
156 may be worthwhile to upgrade to this release.
158 The first change is fixing a compiler warning on FreeBSD with strict warnings
161 The second change is to make the new implementation of `ceil()` in `lib2.bc`
166 *Notes for package maintainers:*
168 *First, the `2.7.0` release series saw a change in the option parsing. This made
169 me change one error message and add a few others. The error message that was
170 changed removed one format specifier. This means that `printf()` will seqfault
171 on old locale files. Unfortunately, `bc` cannot use any locale files except the
172 global ones that are already installed, so it will use the previous ones while
173 running tests during install. **If `bc` segfaults while running arg tests when
174 updating, it is because the global locale files have not been replaced. Make
175 sure to either prevent the test suite from running on update or remove the old
176 locale files before updating.** (Removing the locale files can be done with
177 `make uninstall` or by running the `locale_uninstall.sh` script.) Once this is
178 done, `bc` should install without problems.*
180 *Second, **the option to build without signal support has been removed**. See
181 below for the reasons why.*
183 This is a production release with some small bug fixes, a few improvements,
184 three major bug fixes, and a complete redesign of `bc`'s error and signal
185 handling. **Users and package maintainers should update to this version as soon
188 The first major bug fix was in how `bc` executed files. Previously, a whole file
189 was parsed before it was executed, but if a function is defined *after* code,
190 especially if the function definition was actually a redefinition, and the code
191 before the definition referred to the previous function, this `bc` would replace
192 the function before executing any code. The fix was to make sure that all code
193 that existed before a function definition was executed.
195 The second major bug fix was in `bc`'s `lib2.bc`. The `ceil()` function had a
196 bug where a `0` in the decimal place after the truncation position, caused it to
197 output the wrong numbers if there was any non-zero digit after.
199 The third major bug is that when passing parameters to functions, if an
200 expression included an array (not an array element) as a parameter, it was
201 accepted, when it should have been rejected. It is now correctly rejected.
203 Beyond that, this `bc` got several improvements that both sped it up, improved
204 the handling of signals, and improved the error handling.
206 First, the requirements for `bc` were pushed back to POSIX 2008. `bc` uses one
207 function, `strdup()`, which is not in POSIX 2001, and it is in the X/Open System
208 Interfaces group 2001. It is, however, in POSIX 2008, and since POSIX 2008 is
209 old enough to be supported anywhere that I care, that should be the requirement.
211 Second, the BcVm global variable was put into `bss`. This actually slightly
212 reduces the size of the executable from a massive code shrink, and it will stop
213 `bc` from allocating a large set of memory when `bc` starts.
215 Third, the default Karatsuba length was updated from 64 to 32 after making the
216 optimization changes below, since 32 is going to be better than 64 after the
219 Fourth, Spanish translations were added.
221 Fifth, the interpreter received a speedup to make performance on non-math-heavy
222 scripts more competitive with GNU `bc`. While improvements did, in fact, get it
223 much closer (see the [benchmarks][19]), it isn't quite there.
225 There were several things done to speed up the interpreter:
227 First, several small inefficiencies were removed. These inefficiencies included
228 calling the function `bc_vec_pop(v)` twice instead of calling
229 `bc_vec_npop(v, 2)`. They also included an extra function call for checking the
230 size of the stack and checking the size of the stack more than once on several
233 Second, since the current `bc` function is the one that stores constants and
234 strings, the program caches pointers to the current function's vectors of
235 constants and strings to prevent needing to grab the current function in order
236 to grab a constant or a string.
238 Third, `bc` tries to reuse `BcNum`'s (the internal representation of
239 arbitary-precision numbers). If a `BcNum` has the default capacity of
240 `BC_NUM_DEF_SIZE` (32 on 64-bit and 16 on 32-bit) when it is freed, it is added
241 to a list of available `BcNum`'s. And then, when a `BcNum` is allocated with a
242 capacity of `BC_NUM_DEF_SIZE` and any `BcNum`'s exist on the list of reusable
243 ones, one of those ones is grabbed instead.
245 In order to support these changes, the `BC_NUM_DEF_SIZE` was changed. It used to
246 be 16 bytes on all systems, but it was changed to more closely align with the
247 minimum allocation size on Linux, which is either 32 bytes (64-bit musl), 24
248 bytes (64-bit glibc), 16 bytes (32-bit musl), or 12 bytes (32-bit glibc). Since
249 these are the minimum allocation sizes, these are the sizes that would be
250 allocated anyway, making it worth it to just use the whole space, so the value
251 of `BC_NUM_DEF_SIZE` on 64-bit systems was changed to 32 bytes.
253 On top of that, at least on 64-bit, `BC_NUM_DEF_SIZE` supports numbers with
254 either 72 integer digits or 45 integer digits and 27 fractional digits. This
255 should be more than enough for most cases since `bc`'s default `scale` values
256 are 0 or 20, meaning that, by default, it has at most 20 fractional digits. And
257 45 integer digits are *a lot*; it's enough to calculate the amount of mass in
258 the Milky Way galaxy in kilograms. Also, 72 digits is enough to calculate the
259 diameter of the universe in Planck lengths.
261 (For 32-bit, these numbers are either 32 integer digits or 12 integer digits and
262 20 fractional digits. These are also quite big, and going much bigger on a
263 32-bit system seems a little pointless since 12 digits in just under a trillion
264 and 20 fractional digits is still enough for about any use since `10^-20` light
265 years is just under a millimeter.)
267 All of this together means that for ordinary uses, and even uses in scientific
268 work, the default number size will be all that is needed, which means that
269 nearly all, if not all, numbers will be reused, relieving pressure on the system
272 I did several experiments to find the changes that had the most impact,
273 especially with regard to reusing `BcNum`'s. One was putting `BcNum`'s into
274 buckets according to their capacity in powers of 2 up to 512. That performed
275 worse than `bc` did in `2.7.2`. Another was putting any `BcNum` on the reuse
276 list that had a capacity of `BC_NUM_DEF_SIZE * 2` and reusing them for `BcNum`'s
277 that requested `BC_NUM_DEF_SIZE`. This did reduce the amount of time spent, but
278 it also spent a lot of time in the system allocator for an unknown reason. (When
279 using `strace`, a bunch more `brk` calls showed up.) Just reusing `BcNum`'s that
280 had exactly `BC_NUM_DEF_SIZE` capacity spent the smallest amount of time in both
281 user and system time. This makes sense, especially with the changes to make
282 `BC_NUM_DEF_SIZE` bigger on 64-bit systems, since the vast majority of numbers
283 will only ever use numbers with a size less than or equal to `BC_NUM_DEF_SIZE`.
285 Last of all, `bc`'s signal handling underwent a complete redesign. (This is the
286 reason that this version is `3.0.0` and not `2.8.0`.) The change was to move
287 from a polling approach to signal handling to an interrupt-based approach.
289 Previously, every single loop condition had a check for signals. I suspect that
290 this could be expensive when in tight loops.
292 Now, the signal handler just uses `longjmp()` (actually `siglongjmp()`) to start
293 an unwinding of the stack until it is stopped or the stack is unwound to
294 `main()`, which just returns. If `bc` is currently executing code that cannot be
295 safely interrupted (according to POSIX), then signals are "locked." The signal
296 handler checks if the lock is taken, and if it is, it just sets the status to
297 indicate that a signal arrived. Later, when the signal lock is released, the
298 status is checked to see if a signal came in. If so, the stack unwinding starts.
300 This design eliminates polling in favor of maintaining a stack of `jmp_buf`'s.
301 This has its own performance implications, but it gives better interaction. And
302 the cost of pushing and popping a `jmp_buf` in a function is paid at most twice.
303 Most functions do not pay that price, and most of the rest only pay it once.
304 (There are only some 3 functions in `bc` that push and pop a `jmp_buf` twice.)
306 As a side effect of this change, I had to eliminate the use of `stdio.h` in `bc`
307 because `stdio` does not play nice with signals and `longjmp()`. I implemented
308 custom I/O buffer code that takes a fraction of the size. This means that static
309 builds will be smaller, but non-static builds will be bigger, though they will
310 have less linking time.
312 This change is also good because my history implementation was already bypassing
313 `stdio` for good reasons, and unifying the architecture was a win.
315 Another reason for this change is that my `bc` should *always* behave correctly
316 in the presence of signals like `SIGINT`, `SIGTERM`, and `SIGQUIT`. With the
317 addition of my own I/O buffering, I needed to also make sure that the buffers
318 were correctly flushed even when such signals happened.
320 For this reason, I **removed the option to build without signal support**.
322 As a nice side effect of this change, the error handling code could be changed
323 to take advantage of the stack unwinding that signals used. This means that
324 signals and error handling use the same code paths, which means that the stack
325 unwinding is well-tested. (Errors are tested heavily in the test suite.)
327 It also means that functions do not need to return a status code that
328 ***every*** caller needs to check. This eliminated over 100 branches that simply
329 checked return codes and then passed that return code up the stack if necessary.
330 The code bloat savings from this is at least 1700 bytes on `x86_64`, *before*
331 taking into account the extra code from removing `stdio.h`.
335 This is a production release with one major bug fix.
337 The `length()` built-in function can take either a number or an array. If it
338 takes an array, it returns the length of the array. Arrays can be passed by
339 reference. The bug is that the `length()` function would not properly
340 dereference arrays that were references. This is a bug that affects all users.
342 **ALL USERS SHOULD UPDATE `bc`**.
346 This is a production release with fixes for new locales and fixes for compiler
351 This is a production release with a bug fix for Linux, new translations, and new
356 * Option parsing in `BC_ENV_ARGS` was broken on Linux in 2.6.1 because `glibc`'s
357 `getopt_long()` is broken. To get around that, and to support long options on
358 every platform, an adapted version of [`optparse`][17] was added. Now, `bc`
359 does not even use `getopt()`.
360 * Parsing `BC_ENV_ARGS` with quotes now works. It isn't the smartest, but it
361 does the job if there are spaces in file names.
363 The following new languages are supported:
371 All of these translations were generated using [DeepL][18], so improvements are
374 There is only one new feature: **`bc` now has a built-in pseudo-random number
377 The PRNG is seeded, making it useful for applications where
378 `/dev/urandom` does not work because output needs to be reproducible. However,
379 it also uses `/dev/urandom` to seed itself by default, so it will start with a
380 good seed by default.
382 It also outputs 32 bits on 32-bit platforms and 64 bits on 64-bit platforms, far
383 better than the 15 bits of C's `rand()` and `bash`'s `$RANDOM`.
385 In addition, the PRNG can take a bound, and when it gets a bound, it
386 automatically adjusts to remove bias. It can also generate numbers of arbitrary
387 size. (As of the time of release, the largest pseudo-random number generated by
388 this `bc` was generated with a bound of `2^(2^20)`.)
390 ***IMPORTANT: read the [`bc` manual][9] and the [`dc` manual][10] to find out
391 exactly what guarantees the PRNG provides. The underlying implementation is not
392 guaranteed to stay the same, but the guarantees that it provides are guaranteed
393 to stay the same regardless of the implementation.***
395 On top of that, four functions were added to `bc`'s [extended math library][16]
396 to make using the PRNG easier:
398 * `frand(p)`: Generates a number between `[0,1)` to `p` decimal places.
399 * `ifrand(i, p)`: Generates an integer with bound `i` and adds it to `frand(p)`.
400 * `srand(x)`: Randomizes the sign of `x`. In other words, it flips the sign of
401 `x` with probability `0.5`.
402 * `brand()`: Returns a random boolean value (either `0` or `1`).
406 This is a production release with a bug fix for FreeBSD.
408 The bug was that when `bc` was built without long options, it would give a fatal
409 error on every run. This was caused by a mishandling of `optind`.
413 This release is a production release ***with no bugfixes***. If you do not want
414 to upgrade, you don't have to.
416 No source code changed; the only thing that changed was `lib2.bc`.
418 This release adds one function to the [extended math library][16]: `p(x, y)`,
419 which calculates `x` to the power of `y`, whether or not `y` is an integer. (The
420 `^` operator can only accept integer powers.)
422 This release also includes a couple of small tweaks to the [extended math
423 library][16], mostly to fix returning numbers with too high of `scale`.
427 This release is a production release which addresses inconsistencies in the
428 Portuguese locales. No `bc` code was changed.
430 The issues were that the ISO files used different naming, and also that the
431 files that should have been symlinks were not. I did not catch that because
432 GitHub rendered them the exact same way.
436 This release is a production release.
438 No code was changed, but the build system was changed to allow `CFLAGS` to be
439 given to `CC`, like this:
442 CC="gcc -O3 -march=native" ./configure.sh
445 If this happens, the flags are automatically put into `CFLAGS`, and the compiler
446 is set appropriately. In the example above this means that `CC` will be "gcc"
447 and `CFLAGS` will be "-O3 -march=native".
449 This behavior was added to conform to GNU autotools practices.
453 This is a production release which addresses portability concerns discovered
454 in the `bc` build system. No `bc` code was changed.
456 * Support for Solaris SPARC and AIX were added.
457 * Minor documentations edits were performed.
458 * An option for `configure.sh` was added to disable long options if
459 `getopt_long()` is missing.
463 This is a production release with new translations. No code changed.
465 The translations were contributed by [bugcrazy][15], and they are for
466 Portuguese, both Portugal and Brazil locales.
470 This is a production release primarily aimed at improving `dc`.
472 * A couple of copy and paste errors in the [`dc` manual][10] were fixed.
473 * `dc` startup was optimized by making sure it didn't have to set up `bc`-only
475 * The `bc` `&&` and `||` operators were made available to `dc` through the `M`
476 and `m` commands, respectively.
477 * `dc` macros were changed to be tail call-optimized.
479 The last item, tail call optimization, means that if the last thing in a macro
480 is a call to another macro, then the old macro is popped before executing the
481 new macro. This change was made to stop `dc` from consuming more and more memory
482 as macros are executed in a loop.
484 The `q` and `Q` commands still respect the "hidden" macros by way of recording
485 how many macros were removed by tail call optimization.
489 This is a production release meant to fix warnings in the Gentoo `ebuild` by
490 making it possible to disable binary stripping. Other users do *not* need to
495 This is a production release. It fixes a bug that caused `-1000000000 < -1` to
496 return `0`. This only happened with negative numbers and only if the value on
497 the left was more negative by a certain amount. That said, this bug *is* a bad
498 bug, and needs to be fixed.
500 **ALL USERS SHOULD UPDATE `bc`**.
504 This is a production release with changes to the build system.
508 This release is a production release. It only has new features and performance
511 1. The performance of `sqrt(x)` was improved.
512 2. The new function `root(x, n)` was added to the extended math library to
513 calculate `n`th roots.
514 3. The new function `cbrt(x)` was added to the extended math library to
515 calculate cube roots.
519 This is a non-critical release; it just changes the build system, and in
522 1. Linked locale files were changed to link to their sources with a relative
524 2. A bug in `configure.sh` that caused long option parsing to fail under `bash`
529 This release is not a critical release.
531 1. A few codes were added to history.
532 2. Multiplication was optimized a bit more.
533 3. Addition and subtraction were both optimized a bit more.
537 This release contains a fix for the test suite made for Linux from Scratch: now
538 the test suite prints `pass` when a test is passed.
540 Other than that, there is no change in this release, so distros and other users
541 do not need to upgrade.
545 This release is a production release.
547 The following bugs were fixed:
549 1. A `dc` bug that caused stack mishandling was fixed.
550 2. A warning on OpenBSD was fixed.
551 3. Bugs in `ctrl+arrow` operations in history were fixed.
552 4. The ability to paste multiple lines in history was added.
553 5. A `bc` bug, mishandling of array arguments to functions, was fixed.
554 6. A crash caused by freeing the wrong pointer was fixed.
555 7. A `dc` bug where strings, in a rare case, were mishandled in parsing was
558 In addition, the following changes were made:
560 1. Division was slightly optimized.
561 2. An option was added to the build to disable printing of prompts.
562 3. The special case of empty arguments is now handled. This is to prevent
563 errors in scripts that end up passing empty arguments.
564 4. A harmless bug was fixed. This bug was that, with the pop instructions
565 (mostly) removed (see below), `bc` would leave extra values on its stack for
566 `void` functions and in a few other cases. These extra items would not
567 affect anything put on the stack and would not cause any sort of crash or
568 even buggy behavior, but they would cause `bc` to take more memory than it
571 On top of the above changes, the following optimizations were added:
573 1. The need for pop instructions in `bc` was removed.
574 2. Extra tests on every iteration of the interpreter loop were removed.
575 3. Updating function and code pointers on every iteration of the interpreter
576 loop was changed to only updating them when necessary.
577 4. Extra assignments to pointers were removed.
579 Altogether, these changes sped up the interpreter by around 2x.
581 ***NOTE***: This is the last release with new features because this `bc` is now
582 considered complete. From now on, only bug fixes and new translations will be
587 This is a production, bug-fix release.
589 Two bugs were fixed in this release:
591 1. A rare and subtle signal handling bug was fixed.
592 2. A misbehavior on `0` to a negative power was fixed.
594 The last bug bears some mentioning.
596 When I originally wrote power, I did not thoroughly check its error cases;
597 instead, I had it check if the first number was `0` and then if so, just return
598 `0`. However, `0` to a negative power means that `1` will be divided by `0`,
601 I caught this, but only after I stopped being cocky. You see, sometime later, I
602 had noticed that GNU `bc` returned an error, correctly, but I thought it was
603 wrong simply because that's not what my `bc` did. I saw it again later and had a
604 double take. I checked for real, finally, and found out that my `bc` was wrong
607 That was bad on me. But the bug was easy to fix, so it is fixed now.
609 There are two other things in this release:
611 1. Subtraction was optimized by [Stefan Eßer][14].
612 2. Division was also optimized, also by Stefan Eßer.
616 This release contains a fix for a possible overflow in the signal handling. I
617 would be surprised if any users ran into it because it would only happen after 2
618 billion (`2^31-1`) `SIGINT`'s, but I saw it and had to fix it.
622 This release contains very few things that will apply to any users.
624 1. A slight bug in `dc`'s interactive mode was fixed.
625 2. A bug in the test suite that was only triggered on NetBSD was fixed.
626 3. **The `-P`/`--no-prompt` option** was added for users that do not want a
628 4. A `make check` target was added as an alias for `make test`.
629 5. `dc` got its own read prompt: `?> `.
633 This release is a production release.
635 This release is also a little different from previous releases. From here on
636 out, I do not plan on adding any more features to this `bc`; I believe that it
637 is complete. However, there may be bug fix releases in the future, if I or any
638 others manage to find bugs.
640 This release has only a few new features:
642 1. `atan2(y, x)` was added to the extended math library as both `a2(y, x)` and
644 2. Locales were fixed.
645 3. A **POSIX shell-compatible script was added as an alternative to compiling
646 `gen/strgen.c`** on a host machine. More details about making the choice
647 between the two can be found by running `./configure.sh --help` or reading
648 the [build manual][13].
649 4. Multiplication was optimized by using **diagonal multiplication**, rather
650 than straight brute force.
651 5. The `locale_install.sh` script was fixed.
652 6. `dc` was given the ability to **use the environment variable
654 7. `dc` was also given the ability to **use the `-i` or `--interactive`**
656 8. Printing the prompt was fixed so that it did not print when it shouldn't.
657 9. Signal handling was fixed.
658 10. **Handling of `SIGTERM` and `SIGQUIT`** was fixed.
659 11. The **built-in functions `maxibase()`, `maxobase()`, and `maxscale()`** (the
660 commands `T`, `U`, `V` in `dc`, respectively) were added to allow scripts to
661 query for the max allowable values of those globals.
662 12. Some incompatibilities with POSIX were fixed.
664 In addition, this release is `2.0.0` for a big reason: the internal format for
665 numbers changed. They used to be a `char` array. Now, they are an array of
666 larger integers, packing more decimal digits into each integer. This has
667 delivered ***HUGE*** performance improvements, especially for multiplication,
670 This `bc` should now be the fastest `bc` available, but I may be wrong.
674 This release contains a fix for a harmless bug (it is harmless in that it still
675 works, but it just copies extra data) in the [`locale_install.sh`][12] script.
679 This version contains fixes for the build on Arch Linux.
683 This release removes the use of `local` in shell scripts because it's not POSIX
684 shell-compatible, and also updates a man page that should have been updated a
685 long time ago but was missed.
689 This release contains some missing locale `*.msg` files.
693 This release contains a few bug fixes and new French translations.
697 This release contains a fix for a bug: use of uninitialized data. Such data was
698 only used when outputting an error message, but I am striving for perfection. As
699 Michelangelo said, "Trifles make perfection, and perfection is no trifle."
703 This release contains fixes for OpenBSD.
707 This release contains bug fixes for some rare bugs.
711 This is a production release.
713 There have been several changes since `1.1.0`:
715 1. The build system had some changes.
716 2. Locale support has been added. (Patches welcome for translations.)
717 3. **The ability to turn `ibase`, `obase`, and `scale` into stacks** was added
718 with the `-g` command-line option. (See the [`bc` manual][9] for more
720 4. Support for compiling on Mac OSX out of the box was added.
721 5. The extended math library got `t(x)`, `ceil(x)`, and some aliases.
722 6. The extended math library also got `r2d(x)` (for converting from radians to
723 degrees) and `d2r(x)` (for converting from degrees to radians). This is to
724 allow using degrees with the standard library.
725 7. Both calculators now accept numbers in **scientific notation**. See the
726 [`bc` manual][9] and the [`dc` manual][10] for details.
727 8. Both calculators can **output in either scientific or engineering
728 notation**. See the [`bc` manual][9] and the [`dc` manual][10] for details.
729 9. Some inefficiencies were removed.
730 10. Some bugs were fixed.
731 11. Some bugs in the extended library were fixed.
732 12. Some defects from [Coverity Scan][11] were fixed.
736 This release contains a fix to the build system that allows it to build on older
741 This release contains a fix for a bug in the test suite where `bc` tests and
742 `dc` tests could not be run in parallel.
746 This release has a fix for a history bug; the down arrow did not work.
750 This release fixes a bug in the `1.1.0` build system. The source is exactly the
753 The bug that was fixed was a failure to install if no `EXECSUFFIX` was used.
757 This is a production release. However, many new features were added since `1.0`.
759 1. **The build system has been changed** to use a custom, POSIX
760 shell-compatible configure script ([`configure.sh`][6]) to generate a POSIX
761 make-compatible `Makefile`, which means that `bc` and `dc` now build out of
762 the box on any POSIX-compatible system.
763 2. Out-of-memory and output errors now cause the `bc` to report the error,
764 clean up, and die, rather than just reporting and trying to continue.
765 3. **Strings and constants are now garbage collected** when possible.
766 4. Signal handling and checking has been made more simple and more thorough.
767 5. `BcGlobals` was refactored into `BcVm` and `BcVm` was made global. Some
768 procedure names were changed to reflect its difference to everything else.
769 6. Addition got a speed improvement.
770 7. Some common code for addition and multiplication was refactored into its own
772 8. A bug was removed where `dc` could have been selected, but the internal
773 `#define` that returned `true` for a query about `dc` would not have
775 9. Useless calls to `bc_num_zero()` were removed.
776 10. **History support was added.** The history support is based off of a
777 [UTF-8 aware fork][7] of [`linenoise`][8], which has been customized with
778 `bc`'s own data structures and signal handling.
779 11. Generating C source from the math library now removes tabs from the library,
780 shrinking the size of the executable.
781 12. The math library was shrunk.
782 13. Error handling and reporting was improved.
783 14. Reallocations were reduced by giving access to the request size for each
785 15. **`abs()` (`b` command for `dc`) was added as a builtin.**
786 16. Both calculators were tested on FreeBSD.
787 17. Many obscure parse bugs were fixed.
788 18. Markdown and man page manuals were added, and the man pages are installed by
790 19. Executable size was reduced, though the added features probably made the
791 executable end up bigger.
792 20. **GNU-style array references were added as a supported feature.**
793 21. Allocations were reduced.
794 22. **New operators were added**: `$` (`$` for `dc`), `@` (`@` for `dc`), `@=`,
795 `<<` (`H` for `dc`), `<<=`, `>>` (`h` for `dc`), and `>>=`. See the
796 [`bc` manual][9] and the [`dc` manual][10] for more details.
797 23. **An extended math library was added.** This library contains code that
798 makes it so I can replace my desktop calculator with this `bc`. See the
799 [`bc` manual][3] for more details.
800 24. Support for all capital letters as numbers was added.
801 25. **Support for GNU-style void functions was added.**
802 26. A bug fix for improper handling of function parameters was added.
803 27. Precedence for the or (`||`) operator was changed to match GNU `bc`.
804 28. `dc` was given an explicit negation command.
805 29. `dc` was changed to be able to handle strings in arrays.
807 ## 1.1 Release Candidate 3
809 This release is the eighth release candidate for 1.1, though it is the third
810 release candidate meant as a general release candidate. The new code has not
811 been tested as thoroughly as it should for release.
813 ## 1.1 Release Candidate 2
815 This release is the seventh release candidate for 1.1, though it is the second
816 release candidate meant as a general release candidate. The new code has not
817 been tested as thoroughly as it should for release.
819 ## 1.1 FreeBSD Beta 5
821 This release is the sixth release candidate for 1.1, though it is the fifth
822 release candidate meant specifically to test if `bc` works on FreeBSD. The new
823 code has not been tested as thoroughly as it should for release.
825 ## 1.1 FreeBSD Beta 4
827 This release is the fifth release candidate for 1.1, though it is the fourth
828 release candidate meant specifically to test if `bc` works on FreeBSD. The new
829 code has not been tested as thoroughly as it should for release.
831 ## 1.1 FreeBSD Beta 3
833 This release is the fourth release candidate for 1.1, though it is the third
834 release candidate meant specifically to test if `bc` works on FreeBSD. The new
835 code has not been tested as thoroughly as it should for release.
837 ## 1.1 FreeBSD Beta 2
839 This release is the third release candidate for 1.1, though it is the second
840 release candidate meant specifically to test if `bc` works on FreeBSD. The new
841 code has not been tested as thoroughly as it should for release.
843 ## 1.1 FreeBSD Beta 1
845 This release is the second release candidate for 1.1, though it is meant
846 specifically to test if `bc` works on FreeBSD. The new code has not been tested as
847 thoroughly as it should for release.
849 ## 1.1 Release Candidate 1
851 This is the first release candidate for 1.1. The new code has not been tested as
852 thoroughly as it should for release.
856 This is the first non-beta release. `bc` is ready for production use.
858 As such, a lot has changed since 0.5.
860 1. `dc` has been added. It has been tested even more thoroughly than `bc` was
861 for `0.5`. It does not have the `!` command, and for security reasons, it
862 never will, so it is complete.
863 2. `bc` has been more thoroughly tested. An entire section of the test suite
864 (for both programs) has been added to test for errors.
865 3. A prompt (`>>> `) has been added for interactive mode, making it easier to
866 see inputs and outputs.
867 4. Interrupt handling has been improved, including elimination of race
868 conditions (as much as possible).
869 5. MinGW and [Windows Subsystem for Linux][1] support has been added (see
870 [xstatic][2] for binaries).
871 6. Memory leaks and errors have been eliminated (as far as ASan and Valgrind
873 7. Crashes have been eliminated (as far as [afl][3] can tell).
874 8. Karatsuba multiplication was added (and thoroughly) tested, speeding up
875 multiplication and power by orders of magnitude.
876 9. Performance was further enhanced by using a "divmod" function to reduce
877 redundant divisions and by removing superfluous `memset()` calls.
878 10. To switch between Karatsuba and `O(n^2)` multiplication, the config variable
879 `BC_NUM_KARATSUBA_LEN` was added. It is set to a sane default, but the
880 optimal number can be found with [`karatsuba.py`][4] (requires Python 3)
881 and then configured through `make`.
882 11. The random math test generator script was changed to Python 3 and improved.
883 `bc` and `dc` have together been run through 30+ million random tests.
884 12. All known math bugs have been fixed, including out of control memory
885 allocations in `sine` and `cosine` (that was actually a parse bug), certain
886 cases of infinite loop on square root, and slight inaccuracies (as much as
887 possible; see the [README][5]) in transcendental functions.
888 13. Parsing has been fixed as much as possible.
889 14. Test coverage was improved to 94.8%. The only paths not covered are ones
890 that happen when `malloc()` or `realloc()` fails.
891 15. An extension to get the length of an array was added.
892 16. The boolean not (`!`) had its precedence change to match negation.
893 17. Data input was hardened.
894 18. `bc` was made fully compliant with POSIX when the `-s` flag is used or
895 `POSIXLY_CORRECT` is defined.
896 19. Error handling was improved.
897 20. `bc` now checks that files it is given are not directories.
899 ## 1.0 Release Candidate 7
901 This is the seventh release candidate for 1.0. It fixes a few bugs in 1.0
904 ## 1.0 Release Candidate 6
906 This is the sixth release candidate for 1.0. It fixes a few bugs in 1.0 Release
909 ## 1.0 Release Candidate 5
911 This is the fifth release candidate for 1.0. It fixes a few bugs in 1.0 Release
914 ## 1.0 Release Candidate 4
916 This is the fourth release candidate for 1.0. It fixes a few bugs in 1.0 Release
919 ## 1.0 Release Candidate 3
921 This is the third release candidate for 1.0. It fixes a few bugs in 1.0 Release
924 ## 1.0 Release Candidate 2
926 This is the second release candidate for 1.0. It fixes a few bugs in 1.0 Release
929 ## 1.0 Release Candidate 1
931 This is the first Release Candidate for 1.0. `bc` is complete, with `dc`, but it
936 This beta release completes more features, but it is still not complete nor
937 tested as thoroughly as necessary.
941 This beta release fixes a few bugs in 0.4.
945 This is a beta release. It does not have the complete set of features, and it is
946 not thoroughly tested.
948 [1]: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/install-win10
949 [2]: https://pkg.musl.cc/bc/
950 [3]: http://lcamtuf.coredump.cx/afl/
954 [7]: https://github.com/rain-1/linenoise-mob
955 [8]: https://github.com/antirez/linenoise
956 [9]: ./manuals/bc/A.1.md
957 [10]: ./manuals/dc/A.1.md
958 [11]: https://scan.coverity.com/projects/gavinhoward-bc
959 [12]: ./locale_install.sh
960 [13]: ./manuals/build.md
961 [14]: https://github.com/stesser
962 [15]: https://github.com/bugcrazy
963 [16]: ./manuals/bc/A.1.md#extended-library
964 [17]: https://github.com/skeeto/optparse
965 [18]: https://www.deepl.com/translator
966 [19]: ./manuals/benchmarks.md
967 [20]: https://github.com/apjanke/ronn-ng
968 [21]: https://pandoc.org/