5 This is a production release that fixes a new warning from Clang 12 for FreeBSD
6 and also removes some possible undefined behavior found by UBSan that compilers
7 did not seem to take advantage of.
9 Users do ***NOT*** need to upgrade, if they do not want to.
13 This is a production release that fixes the Chinese locales (which caused `bc`
14 to crash) and a crash caused by `bc` executing code when it should not have been
17 ***ALL USERS SHOULD UPGRADE.***
21 This is a production release that fixes one bug, changes two behaviors, and
22 removes one environment variable.
24 The bug is like the one in the last release except it applies if files are being
25 executed. I also made the fix more general.
27 The behavior that was changed is that `bc` now exits when given `-e`, `-f`,
28 `--expression` or `--file`. However, if the last one of those is `-f-` (using
29 `stdin` as the file), `bc` does not exit. If `-f-` exists and is not the last of
30 the `-e` and `-f` options (and equivalents), `bc` gives a fatal error and exits.
32 Next, I removed the `BC_EXPR_EXIT` and `DC_EXPR_EXIT` environment variables
33 since their use is not needed with the behavior change.
35 Finally, I made it so `bc` does not print the header, though the `-q` and
36 `--quiet` options were kept for compatibility with GNU `bc`.
40 This is a production release that fixes one minor bug: if `bc` was invoked like
41 the following, it would error:
44 echo "if (1 < 3) 1" | bc
47 Unless users run into this bug, they do not need to upgrade, but it is suggested
52 This is a production release that adds a way to install *all* locales. Users do
53 ***NOT*** need to upgrade.
55 For package maintainers wishing to make use of the change, just pass `-l` to
60 This is a production release that adds two Spanish locales. Users do ***NOT***
61 need to upgrade, unless they want those locales.
65 This is a production release that adjusts one behavior, fixes eight bugs, and
66 improves manpages for FreeBSD. Because this release fixes bugs, **users and
67 package maintainers should update to this version as soon as possible**.
69 The behavior that was adjusted was how code from the `-e` and `-f` arguments
70 (and equivalents) were executed. They used to be executed as one big chunk, but
71 in this release, they are now executed line-by-line.
73 The first bug fix in how output to `stdout` was handled in `SIGINT`. If a
74 `SIGINT` came in, the `stdout` buffer was not correctly flushed. In fact, a
75 clean-up function was not getting called. This release fixes that bug.
77 The second bug is in how `dc` handled input from `stdin`. This affected `bc` as
78 well since it was a mishandling of the `stdin` buffer.
80 The third fixed bug was that `bc` and `dc` could `abort()` (in debug mode) when
81 receiving a `SIGTERM`. This one was a race condition with pushing and popping
82 items onto and out of vectors.
84 The fourth bug fixed was that `bc` could leave extra items on the stack and
85 thus, not properly clean up some memory. (The memory would still get
86 `free()`'ed, but it would not be `free()`'ed when it could have been.)
88 The next two bugs were bugs in `bc`'s parser that caused crashes when executing
91 The last two bugs were crashes in `dc` that resulted from mishandling of
94 The manpage improvement was done by switching from [ronn][20] to [Pandoc][21] to
95 generate manpages. Pandoc generates much cleaner manpages and doesn't leave
96 blank lines where they shouldn't be.
100 This is a production release that adds one new feature: specific manpages.
102 Before this release, `bc` and `dc` only used one manpage each that referred to
103 various build options. This release changes it so there is one manpage set per
104 relevant build type. Each manual only has information about its particular
105 build, and `configure.sh` selects the correct set for install.
109 This is a production release that adds `utf8` locale symlinks and removes an
110 unused `auto` variable from the `ceil()` function in the [extended math
113 Users do ***NOT*** need to update unless they want the locales.
117 This is a production release with two small changes. Users do ***NOT*** need to
118 upgrade to this release; however, if they haven't upgraded to `3.0.0` yet, it
119 may be worthwhile to upgrade to this release.
121 The first change is fixing a compiler warning on FreeBSD with strict warnings
124 The second change is to make the new implementation of `ceil()` in `lib2.bc`
129 *Notes for package maintainers:*
131 *First, the `2.7.0` release series saw a change in the option parsing. This made
132 me change one error message and add a few others. The error message that was
133 changed removed one format specifier. This means that `printf()` will seqfault
134 on old locale files. Unfortunately, `bc` cannot use any locale files except the
135 global ones that are already installed, so it will use the previous ones while
136 running tests during install. **If `bc` segfaults while running arg tests when
137 updating, it is because the global locale files have not been replaced. Make
138 sure to either prevent the test suite from running on update or remove the old
139 locale files before updating.** (Removing the locale files can be done with
140 `make uninstall` or by running the `locale_uninstall.sh` script.) Once this is
141 done, `bc` should install without problems.*
143 *Second, **the option to build without signal support has been removed**. See
144 below for the reasons why.*
146 This is a production release with some small bug fixes, a few improvements,
147 three major bug fixes, and a complete redesign of `bc`'s error and signal
148 handling. **Users and package maintainers should update to this version as soon
151 The first major bug fix was in how `bc` executed files. Previously, a whole file
152 was parsed before it was executed, but if a function is defined *after* code,
153 especially if the function definition was actually a redefinition, and the code
154 before the definition referred to the previous function, this `bc` would replace
155 the function before executing any code. The fix was to make sure that all code
156 that existed before a function definition was executed.
158 The second major bug fix was in `bc`'s `lib2.bc`. The `ceil()` function had a
159 bug where a `0` in the decimal place after the truncation position, caused it to
160 output the wrong numbers if there was any non-zero digit after.
162 The third major bug is that when passing parameters to functions, if an
163 expression included an array (not an array element) as a parameter, it was
164 accepted, when it should have been rejected. It is now correctly rejected.
166 Beyond that, this `bc` got several improvements that both sped it up, improved
167 the handling of signals, and improved the error handling.
169 First, the requirements for `bc` were pushed back to POSIX 2008. `bc` uses one
170 function, `strdup()`, which is not in POSIX 2001, and it is in the X/Open System
171 Interfaces group 2001. It is, however, in POSIX 2008, and since POSIX 2008 is
172 old enough to be supported anywhere that I care, that should be the requirement.
174 Second, the BcVm global variable was put into `bss`. This actually slightly
175 reduces the size of the executable from a massive code shrink, and it will stop
176 `bc` from allocating a large set of memory when `bc` starts.
178 Third, the default Karatsuba length was updated from 64 to 32 after making the
179 optimization changes below, since 32 is going to be better than 64 after the
182 Fourth, Spanish translations were added.
184 Fifth, the interpreter received a speedup to make performance on non-math-heavy
185 scripts more competitive with GNU `bc`. While improvements did, in fact, get it
186 much closer (see the [benchmarks][19]), it isn't quite there.
188 There were several things done to speed up the interpreter:
190 First, several small inefficiencies were removed. These inefficiencies included
191 calling the function `bc_vec_pop(v)` twice instead of calling
192 `bc_vec_npop(v, 2)`. They also included an extra function call for checking the
193 size of the stack and checking the size of the stack more than once on several
196 Second, since the current `bc` function is the one that stores constants and
197 strings, the program caches pointers to the current function's vectors of
198 constants and strings to prevent needing to grab the current function in order
199 to grab a constant or a string.
201 Third, `bc` tries to reuse `BcNum`'s (the internal representation of
202 arbitary-precision numbers). If a `BcNum` has the default capacity of
203 `BC_NUM_DEF_SIZE` (32 on 64-bit and 16 on 32-bit) when it is freed, it is added
204 to a list of available `BcNum`'s. And then, when a `BcNum` is allocated with a
205 capacity of `BC_NUM_DEF_SIZE` and any `BcNum`'s exist on the list of reusable
206 ones, one of those ones is grabbed instead.
208 In order to support these changes, the `BC_NUM_DEF_SIZE` was changed. It used to
209 be 16 bytes on all systems, but it was changed to more closely align with the
210 minimum allocation size on Linux, which is either 32 bytes (64-bit musl), 24
211 bytes (64-bit glibc), 16 bytes (32-bit musl), or 12 bytes (32-bit glibc). Since
212 these are the minimum allocation sizes, these are the sizes that would be
213 allocated anyway, making it worth it to just use the whole space, so the value
214 of `BC_NUM_DEF_SIZE` on 64-bit systems was changed to 32 bytes.
216 On top of that, at least on 64-bit, `BC_NUM_DEF_SIZE` supports numbers with
217 either 72 integer digits or 45 integer digits and 27 fractional digits. This
218 should be more than enough for most cases since `bc`'s default `scale` values
219 are 0 or 20, meaning that, by default, it has at most 20 fractional digits. And
220 45 integer digits are *a lot*; it's enough to calculate the amount of mass in
221 the Milky Way galaxy in kilograms. Also, 72 digits is enough to calculate the
222 diameter of the universe in Planck lengths.
224 (For 32-bit, these numbers are either 32 integer digits or 12 integer digits and
225 20 fractional digits. These are also quite big, and going much bigger on a
226 32-bit system seems a little pointless since 12 digits in just under a trillion
227 and 20 fractional digits is still enough for about any use since `10^-20` light
228 years is just under a millimeter.)
230 All of this together means that for ordinary uses, and even uses in scientific
231 work, the default number size will be all that is needed, which means that
232 nearly all, if not all, numbers will be reused, relieving pressure on the system
235 I did several experiments to find the changes that had the most impact,
236 especially with regard to reusing `BcNum`'s. One was putting `BcNum`'s into
237 buckets according to their capacity in powers of 2 up to 512. That performed
238 worse than `bc` did in `2.7.2`. Another was putting any `BcNum` on the reuse
239 list that had a capacity of `BC_NUM_DEF_SIZE * 2` and reusing them for `BcNum`'s
240 that requested `BC_NUM_DEF_SIZE`. This did reduce the amount of time spent, but
241 it also spent a lot of time in the system allocator for an unknown reason. (When
242 using `strace`, a bunch more `brk` calls showed up.) Just reusing `BcNum`'s that
243 had exactly `BC_NUM_DEF_SIZE` capacity spent the smallest amount of time in both
244 user and system time. This makes sense, especially with the changes to make
245 `BC_NUM_DEF_SIZE` bigger on 64-bit systems, since the vast majority of numbers
246 will only ever use numbers with a size less than or equal to `BC_NUM_DEF_SIZE`.
248 Last of all, `bc`'s signal handling underwent a complete redesign. (This is the
249 reason that this version is `3.0.0` and not `2.8.0`.) The change was to move
250 from a polling approach to signal handling to an interrupt-based approach.
252 Previously, every single loop condition had a check for signals. I suspect that
253 this could be expensive when in tight loops.
255 Now, the signal handler just uses `longjmp()` (actually `siglongjmp()`) to start
256 an unwinding of the stack until it is stopped or the stack is unwound to
257 `main()`, which just returns. If `bc` is currently executing code that cannot be
258 safely interrupted (according to POSIX), then signals are "locked." The signal
259 handler checks if the lock is taken, and if it is, it just sets the status to
260 indicate that a signal arrived. Later, when the signal lock is released, the
261 status is checked to see if a signal came in. If so, the stack unwinding starts.
263 This design eliminates polling in favor of maintaining a stack of `jmp_buf`'s.
264 This has its own performance implications, but it gives better interaction. And
265 the cost of pushing and popping a `jmp_buf` in a function is paid at most twice.
266 Most functions do not pay that price, and most of the rest only pay it once.
267 (There are only some 3 functions in `bc` that push and pop a `jmp_buf` twice.)
269 As a side effect of this change, I had to eliminate the use of `stdio.h` in `bc`
270 because `stdio` does not play nice with signals and `longjmp()`. I implemented
271 custom I/O buffer code that takes a fraction of the size. This means that static
272 builds will be smaller, but non-static builds will be bigger, though they will
273 have less linking time.
275 This change is also good because my history implementation was already bypassing
276 `stdio` for good reasons, and unifying the architecture was a win.
278 Another reason for this change is that my `bc` should *always* behave correctly
279 in the presence of signals like `SIGINT`, `SIGTERM`, and `SIGQUIT`. With the
280 addition of my own I/O buffering, I needed to also make sure that the buffers
281 were correctly flushed even when such signals happened.
283 For this reason, I **removed the option to build without signal support**.
285 As a nice side effect of this change, the error handling code could be changed
286 to take advantage of the stack unwinding that signals used. This means that
287 signals and error handling use the same code paths, which means that the stack
288 unwinding is well-tested. (Errors are tested heavily in the test suite.)
290 It also means that functions do not need to return a status code that
291 ***every*** caller needs to check. This eliminated over 100 branches that simply
292 checked return codes and then passed that return code up the stack if necessary.
293 The code bloat savings from this is at least 1700 bytes on `x86_64`, *before*
294 taking into account the extra code from removing `stdio.h`.
298 This is a production release with one major bug fix.
300 The `length()` built-in function can take either a number or an array. If it
301 takes an array, it returns the length of the array. Arrays can be passed by
302 reference. The bug is that the `length()` function would not properly
303 dereference arrays that were references. This is a bug that affects all users.
305 **ALL USERS SHOULD UPDATE `bc`**.
309 This is a production release with fixes for new locales and fixes for compiler
314 This is a production release with a bug fix for Linux, new translations, and new
319 * Option parsing in `BC_ENV_ARGS` was broken on Linux in 2.6.1 because `glibc`'s
320 `getopt_long()` is broken. To get around that, and to support long options on
321 every platform, an adapted version of [`optparse`][17] was added. Now, `bc`
322 does not even use `getopt()`.
323 * Parsing `BC_ENV_ARGS` with quotes now works. It isn't the smartest, but it
324 does the job if there are spaces in file names.
326 The following new languages are supported:
334 All of these translations were generated using [DeepL][18], so improvements are
337 There is only one new feature: **`bc` now has a built-in pseudo-random number
340 The PRNG is seeded, making it useful for applications where
341 `/dev/urandom` does not work because output needs to be reproducible. However,
342 it also uses `/dev/urandom` to seed itself by default, so it will start with a
343 good seed by default.
345 It also outputs 32 bits on 32-bit platforms and 64 bits on 64-bit platforms, far
346 better than the 15 bits of C's `rand()` and `bash`'s `$RANDOM`.
348 In addition, the PRNG can take a bound, and when it gets a bound, it
349 automatically adjusts to remove bias. It can also generate numbers of arbitrary
350 size. (As of the time of release, the largest pseudo-random number generated by
351 this `bc` was generated with a bound of `2^(2^20)`.)
353 ***IMPORTANT: read the [`bc` manual][9] and the [`dc` manual][10] to find out
354 exactly what guarantees the PRNG provides. The underlying implementation is not
355 guaranteed to stay the same, but the guarantees that it provides are guaranteed
356 to stay the same regardless of the implementation.***
358 On top of that, four functions were added to `bc`'s [extended math library][16]
359 to make using the PRNG easier:
361 * `frand(p)`: Generates a number between `[0,1)` to `p` decimal places.
362 * `ifrand(i, p)`: Generates an integer with bound `i` and adds it to `frand(p)`.
363 * `srand(x)`: Randomizes the sign of `x`. In other words, it flips the sign of
364 `x` with probability `0.5`.
365 * `brand()`: Returns a random boolean value (either `0` or `1`).
369 This is a production release with a bug fix for FreeBSD.
371 The bug was that when `bc` was built without long options, it would give a fatal
372 error on every run. This was caused by a mishandling of `optind`.
376 This release is a production release ***with no bugfixes***. If you do not want
377 to upgrade, you don't have to.
379 No source code changed; the only thing that changed was `lib2.bc`.
381 This release adds one function to the [extended math library][16]: `p(x, y)`,
382 which calculates `x` to the power of `y`, whether or not `y` is an integer. (The
383 `^` operator can only accept integer powers.)
385 This release also includes a couple of small tweaks to the [extended math
386 library][16], mostly to fix returning numbers with too high of `scale`.
390 This release is a production release which addresses inconsistencies in the
391 Portuguese locales. No `bc` code was changed.
393 The issues were that the ISO files used different naming, and also that the
394 files that should have been symlinks were not. I did not catch that because
395 GitHub rendered them the exact same way.
399 This release is a production release.
401 No code was changed, but the build system was changed to allow `CFLAGS` to be
402 given to `CC`, like this:
405 CC="gcc -O3 -march=native" ./configure.sh
408 If this happens, the flags are automatically put into `CFLAGS`, and the compiler
409 is set appropriately. In the example above this means that `CC` will be "gcc"
410 and `CFLAGS` will be "-O3 -march=native".
412 This behavior was added to conform to GNU autotools practices.
416 This is a production release which addresses portability concerns discovered
417 in the `bc` build system. No `bc` code was changed.
419 * Support for Solaris SPARC and AIX were added.
420 * Minor documentations edits were performed.
421 * An option for `configure.sh` was added to disable long options if
422 `getopt_long()` is missing.
426 This is a production release with new translations. No code changed.
428 The translations were contributed by [bugcrazy][15], and they are for
429 Portuguese, both Portugal and Brazil locales.
433 This is a production release primarily aimed at improving `dc`.
435 * A couple of copy and paste errors in the [`dc` manual][10] were fixed.
436 * `dc` startup was optimized by making sure it didn't have to set up `bc`-only
438 * The `bc` `&&` and `||` operators were made available to `dc` through the `M`
439 and `m` commands, respectively.
440 * `dc` macros were changed to be tail call-optimized.
442 The last item, tail call optimization, means that if the last thing in a macro
443 is a call to another macro, then the old macro is popped before executing the
444 new macro. This change was made to stop `dc` from consuming more and more memory
445 as macros are executed in a loop.
447 The `q` and `Q` commands still respect the "hidden" macros by way of recording
448 how many macros were removed by tail call optimization.
452 This is a production release meant to fix warnings in the Gentoo `ebuild` by
453 making it possible to disable binary stripping. Other users do *not* need to
458 This is a production release. It fixes a bug that caused `-1000000000 < -1` to
459 return `0`. This only happened with negative numbers and only if the value on
460 the left was more negative by a certain amount. That said, this bug *is* a bad
461 bug, and needs to be fixed.
463 **ALL USERS SHOULD UPDATE `bc`**.
467 This is a production release with changes to the build system.
471 This release is a production release. It only has new features and performance
474 1. The performance of `sqrt(x)` was improved.
475 2. The new function `root(x, n)` was added to the extended math library to
476 calculate `n`th roots.
477 3. The new function `cbrt(x)` was added to the extended math library to
478 calculate cube roots.
482 This is a non-critical release; it just changes the build system, and in
485 1. Linked locale files were changed to link to their sources with a relative
487 2. A bug in `configure.sh` that caused long option parsing to fail under `bash`
492 This release is not a critical release.
494 1. A few codes were added to history.
495 2. Multiplication was optimized a bit more.
496 3. Addition and subtraction were both optimized a bit more.
500 This release contains a fix for the test suite made for Linux from Scratch: now
501 the test suite prints `pass` when a test is passed.
503 Other than that, there is no change in this release, so distros and other users
504 do not need to upgrade.
508 This release is a production release.
510 The following bugs were fixed:
512 1. A `dc` bug that caused stack mishandling was fixed.
513 2. A warning on OpenBSD was fixed.
514 3. Bugs in `ctrl+arrow` operations in history were fixed.
515 4. The ability to paste multiple lines in history was added.
516 5. A `bc` bug, mishandling of array arguments to functions, was fixed.
517 6. A crash caused by freeing the wrong pointer was fixed.
518 7. A `dc` bug where strings, in a rare case, were mishandled in parsing was
521 In addition, the following changes were made:
523 1. Division was slightly optimized.
524 2. An option was added to the build to disable printing of prompts.
525 3. The special case of empty arguments is now handled. This is to prevent
526 errors in scripts that end up passing empty arguments.
527 4. A harmless bug was fixed. This bug was that, with the pop instructions
528 (mostly) removed (see below), `bc` would leave extra values on its stack for
529 `void` functions and in a few other cases. These extra items would not
530 affect anything put on the stack and would not cause any sort of crash or
531 even buggy behavior, but they would cause `bc` to take more memory than it
534 On top of the above changes, the following optimizations were added:
536 1. The need for pop instructions in `bc` was removed.
537 2. Extra tests on every iteration of the interpreter loop were removed.
538 3. Updating function and code pointers on every iteration of the interpreter
539 loop was changed to only updating them when necessary.
540 4. Extra assignments to pointers were removed.
542 Altogether, these changes sped up the interpreter by around 2x.
544 ***NOTE***: This is the last release with new features because this `bc` is now
545 considered complete. From now on, only bug fixes and new translations will be
550 This is a production, bug-fix release.
552 Two bugs were fixed in this release:
554 1. A rare and subtle signal handling bug was fixed.
555 2. A misbehavior on `0` to a negative power was fixed.
557 The last bug bears some mentioning.
559 When I originally wrote power, I did not thoroughly check its error cases;
560 instead, I had it check if the first number was `0` and then if so, just return
561 `0`. However, `0` to a negative power means that `1` will be divided by `0`,
564 I caught this, but only after I stopped being cocky. You see, sometime later, I
565 had noticed that GNU `bc` returned an error, correctly, but I thought it was
566 wrong simply because that's not what my `bc` did. I saw it again later and had a
567 double take. I checked for real, finally, and found out that my `bc` was wrong
570 That was bad on me. But the bug was easy to fix, so it is fixed now.
572 There are two other things in this release:
574 1. Subtraction was optimized by [Stefan Eßer][14].
575 2. Division was also optimized, also by Stefan Eßer.
579 This release contains a fix for a possible overflow in the signal handling. I
580 would be surprised if any users ran into it because it would only happen after 2
581 billion (`2^31-1`) `SIGINT`'s, but I saw it and had to fix it.
585 This release contains very few things that will apply to any users.
587 1. A slight bug in `dc`'s interactive mode was fixed.
588 2. A bug in the test suite that was only triggered on NetBSD was fixed.
589 3. **The `-P`/`--no-prompt` option** was added for users that do not want a
591 4. A `make check` target was added as an alias for `make test`.
592 5. `dc` got its own read prompt: `?> `.
596 This release is a production release.
598 This release is also a little different from previous releases. From here on
599 out, I do not plan on adding any more features to this `bc`; I believe that it
600 is complete. However, there may be bug fix releases in the future, if I or any
601 others manage to find bugs.
603 This release has only a few new features:
605 1. `atan2(y, x)` was added to the extended math library as both `a2(y, x)` and
607 2. Locales were fixed.
608 3. A **POSIX shell-compatible script was added as an alternative to compiling
609 `gen/strgen.c`** on a host machine. More details about making the choice
610 between the two can be found by running `./configure.sh --help` or reading
611 the [build manual][13].
612 4. Multiplication was optimized by using **diagonal multiplication**, rather
613 than straight brute force.
614 5. The `locale_install.sh` script was fixed.
615 6. `dc` was given the ability to **use the environment variable
617 7. `dc` was also given the ability to **use the `-i` or `--interactive`**
619 8. Printing the prompt was fixed so that it did not print when it shouldn't.
620 9. Signal handling was fixed.
621 10. **Handling of `SIGTERM` and `SIGQUIT`** was fixed.
622 11. The **built-in functions `maxibase()`, `maxobase()`, and `maxscale()`** (the
623 commands `T`, `U`, `V` in `dc`, respectively) were added to allow scripts to
624 query for the max allowable values of those globals.
625 12. Some incompatibilities with POSIX were fixed.
627 In addition, this release is `2.0.0` for a big reason: the internal format for
628 numbers changed. They used to be a `char` array. Now, they are an array of
629 larger integers, packing more decimal digits into each integer. This has
630 delivered ***HUGE*** performance improvements, especially for multiplication,
633 This `bc` should now be the fastest `bc` available, but I may be wrong.
637 This release contains a fix for a harmless bug (it is harmless in that it still
638 works, but it just copies extra data) in the [`locale_install.sh`][12] script.
642 This version contains fixes for the build on Arch Linux.
646 This release removes the use of `local` in shell scripts because it's not POSIX
647 shell-compatible, and also updates a man page that should have been updated a
648 long time ago but was missed.
652 This release contains some missing locale `*.msg` files.
656 This release contains a few bug fixes and new French translations.
660 This release contains a fix for a bug: use of uninitialized data. Such data was
661 only used when outputting an error message, but I am striving for perfection. As
662 Michelangelo said, "Trifles make perfection, and perfection is no trifle."
666 This release contains fixes for OpenBSD.
670 This release contains bug fixes for some rare bugs.
674 This is a production release.
676 There have been several changes since `1.1.0`:
678 1. The build system had some changes.
679 2. Locale support has been added. (Patches welcome for translations.)
680 3. **The ability to turn `ibase`, `obase`, and `scale` into stacks** was added
681 with the `-g` command-line option. (See the [`bc` manual][9] for more
683 4. Support for compiling on Mac OSX out of the box was added.
684 5. The extended math library got `t(x)`, `ceil(x)`, and some aliases.
685 6. The extended math library also got `r2d(x)` (for converting from radians to
686 degrees) and `d2r(x)` (for converting from degrees to radians). This is to
687 allow using degrees with the standard library.
688 7. Both calculators now accept numbers in **scientific notation**. See the
689 [`bc` manual][9] and the [`dc` manual][10] for details.
690 8. Both calculators can **output in either scientific or engineering
691 notation**. See the [`bc` manual][9] and the [`dc` manual][10] for details.
692 9. Some inefficiencies were removed.
693 10. Some bugs were fixed.
694 11. Some bugs in the extended library were fixed.
695 12. Some defects from [Coverity Scan][11] were fixed.
699 This release contains a fix to the build system that allows it to build on older
704 This release contains a fix for a bug in the test suite where `bc` tests and
705 `dc` tests could not be run in parallel.
709 This release has a fix for a history bug; the down arrow did not work.
713 This release fixes a bug in the `1.1.0` build system. The source is exactly the
716 The bug that was fixed was a failure to install if no `EXECSUFFIX` was used.
720 This is a production release. However, many new features were added since `1.0`.
722 1. **The build system has been changed** to use a custom, POSIX
723 shell-compatible configure script ([`configure.sh`][6]) to generate a POSIX
724 make-compatible `Makefile`, which means that `bc` and `dc` now build out of
725 the box on any POSIX-compatible system.
726 2. Out-of-memory and output errors now cause the `bc` to report the error,
727 clean up, and die, rather than just reporting and trying to continue.
728 3. **Strings and constants are now garbage collected** when possible.
729 4. Signal handling and checking has been made more simple and more thorough.
730 5. `BcGlobals` was refactored into `BcVm` and `BcVm` was made global. Some
731 procedure names were changed to reflect its difference to everything else.
732 6. Addition got a speed improvement.
733 7. Some common code for addition and multiplication was refactored into its own
735 8. A bug was removed where `dc` could have been selected, but the internal
736 `#define` that returned `true` for a query about `dc` would not have
738 9. Useless calls to `bc_num_zero()` were removed.
739 10. **History support was added.** The history support is based off of a
740 [UTF-8 aware fork][7] of [`linenoise`][8], which has been customized with
741 `bc`'s own data structures and signal handling.
742 11. Generating C source from the math library now removes tabs from the library,
743 shrinking the size of the executable.
744 12. The math library was shrunk.
745 13. Error handling and reporting was improved.
746 14. Reallocations were reduced by giving access to the request size for each
748 15. **`abs()` (`b` command for `dc`) was added as a builtin.**
749 16. Both calculators were tested on FreeBSD.
750 17. Many obscure parse bugs were fixed.
751 18. Markdown and man page manuals were added, and the man pages are installed by
753 19. Executable size was reduced, though the added features probably made the
754 executable end up bigger.
755 20. **GNU-style array references were added as a supported feature.**
756 21. Allocations were reduced.
757 22. **New operators were added**: `$` (`$` for `dc`), `@` (`@` for `dc`), `@=`,
758 `<<` (`H` for `dc`), `<<=`, `>>` (`h` for `dc`), and `>>=`. See the
759 [`bc` manual][9] and the [`dc` manual][10] for more details.
760 23. **An extended math library was added.** This library contains code that
761 makes it so I can replace my desktop calculator with this `bc`. See the
762 [`bc` manual][3] for more details.
763 24. Support for all capital letters as numbers was added.
764 25. **Support for GNU-style void functions was added.**
765 26. A bug fix for improper handling of function parameters was added.
766 27. Precedence for the or (`||`) operator was changed to match GNU `bc`.
767 28. `dc` was given an explicit negation command.
768 29. `dc` was changed to be able to handle strings in arrays.
770 ## 1.1 Release Candidate 3
772 This release is the eighth release candidate for 1.1, though it is the third
773 release candidate meant as a general release candidate. The new code has not
774 been tested as thoroughly as it should for release.
776 ## 1.1 Release Candidate 2
778 This release is the seventh release candidate for 1.1, though it is the second
779 release candidate meant as a general release candidate. The new code has not
780 been tested as thoroughly as it should for release.
782 ## 1.1 FreeBSD Beta 5
784 This release is the sixth release candidate for 1.1, though it is the fifth
785 release candidate meant specifically to test if `bc` works on FreeBSD. The new
786 code has not been tested as thoroughly as it should for release.
788 ## 1.1 FreeBSD Beta 4
790 This release is the fifth release candidate for 1.1, though it is the fourth
791 release candidate meant specifically to test if `bc` works on FreeBSD. The new
792 code has not been tested as thoroughly as it should for release.
794 ## 1.1 FreeBSD Beta 3
796 This release is the fourth release candidate for 1.1, though it is the third
797 release candidate meant specifically to test if `bc` works on FreeBSD. The new
798 code has not been tested as thoroughly as it should for release.
800 ## 1.1 FreeBSD Beta 2
802 This release is the third release candidate for 1.1, though it is the second
803 release candidate meant specifically to test if `bc` works on FreeBSD. The new
804 code has not been tested as thoroughly as it should for release.
806 ## 1.1 FreeBSD Beta 1
808 This release is the second release candidate for 1.1, though it is meant
809 specifically to test if `bc` works on FreeBSD. The new code has not been tested as
810 thoroughly as it should for release.
812 ## 1.1 Release Candidate 1
814 This is the first release candidate for 1.1. The new code has not been tested as
815 thoroughly as it should for release.
819 This is the first non-beta release. `bc` is ready for production use.
821 As such, a lot has changed since 0.5.
823 1. `dc` has been added. It has been tested even more thoroughly than `bc` was
824 for `0.5`. It does not have the `!` command, and for security reasons, it
825 never will, so it is complete.
826 2. `bc` has been more thoroughly tested. An entire section of the test suite
827 (for both programs) has been added to test for errors.
828 3. A prompt (`>>> `) has been added for interactive mode, making it easier to
829 see inputs and outputs.
830 4. Interrupt handling has been improved, including elimination of race
831 conditions (as much as possible).
832 5. MinGW and [Windows Subsystem for Linux][1] support has been added (see
833 [xstatic][2] for binaries).
834 6. Memory leaks and errors have been eliminated (as far as ASan and Valgrind
836 7. Crashes have been eliminated (as far as [afl][3] can tell).
837 8. Karatsuba multiplication was added (and thoroughly) tested, speeding up
838 multiplication and power by orders of magnitude.
839 9. Performance was further enhanced by using a "divmod" function to reduce
840 redundant divisions and by removing superfluous `memset()` calls.
841 10. To switch between Karatsuba and `O(n^2)` multiplication, the config variable
842 `BC_NUM_KARATSUBA_LEN` was added. It is set to a sane default, but the
843 optimal number can be found with [`karatsuba.py`][4] (requires Python 3)
844 and then configured through `make`.
845 11. The random math test generator script was changed to Python 3 and improved.
846 `bc` and `dc` have together been run through 30+ million random tests.
847 12. All known math bugs have been fixed, including out of control memory
848 allocations in `sine` and `cosine` (that was actually a parse bug), certain
849 cases of infinite loop on square root, and slight inaccuracies (as much as
850 possible; see the [README][5]) in transcendental functions.
851 13. Parsing has been fixed as much as possible.
852 14. Test coverage was improved to 94.8%. The only paths not covered are ones
853 that happen when `malloc()` or `realloc()` fails.
854 15. An extension to get the length of an array was added.
855 16. The boolean not (`!`) had its precedence change to match negation.
856 17. Data input was hardened.
857 18. `bc` was made fully compliant with POSIX when the `-s` flag is used or
858 `POSIXLY_CORRECT` is defined.
859 19. Error handling was improved.
860 20. `bc` now checks that files it is given are not directories.
862 ## 1.0 Release Candidate 7
864 This is the seventh release candidate for 1.0. It fixes a few bugs in 1.0
867 ## 1.0 Release Candidate 6
869 This is the sixth release candidate for 1.0. It fixes a few bugs in 1.0 Release
872 ## 1.0 Release Candidate 5
874 This is the fifth release candidate for 1.0. It fixes a few bugs in 1.0 Release
877 ## 1.0 Release Candidate 4
879 This is the fourth release candidate for 1.0. It fixes a few bugs in 1.0 Release
882 ## 1.0 Release Candidate 3
884 This is the third release candidate for 1.0. It fixes a few bugs in 1.0 Release
887 ## 1.0 Release Candidate 2
889 This is the second release candidate for 1.0. It fixes a few bugs in 1.0 Release
892 ## 1.0 Release Candidate 1
894 This is the first Release Candidate for 1.0. `bc` is complete, with `dc`, but it
899 This beta release completes more features, but it is still not complete nor
900 tested as thoroughly as necessary.
904 This beta release fixes a few bugs in 0.4.
908 This is a beta release. It does not have the complete set of features, and it is
909 not thoroughly tested.
911 [1]: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/install-win10
912 [2]: https://pkg.musl.cc/bc/
913 [3]: http://lcamtuf.coredump.cx/afl/
917 [7]: https://github.com/rain-1/linenoise-mob
918 [8]: https://github.com/antirez/linenoise
919 [9]: ./manuals/bc/A.1.md
920 [10]: ./manuals/dc/A.1.md
921 [11]: https://scan.coverity.com/projects/gavinhoward-bc
922 [12]: ./locale_install.sh
923 [13]: ./manuals/build.md
924 [14]: https://github.com/stesser
925 [15]: https://github.com/bugcrazy
926 [16]: ./manuals/bc/A.1.md#extended-library
927 [17]: https://github.com/skeeto/optparse
928 [18]: https://www.deepl.com/translator
929 [19]: ./manuals/benchmarks.md
930 [20]: https://github.com/apjanke/ronn-ng
931 [21]: https://pandoc.org/