1 Copyright (C) 2010, 2011, 2012 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
3 Copying and distribution of this file, with or without modification,
4 are permitted in any medium without royalty provided the copyright
5 notice and this notice are preserved.
7 Changes from 4.0.0 to 4.0.1
8 ---------------------------
10 1. The default handling of backslash in sub() and gsub() has been reverted to
11 the behavior of 3.1. It was silly to think I could break compatibility that
12 way, even for standards compliance.
14 2. Completed the implementation of Rational Range Interpretation.
16 3. Failure to get the group set is no longer a fatal error.
18 4. Lots of minor bugs fixed and portability clean-ups along the way. See
19 the ChangeLog for details.
21 Changes from 3.1.8 to 4.0.0
22 ---------------------------
24 1. The special files /dev/pid, /dev/ppid, /dev/pgrpid and /dev/user are
25 now completely gone. Use PROCINFO instead.
27 2. The POSIX 2008 behavior for `sub' and `gsub' are now the default.
28 THIS CHANGES BEHAVIOR!!!!
30 3. The \s and \S escape sequences are now recognized in regular expressions.
32 4. The split() function accepts an optional fourth argument which is an array
33 to hold the values of the separators.
35 5. The new -b / --characters-as-bytes option means "hands off my data"; gawk
36 won't try to treat input as a multibyte string.
38 6. There is a new --sandbox option; see the doc.
40 7. Indirect function calls are now available.
42 8. Interval expressions are now part of default regular expressions for
45 9. --gen-po is now correctly named --gen-pot.
47 10. switch / case is now enabled by default. There's no longer a need
48 for a configure-time option.
50 11. Gawk now supports BEGINFILE and ENDFILE. See the doc for details.
52 12. Directories named on the command line now produce a warning, not
53 a fatal error, unless --posix or --traditional.
55 13. The new FPAT variable allows you to specify a regexp that matches
56 the fields, instead of matching the field separator. The new patsplit()
57 function gives the same capability for splitting.
59 14. All long options now have short options, for use in `#!' scripts.
61 15. Support for IPv6 is added via the /inet6/... special file. /inet4/...
62 forces IPv4 and /inet chooses the system default (probably IPv4).
64 16. Added a warning for /[:space:]/ that should be /[[:space:]]/.
66 17. Merged with John Haque's byte code internals. Adds dgawk debugger and
67 possibly improved performance.
69 18. `break' and `continue' are no longer valid outside a loop, even with
72 19. POSIX character classes work with --traditional (BWK awk supports them).
74 20. Nuked redundant --compat, --copyleft, and --usage long options.
76 21. Arrays of arrays added. See the doc.
78 22. Per the GNU Coding Standards, dynamic extensions must now define
79 a global symbol indicating that they are GPL-compatible. See
80 the documentation and example extensions.
81 THIS CHANGES BEHAVIOR!!!!
83 23. In POSIX mode, string comparisons use strcoll/wcscoll.
84 THIS CHANGES BEHAVIOR!!!!
86 24. The option for raw sockets was removed, since it was never implemented.
88 25. Gawk now treats ranges of the form [d-h] as if they were in the C
89 locale, no matter what kind of regexp is being used, and even if
90 --posix. The latest POSIX standard allows this, and the documentation
91 has been updated. Maybe this will stop all the questions about
92 [a-z] matching uppercase letters.
93 THIS CHANGES BEHAVIOR!!!!
95 26. PROCINFO["strftime"] now holds the default format for strftime().
97 27. Updated to latest infrastructure: Autoconf 2.68, Automake 1.11.1,
98 Gettext 0.18.1, Bison 2.5.
100 28. Many code cleanups. Removed code for many old, unsupported systems:
106 - MS-DOS with Microsoft Compiler
107 - MS-Windows with Microsoft Compiler
109 - SunOS 3.x, Sun 386 (Road Runner)
111 - Prestandard VAX C compiler for VAX/VMS
112 - Probably others that I've forgotten
114 29. If PROCINFO["sorted_in"] exists, for(iggy in foo) loops sort the
115 indices before looping over them. The value of this element
116 provides control over how the indices are sorted before the loop
117 traversal starts. See the manual.
119 30. A new isarray() function exists to distinguish if an item is an array
120 or not, to make it possible to traverse multidimensional arrays.
122 31. asort() and asorti() take a third argument specifying how to sort.