Gawk 4.1.2 released!

[Aharon Robbins]

Greetings all.

This note announces the next release of GNU Awk: version 4.1.2.

The following files may be retrieved from ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/gawk,
or via HTTP from http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/gawk:

-rw-rw-r-- 1 arnold arnold 4397131 Apr 29 08:56 gawk-4.1.2.tar.gz
-rw-r--r-- 1 arnold arnold     490 Apr 29 09:48 gawk-4.1.2.tar.gz.sig
-rw-rw-r-- 1 arnold arnold 2229339 Apr 29 08:56 gawk-4.1.2.tar.lz
-rw-r--r-- 1 arnold arnold     490 Apr 29 09:51 gawk-4.1.2.tar.lz.sig
-rw-rw-r-- 1 arnold arnold 2279136 Apr 29 08:56 gawk-4.1.2.tar.xz
-rw-r--r-- 1 arnold arnold     490 Apr 29 09:50 gawk-4.1.2.tar.xz.sig

This is a bug fix release.  The relevant part of the NEWS file is
appended below.

This release represents over a year of very hard work by a number
of people.  I thank them all for their contributions, I could not have
done it by myself.

Differences from gawk 4.1.1 are available:

-rw-rw-r-- 1 arnold arnold  868713 Apr 29 09:35 gawk-4.1.1-4.1.2.diff.gz
-rw-r--r-- 1 arnold arnold     490 Apr 29 09:52 gawk-4.1.1-4.1.2.diff.gz.sig

The .diff file is a shell script that should be executed in the gawk-4.1.1
source directory.

The usual GNU build incantation should be used:

        tar -xpvzf gawk-4.1.2.tar.gz
        cd gawk-4.1.2
        ./configure && make && make check

The documentation on the GNU web site has also been updated.

Bug reports should be sent to address@hidden

Enjoy!

Arnold Robbins (on behalf of all the gawk developers)
address@hidden
------------------------------------------------------------
Changes from 4.1.1 to 4.1.2
---------------------------

1. The manual has been considerably improved.
        - Thoroughly reviewed and updated.
        - Out-of-date examples replaced.
        - Chapter 15 on MPFR reworked.
        - Summary sections added to all chapters.
        - Exercises added in several chapters.
        - Heavily proof-read and copyedited.

2. The debugger's "restart" command now works again.

3. Redirected getline is now allowed inside BEGINFILE/ENDFILE.

4. A number of bugs have been fixed in the MPFR code.

5. Indirect function calls now work for both built-in and extension functions.

6. Built-in functions are now included in FUNCTAB.

7. POSIX and historical practice require the exclusive use of the English
   alphabet in identifiers.  In non-English locales, it was accidentally
   possible to use "letters" beside those of the English alphabet.  This
   has been fixed. (isalpha and isalnum are NOT our friends.)

   If you feel that you must have this misfeature, use `configure --help'
   to see what option to use when configuring gawk to reenable it.

8. The "where" command has been added to the debugger as an alias
   for "backtrace". This will make life easier for long-time GDB users.

9. Gawk no longer explicitly checks the current directory after doing
   a path search of AWKPATH.  The default value continues to have "." at
   the front, so most people should not be affected.  If you have your own
   AWKPATH setting, be sure to put "." in it somewhere. The documentation
   has been updated and clarified.

10. Infrastructure upgrades: Automake 1.15, Gettext 0.19.4, Libtool 2.4.6,
    Bison 3.0.4.

11. If a user-defined function has a parameter with the same name as another
    user-defined function, it is no longer possible to call the second
    function from inside the first.

12. POSIX requires that the names of function parameters not be the
    same as any of the special built-in variables and also not conflict
    with the names of any functions. Gawk has checked for the former
    since 3.1.7. With --posix, it now also checks for the latter.

13. The test suite should check for necessary locales and skip the tests
    where it matters if support isn't what it should be.  14. Gawk now expects 
to be compiled on a system with multibyte character support.  Systems without 
such support, at least at the C language
    level, are so obsolete as to not be worth supporting anymore.

15. A number of bugs have been fixed. See the ChangeLog.