Changes include:
* New try/catch mechanism for control of exception handling.
* Fixed memory leaks in solve and svd.
* Builtin `tril' and `triu' functions -- sparse arrays stay sparse.
* Fixed integer overflow problems in `band' and `cram'.
* Incorporated the SuperLU package for solving sparse linear
systems. Previously, sparse systems were converted to dense and
solved with LAPACK (unless configured with BCSLIB-EXT).
* Included support for memory allocation debugging with dmalloc.
* Improved the logical operations to do a much better job at
maintaining sparsity.
* New standard function `select'.
* Changes to the matrix bandwidth minimization code. The old `band'
function is now called `gpskca' and can do either profile or
bandwidth minimization of symmetric or hermitian matrices. Matrix
statistics are computed by the new `band' function.
* New standard functions `linspace' and `logspace'.
* New standard function `equilibrate' computes scale factors to
improve the condition of a matrix. However, sparse code has not
yet been included.
* Fixed several deficiencies in the `transform' function.
* Removed old get_ascii and put_ascii functions. I doubt if anyone
has used these in the last decade. To read and write matrices in
text files, use the algae MatrixMarket package.
* Fixed several errors with hermitian symmetry.
* Fixed mishandling of sparse matrix multiplication case where
non-zero factors give a zero result.
* Added "short-circuit" logical operators && and ||.
* Added the `cram' builtin function -- it's the same as `form'
except the output array is sparse when that makes sense.
* Added the `product' user function -- product of array elements.
* Added `mksparse' and `exsparse' functions for converting matrices
to and from coordinate form.
* Switched to LAPACK's DGGEV now that DGEGV is deprecated. Also use
the new workspace size query feature in LAPACK, rather than
working it out ourselves.
* Use LAPACK's ZHEGV and ZGGEV for complex generalized eigenvalue
problems.
* Use floating point exception support from glibc 2.2 on Linux.
* Improved accuracy and behavior for complex arguments in functions
`log', `asin', and `acos'.
* Added inverse hyperbolic trig functions `asinh', `acosh', and `atanh'.
* Various minor bug fixes.
Algae is an interpreted language for numerical analysis. Algae
borrows ideas from languages like MATLAB, APL, and C, but it was
developed in response to a need for a free, efficient, and versatile
high-level language with large problem capability.
