GNU Octave Version 6
Summary of important user-visible changes
November 26, 2020
News for version 6 5 4.4 4.2 4 3.8 3.6 3.4 3.2 3 2 1 (Release History)
General improvements
-
The
intersect
,setdiff
,setxor
,union
, andunique
functions accept a new sorting option"stable"
which will return output values in the same order as the input, rather than in ascending order. -
Complex RESTful web services can now be accessed by the
webread
andwebwrite
functions alongside with theweboptions
structure. One major feature is the support for cookies to enable RESTful communication with the web service.Additionally, the system web browser can be opened by the
web
function. -
The
linspace
function now produces symmetrical sequences when the endpoints are symmetric. This is more intuitive and also compatible with recent changes made in Matlab R2019b. -
The underlying algorithm of the
rand
function has been changed. For single precision outputs, the algorithm has been fixed so that it produces values strictly in the range (0, 1). Previously, it could occasionally generate the right endpoint value of 1 (See bug #41742). In addition, the new implementation uses a uniform interval between floating point values in the range (0, 1) rather than targeting a uniform density (# of random integers / length along real number line). -
Numerical integration has been improved. The
quadv
function has been re-written so that it can compute integrands of periodic functions. At the same time, performance is better with ~3.5X fewer function evaluations required. A bug inquadgk
that caused complex path integrals specified with"Waypoints"
to occasionally be calculated in the opposite direction was fixed. -
The
edit
function option"editinplace"
now defaults totrue
and the option"home"
now defaults to the empty matrix[]
. Files will no longer be copied to the user’s HOME directory for editing. The old behavior can be restored by setting"editinplace"
tofalse
and"home"
to"~/octave"
. -
The
format
command supports two new options:uppercase
andlowercase
(default). With the default, print a lowercase ‘e’ for the exponent character in scientific notation and lowercase ‘a-f’ for the hex digits representing 10-15. Withuppercase
, print ‘E’ and ‘A-F’ instead. The previous uppercase formats,E
andG
, no longer control the case of the output.Additionally, the
format
command can be called with multiple options for controlling the format, spacing, and case in arbitrary order. For example:format long e uppercase loose
Note, in the case of multiple competing format options the rightmost one is used, and, in case of an error, the previous format remains unchanged.
-
L-value references (e.g., increment (++), decrement (–), and all in-place assignment operators (+=, -=, *=, /=, etc.)) are no longer allowed in anonymous functions.
-
New warnings have been added about questionable uses of the colon ‘:’ range operator. Each has a new warning ID so that it can be disabled if desired.
Octave:colon-complex-argument
: when any arg is complexOctave:colon-nonscalar-argument
: when any arg is non-scalar
-
The
regexp
and related functions now correctly handle and require strings in UTF-8 encoding. As with any other function that requires strings to be encoded in Octave’s native encoding, you can usenative2unicode
to convert from your preferred locale. For example, the copyright symbol in UTF-8 isnative2unicode (169, "latin1")
. -
The startup file
octaverc
can now be located in the platform dependent location for user local configuration files (e.g.,${XDG_CONFIG_HOME}/octave/octaverc
on Unix-like operating systems or%APPDATA%\octave\octaverc
on Windows). -
The command
dbstop in CLASS at METHOD
now works to set breakpoints in classdef constructors and methods.
Graphics backend
-
The use of Qt4 for graphics and the GUI is deprecated in Octave version 6 and no further bug fixes will be made. Qt4 support will be removed completely in Octave version 7.
-
The
legend
function has been entirely rewritten. This fixes a number of historical bugs, and also implements new properties such as"AutoUpdate"
and"NumColumns"
. The gnuplot toolkit—which is no longer actively maintained—still uses the old legend function. -
The
axis
function was updated which resolved 10 bugs affecting axes to which"equal"
had been applied. -
Graphic primitives now accept a color property value of
"none"
which is useful when a particular primitive needs to be hidden (for example, the Y-axis of an axes object with"ycolor" = "none"
) without hiding the entire primitive"visibility" = "off"
. -
A new property
"FontSmoothing"
has been added to text and axes objects that controls whether anti-aliasing is used during the rendering of characters. The default is"on"
which produces smooth, more visually appealing text. -
The figure property
"windowscrollwheelfcn"
is now implemented. This makes it possible to provide a callback function to be executed when users manipulate the mouse wheel on a given figure. -
The figure properties
"pointer"
,"pointershapecdata"
, and"pointershapehotspot"
are now implemented. This makes it possible to change the shape of the cursor (pointer in Matlab-speak) displayed in a plot window. -
The figure property
"paperpositionmode"
now has the default"auto"
rather than"manual"
. This change is more intuitive and is Matlab compatible. -
The appearance of patterned lines
"LineStyle" = ":"|"--"|"-."
has been improved for small widths ("LineWidth"
less than 1.5 pixels) which is a common scenario. -
Printing to EPS files now uses a tight bounding box (
"-tight"
argument to print) by default. This makes more sense for EPS files which are normally embedded within other documents, and is Matlab compatible. If necessary use the"-loose"
option to reproduce figures as they appeared in previous versions of Octave. -
The following print devices are no longer officially supported: cdr, corel, aifm, ill, cgm, hpgl, mf and dxf. A warning will be thrown when using those devices, and the code for supporting those formats will eventually be removed from a future version of Octave.
-
The placement of text subscripts and superscripts has been re-engineered and now produces visually attractive results similar to Latex.
Packages
-
pkg describe
now lists dependencies and inverse dependencies (i.e., other installed packages that depend on the package in question). -
pkg test
now tests all functions in a package. -
When unloading a package,
pkg
now checks if any remaining loaded packages depend on the one to be removed. If this is the casepkg
aborts with an explanatory error message. This behavior can be overridden with the-nodeps
option.
Matlab compatibility
-
The function
unique
now returns column index vectors for the second and third outputs. When duplicate values are present, the default index to return is now the"first"
occurrence. The previous Octave behavior, or Matlab behavior from releases prior to R2012b, can be obtained by using the"legacy"
flag. -
The function
setdiff
with the"rows"
argument now returns Matlab compatible results. The previous Octave behavior, or Matlab behavior from releases prior to R2012b, can be obtained by using the"legacy"
flag. -
The functions
intersect
,setxor
, andunion
now accept a"legacy"
flag which changes the index values (second and third outputs) as well as the orientation of all outputs to match Matlab releases prior to R2012b. -
The function
streamtube
is Matlab compatible and plots tubes along streamlines which are scaled by the vector field divergence. The Octave-only extensionostreamtube
can be used to visualize the flow expansion and contraction of the vector field due to the local crossflow divergence. -
The interpreter now supports handles to nested functions.
-
The graphics properties
"LineWidth"
and"MarkerSize"
are now measured in points, not pixels. Compared to previous versions of Octave, some lines and markers will appear 4/3 larger. -
The meta.class property “SuperClassList” has been renamed “Superclasslist” for Matlab compatibility. The original name will exist as an alias until Octave version 8.1.
-
Inline functions created by the function
inline
are now of type “inline” when interrogated with theclass
function. In previous versions of Octave, the class returned was “function_handle”. This change is Matlab compatible. Inline functions are deprecated in both Matlab and Octave and support may eventually be removed. Anonymous functions can be used to replace all instances of inline functions. -
The function
javaaddpath
now prepends new directories to the existing dynamic classpath by default. To append them instead, use the new"-end"
argument. Multiple directories may now be specified in a cell array of strings. -
An undocumented function
gui_mainfcn
has been added, for compatibility with figures created with Matlab’s GUIDE. -
Several validator functions of type
mustBe*
have been added. See the list of new functions below.
Deprecated functions and properties
The following functions and properties have been deprecated in Octave 6 and will be removed from Octave 8 (or whatever version is the second major release after 6):
-
Functions
Function Replacement runtests
oruntests
-
The environment variable used by
mkoctfile
for linker flags is nowLDFLAGS
rather thanLFLAGS
.LFLAGS
is deprecated, and a warning is emitted if it is used, but it will continue to work.
Removed functions and properties
The following functions and properties were deprecated in Octave 4.4 and have been removed from Octave 6.
-
Functions
Function Replacement chop
sprintf
for visual resultsdesktop
isguirunning
tmpnam
tempname
toascii
double
java2mat
__java2mat__
-
Properties
Object Property Value annotation
edgecolor ("rectangle")
axes
drawmode
figure
doublebuffer
mincolormap
wvisual
wvisualmode
xdisplay
xvisual
xvisualmode
line
interpreter
patch
interpreter
surface
interpreter
text
fontweight
"demi"
and"light"
uibuttongroup
fontweight
"demi"
and"light"
uicontrol
fontweight
"demi"
and"light"
uipanel
fontweight
"demi"
and"light"
uitable
fontweight
"demi"
and"light"
Alphabetical list of new functions added in Octave 6
auto_repeat_debug_command
commandhistory
commandwindow
filebrowser
is_same_file
lightangle
mustBeFinite
mustBeGreaterThan
mustBeGreaterThanOrEqual
mustBeInteger
mustBeLessThan
mustBeLessThanOrEqual
mustBeMember
mustBeNegative
mustBeNonempty
mustBeNonNan
mustBeNonnegative
mustBeNonpositive
mustBeNonsparse
mustBeNonzero
mustBeNumeric
mustBeNumericOrLogical
mustBePositive
mustBeReal
namedargs2cell
newline
ode23s
ostreamtube
rescale
rotx
roty
rotz
stream2
stream3
streamline
streamtube
uisetfont
verLessThan
web
weboptions
webread
webwrite
workspace