GiNaC 1.2.0 now available

[Christian Bauer]

Hello!

In an unforeseen turn of events, the GiNaC Group (who, by the way, don't
endorse the use of recreational drugs, except for C++ templates and Pokemon
movies) proudly presents GiNaC 1.2.0 "We don't have the funds for champagne
but we're going to release anyway". (And we also finally leave CLN in the
dust in terms of version numbers. Hah, in your face, Richy! :-)

Compared to the last few 1.1.x releases, this one has a rather impressive
list of changes, with the focus on improving GiNaC's extensibility:

 - Added a structure<T> template class for the easy creation of user-defined
   algebraic classes.
 - Added support for (acyclic) visitors, to allow cleaner implementations of
   algebraic algorithms.
 - Added a const_iterator class that can be used instead of op()/nops().
 - Completely revamped the implementation of expression output. It is now
   possible to add new output formats, to change the behavior of predefined
   formats at run-time, and to have different output styles for algebraic
   functions.
 - Symbols can be made non-commutative.
 - Added a method ex::conjugate() and a function conjugate() for complex
   conjugation. Symbols can be declared as real or complex-valued.
 - Improved the speed of subs(), normal(), to_rational() and to_polynomial()
   by the use of maps instead of lists. The old forms
     subs(const lst & ls, const lst & lr, unsigned options)
     to_rational/to_polynomial(lst & repl)
   are still available for compatibility, but using the new forms
     subs(const exmap & m, unsigned options)
     to_rational/to_polynomial(exmap & repl)
   is more efficient, especially when the number of replacements is large.
 - quo(), rem(), prem(), sprem(), decomp_rational(), unit(), content(),
   primpart() and matrix::charpoly() now take a "const ex &" instead of a
   "const symbol &".
 - Redundant expressions (two ex pointing to different objects are found to be
   equal in compare()) are now actively deleted/fused to conserve memory and
   speed up subsequent comparisons. This behavior can be suppressed on a
   per-object level with status_flags::not_shareable. Lists and matrices are
   not shareable by default.
 - Lots of internal streamlining and optimizations.
 - Caveats for class implementors:
   - basic::copy() and basic::destroy() are gone; classes derived from
     basic can use the defaults for the assignment operator and copy
     constructor. [Roberto: this also means that annoying compiler warning
     is finally gone... :-]
   - basic::subs(), basic::normal(), basic::to_rational() and
     basic::to_polynomial() take 'exmap' objects instead of lists.
   - basic::subs() now descends into subexpressions (if accessible via
     nops()/op()/let_op()). If you have a custom implementation of subs()
     that calls basic::subs() after substituting subexpressions, this needs
     to be changed to a call to subs_one_level().
   - lst::thislst() and exprseq::thisexprseq() renamed to thiscontainer().
   - thiscontainer() and associated constructors now take a std::auto_ptr.
   - Overloading basic::print() is now deprecated. You should use
     print_func<>() class options instead.

Most of the new features are explained in more detail in the tutorial.

GiNaC 1.2.0 is not binary compatible to 1.1.x, so you have to recompile
your stuff. It shouldn't be necessary to make any modifications to your
sources when switching to 1.2, except when you implemented your own GiNaC
classes (see above).

As before, all 1.2.x releases will be (upwards) binary compatible to each
other. There is a new CVS branch "ginac_1-2" for the 1.2.x series, and the
CVS head branch will eventually become GiNaC 1.3 (or GiNaC 2.0, or GiNaC
Advanced Datacenter Edition, or whatever).

What's left to say? Ah, yes, download GiNaC 1.2.0 from

  ftp://ftpthep.physik.uni-mainz.de/pub/GiNaC

Happy computing,
Christian

-- 
  / Physics is an algorithm
\/ http://www.uni-mainz.de/~bauec002/