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Gawk 5.1.0 released

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Aharon Robbins

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Apr 14, 2020, 8:08:36 AM4/14/20
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Greetings all.

This note announces the next major release of GNU Awk: version 5.1.0.

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

-rw-rw-r-- 1 arnold arnold 6001060 Apr 14 14:48 gawk-5.1.0.tar.gz
-rw-rw-r-- 1 arnold arnold 3008723 Apr 14 14:48 gawk-5.1.0.tar.lz
-rw-rw-r-- 1 arnold arnold 3154564 Apr 14 14:48 gawk-5.1.0.tar.xz

This is a major new release. The relevant part of the NEWS file
is appended below.

This release represents a lot 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 5.0.1 are not available; they would be too large.

The online documentation on the GNU web site will be updated within
the next week or two, I hope.

The usual GNU build incantation should be used:

tar -xpvzf gawk-5.1.0.tar.gz
cd gawk-5.1.0
./configure && make && make check

Bug reports should be sent to bug-...@gnu.org.

Enjoy!

Arnold Robbins (on behalf of all the gawk developers)
arn...@skeeve.com
------------------------------------------------------------
Copyright (C) 2019, 2020 Free Software Foundation, Inc.

Copying and distribution of this file, with or without modification,
are permitted in any medium without royalty provided the copyright
notice and this notice are preserved.

Changes from 5.0.1 to 5.1.0
---------------------------

1. The major version of the API is bumped to 3, something that should
have happened at the 5.0.0 release but didn't.

2. A number of memory leak issues have been fixed.

3. Infrastructure upgrades: Bison 3.5.4, Texinfo 6.7, Gettext 0.20.1,
Automake 1.16.2.

4. The indexing in the manual has been thoroughly revised, in particular
making use of the facilities in Texinfo 6.7. That version (or newer)
must be used to format the manual.

5. MSYS2 is now supported out-of-the-box by configure.

6. Several bugs have been fixed. See the ChangeLog for details.
--
Aharon (Arnold) Robbins arnold AT skeeve DOT com

Kenny McCormack

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Apr 14, 2020, 2:07:21 PM4/14/20
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In article <r74941$54e$1...@gioia.aioe.org>,
Aharon Robbins <arn...@skeeve.com> wrote:
...
>Changes from 5.0.1 to 5.1.0
>---------------------------
>
>1. The major version of the API is bumped to 3, something that should
> have happened at the 5.0.0 release but didn't.

Just out of curiosity, what changed in the API this time?
What are the benefits of the new API version?
Is this a breaking change, like the one between 4.1 and 4.2?

I ask, because I never really got around to "updating" past 4.1, because of
this API breakage. I have a lot of deployed systems that depend on my
collection of extension libraries and a combination of "It's just too much
work" and "I never got around to it" and "I don't see any benefit" have
kept me from fixing all the source code (*), re-compiling, testing, and
deploying to the myriad of systems that are running all of these libs.

It would take a pretty good reason to get me to do all of that.

(*) Yes (I know you know this, but others reading this may not), the change
from 4.1 to 4.2 required source code changes (not just a recompile).

P.S. It is getting to the point where the libs are esentially tied to a
particular version of the main GAWK program. As such, they aren't
"portable" (in the sense in which I mean that term), so you might as well
just compile them in. That's what I did in the old days (the GAWK 3.x
version of the shared libs thing) - it got to the point where it was more
trouble than it was worth hauling the shared libs around, so I just
compiled them in directly to the main GAWK program. The thing is, I
figured out how to do that back then, but have not taken the time to do the
same thing with the new API. Any pointers on how to do this?

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Aharon Robbins

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Apr 16, 2020, 1:51:19 PM4/16/20
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In article <r74u4o$tos$1...@news.xmission.com>,
Kenny McCormack <gaz...@shell.xmission.com> wrote:
>Just out of curiosity, what changed in the API this time?

Support for namespaces was added to the API.

>What are the benefits of the new API version?

If you want namespace support, you've got it.

>Is this a breaking change, like the one between 4.1 and 4.2?

The API change is not binary compatible but is source code
compatible with 4.2.

Kenny McCormack

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Apr 16, 2020, 2:27:07 PM4/16/20
to
In article <r7a5uj$tj3$1...@gioia.aioe.org>,
Aharon Robbins <arn...@skeeve.com> wrote:
>In article <r74u4o$tos$1...@news.xmission.com>,
>Kenny McCormack <gaz...@shell.xmission.com> wrote:
>>Just out of curiosity, what changed in the API this time?
>
>Support for namespaces was added to the API.
>
>>What are the benefits of the new API version?
>
>If you want namespace support, you've got it.
>
>>Is this a breaking change, like the one between 4.1 and 4.2?
>
>The API change is not binary compatible but is source code
>compatible with 4.2.

Thanks.

But it does mean I'd have to re-compile/re-deploy everything.

Any comment on the second part of my post?
(Was it unclear?)

--
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us that we need to "get the government off our backs".

Aharon Robbins

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Apr 16, 2020, 2:31:19 PM4/16/20
to
In article <r7a81q$k4i$1...@news.xmission.com>,
Kenny McCormack <gaz...@shell.xmission.com> wrote:
>But it does mean I'd have to re-compile/re-deploy everything.

Yes.

>Any comment on the second part of my post?

"Use the source, Luke".

>(Was it unclear?)

No.

Janis Papanagnou

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May 23, 2020, 5:48:44 AM5/23/20
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On 14.04.2020 14:08, Aharon Robbins wrote:
> This note announces the next major release of GNU Awk: version 5.1.0.

Thank you!

In the man page I see: "PROCINFO["command", "pty"]"
Is this a new feature or did I just miss it?

Janis

Kenny McCormack

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May 23, 2020, 8:52:41 AM5/23/20
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In article <raarhr$a9q$1...@news-1.m-online.net>,
It has been documented since (at least) 4.1.4.

The existence of the feature may precede this.

Note: In looking around, I found a man page that says "This man page
documents gawk version 4.1" that did *not* mention "pty". But I found
another one that says it documents 4.1.4 which does mention "pty".

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