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Diffstat (limited to 'README')
| -rw-r--r-- | README | 108 |
1 files changed, 70 insertions, 38 deletions
@@ -1,53 +1,84 @@ README: -This is GNU Awk 2.10 Beta. It should be upwardly compatible with the -System V Release 4 awk. (Yes, you read that right.) +This is GNU Awk 2.11 Beta. It should be upwardly compatible with the +System V Release 4 awk. -This represents a major improvement over the previous release. In -particular, most known bugs have been fixed, and the memory leaks have -been plugged. However, the code continues to undergo steady evolution. -Known problems are given in the PROBLEMS file. +This release is essentially a bug fix release. The files have been +renamed and code moved around to organize things by function. Gawk should +also be somewhat faster now. More care has been given towards portability +across different Unix systems. See the installation instructions, below. -MS-DOS changes are included, see below for more information. +Known problems are given in the PROBLEMS file. Work to be done is +described briefly in the FUTURES file. -The gawk.1 man page is concise but (to the best of our knowledge) complete. -Included in this release is gawk.texinfo. It does not document all the new -features in 2.10 not in 2.02; that will be rectified. For the moment, the man -page should be considered authoritative when it conflicts with the -gawk.texinfo file. This is basically the last release for which we will -be keeping the man page current. +The gawk.texinfo included in this release has been revised; it should +be in sync with what the code does. The man page should also be accurate, +but no promises there. -CHANGES FROM 2.02 +CHANGES FROM 2.10 User visible changes: - Gawk now accepts the ANSI \a and \x escapes. - You may now use /dev/std{in,out,err} and /dev/fd/N to refer - by name to the respective inherited open file descriptors. - There are new tolower() and toupper() functions. - The -i option and ~~ and !~~ are gone. - A new variable, IGNORECASE, if non-zero causes *all* regular - expression operations to be case-insensitive. - A -V option to print the GNU short Copyleft info. + Compatibility mode is now obtained via new -c option. + The new ANSI \a and \x escapes are now a standard part of gawk + as Unix nawk has picked them up. + The new tolower() and toupper() functions are also standard. + A new undocumented option, -nostalgia, has been added. + Command line options have changed somewhat from 2.10. + -v is now -V + -V is now -C + new -v for doing variable assignments before the BEGIN block. + new -c for compatibility mode. + new -a for awk style regexps (default) + new -e for egrep style regexps, per the POSIX draft spec. + Some more formats have been added to printf, ala nawk and ANSI C. Other changes (the hard stuff): - Almost all known bugs fixed. - Memory leaks plugged. - Lots of changes to improve performance. - Everything is now under the new General Public License. + All known bugs fixed. + Still more memory leaks plugged. + Lots of changes to improve performance and portability. + +PC users take note! PC support is not provided in this release as we + could not get anyone to do it; the person who did it for 2.10 lost + his network connectivity. It may be provided later either by + us or by him. The stuff in pc.d is from 2.10; anyone who cares + to make it work for 2.11 under MS-DOS is welcome to do so and + to feed the changes back to us. INSTALLATION: The Makefile will need some tailoring. Currently it is set up for -a Sun running SunOS 4.x. The changes to make in the Makefile are -commented and should be obvious. +a Sun running SunOS 4.x and gcc. The changes to make in the Makefile are +commented and should be obvious. Starting with 2.11, our intent has been +to make the code conform to standards (ANSI, POSIX, SVID, in that order) +whenever possible, and to not penalize standard conforming systems. +We have included substitute versions of routines not universally available. +Simply add the appropriate define for the missing feature(s) on your system. + +If you have 4.2 or 4.3 BSD, you should add -DTMPNAM_MISSING since the +version of tmpnam on these systems won't accept a NULL pointer. +This does not apply to 4.3-tahoe or the S5R[23] systems I have access to. +You need this if gawk core dumps on something simple like 'BEGIN {print "hi"}'. If you have neither bison nor yacc, use the awk.tab.c file here. It was generated with bison, and should have no AT&T code in it. (Note that modifying awk.y without bison or yacc will be difficult, at best. You might want to get a copy of bison from the FSF too.) -If you have an MS-DOS system, use makefile.pc, and choose one of att.getopt.c -or gnu.getopt.c. +If you have an MS-DOS system, use the stuff in pc.d. +(But see the note above.) + +PRINTING THE MANUAL + +The 'support' directory contains texinfo.tex 2.1, which will be necessary +for printing the manual, and the texindex.c program from the emacs distribution +which is also necessary. See the makefile for the steps needed to get a +DVI file from the manual. + +CAVEATS + +The existence of a patchlevel.h file does *N*O*T* imply a commitment on +our part to issue bug fixes or patches. It is there in case we should +decide to do so. BUG REPORTS AND FIXES: @@ -58,16 +89,15 @@ Department of Mathematics, Statistics and Computing Science, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada UUCP {uunet utai watmath}!dalcs!david -CDN david@cs.dal.cdn -INTERNET david%dalcs@uunet.UU.NET +INTERNET david@cs.dal.ca Arnold Robbins Emory University Computing Center Emory University, Atlanta, GA, 30322, USA -DOMAIN: arnold@emoryu1.cc.emory.edu -UUCP: { gatech, mtxinu }!emoryu1!arnold -BITNET: arnold@emoryu1 +INTERNET: arnold@emoryu1.cc.emory.edu +UUCP: { gatech, mtxinu }!emoryu1!arnold +BITNET: arnold@emoryu1 If you can't contact either of us, try Jay Fenlason, hack@prep.ai.mit.edu AKA mit-eddie!prep!hack. During odd hours he can sometimes be reached at @@ -77,8 +107,10 @@ never heard of him. (Direct them to the microvax about 10 feet to their left.) MS-DOS SUPPORT +(This section is now outdated, see above.) + Support for MSC 5.1 was supplied by Conrad Kwok and Scott Garfinkle. Scott is the contact person if you have problems with the MS-DOS version, -smsdpg!seg@uunet.uu.net. Of course, if it's a generic bug, we want to -hear about it too, but if it isn't reproducible under Unix, we won't -be as interested. +uunet!cos!stubby!seg. (NOTE! This is a new address.) Of course, if it's +a generic bug, we want to hear about it too, but if it isn't reproducible +under Unix, we won't be as interested. |