bumped archive version because of new way of specifying symmetry for indexed

[ginac.git] / NEWS

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 This file records noteworthy changes.
 
-0.8.1 (15 April 2001)
+0.9.1 (<date>)
+* New functions/methods:
+   - remove_first() and remove_last() for lists
+   - symmetrize_cyclic()
+* Instead of just totally symmetric or antisymmetric, complex symmetries
+  can now be defined for indexed objects. Symmetries are described by a
+  tree of "symmetry" objects that is constructed with the sy_none(),
+  sy_symm(), sy_anti() and sy_cycl() functions. The symmetry of a function
+  with respect to its arguments can also be defined (this is currently
+  only used for the Beta function).
+* color_trace() and dirac_trace() can be applied to a more general class
+  of expressions, e.g. using it on a relation will take the trace on both
+  sides etc.
+* Generalized map() to take a function object instead of a function pointer.
+  This allows passing an arbitrary number of additional state to the
+  function being called.
+* Supplement some (now deprecated) macros by inlined template functions:
+  - is_of_type(foo, type) -> is_a<type>(foo)
+  - is_ex_of_type(foo, type) -> is_a<type>(foo)
+  - is_exaclty_of_type(foo, type) -> is_exaclty_a<type>(foo)
+  - is_ex_exaclty_of_type(foo, type) -> is_exaclty_a<type>(foo)
+  - ex_to_foobar(baz)  ->  ex_to<foobar>(baz)
+
+0.9.0 (7 June 2001)
+* In the output and in ginsh, lists are now delimited by { } braces, and
+  matrices are delimited by single [ ] brackets.
+* simplify_indexed() renames dummy indices so, e.g., "a.i*a.i+a.j*a.j" gets
+  simplified to "2*a.i*a.i" (or "2*a.j*a.j").
+* New functions/methods:
+   - canonicalize_clifford() (helpful when comparing expressions containing
+     Dirac matrices)
+   - symmetrize() and antisymmetrize()
+   - numer_denom() (return numerator and denominator in one call)
+   - map() (apply function to subexpressions)
+   - evalm() (evaluate sums, products and integer powers of matrices)
+* Added a new function match() for performing pattern matching. subs() and
+  has() also accept patterns as arguments. A pattern can be any expression,
+  optionally containing wildcard objects. These are constructed with the
+  call "wild(<unsigned>)" and are denoted as "$0", "$1" etc. in the output
+  and in ginsh.
+* Positive integer powers of non-commutative expressions (except matrices)
+  are automatically expanded.
+* Removed cint subdirectory, ginaccint is a separate package now due to 
+  packaging considerations.
+* Several little bugfixes.
+
+0.8.3 (11 May 2001)
+* color and clifford classes are functional and documented.
+* New "spinidx" class for dotted/undotted indices.
+* Predefined spinor metric tensor (created by spinor_metric()).
+* Symbols can have a LaTeX name, e.g. symbol s("s", "\\sigma");
+* LaTeX output of indexed objects is much nicer.
+* Fixed some build problems (with recent libreadline).
+* Semantics of arithmetic operators now follows the C++ rules more strictly.
+
+0.8.2 (24 April 2001)
+* degree(), ldegree(), coeff(), lcoeff(), tcoeff() and collect() work with
+  non-symbols as the second argument in ginsh.
+* the argument to collect() can be a list of objects in which case the
+  result is either a recursively collected polynomial, or a polynomial in
+  a distributed form with terms like coeff*x1^e1*...*xn^en, as specified by
+  the second argument to collect().
+* Several bugfixes (including a nasty memory leak in .normal()).
+* class matrix: solve() doesn't call algorithms redundantly any more and
+  inverse() falls back to solve() which works in more general cases.
+
+0.8.1 (16 April 2001)
 * degree(), ldegree(), coeff(), lcoeff(), tcoeff() and collect() can now
   be used with constants, functions and indexed expressions as well, so you
   can use it to collect by powers of Pi or sin(x), or to find the coefficient