[bug-gawk] beta release of gawk 4.1.2 available

[Aharon Robbins]

This note is to announce the BETA release of GNU Awk 4.1.2.

It is available from:

        http://www.skeeve.com/gawk/gawk-4.1.1c.tar.gz

This is a bug-fix release.

So, why do a beta release? So that you, yes you, the end user, can see
if anything I've done breaks gawk for you.  Then you can TELL ME ABOUT
IT so that I can fix it for the final release.

Thanks,

Arnold Robbins
address@hidden
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Changes from 4.1.1 to 4.1.2
---------------------------

1. The manual has been considerably improved.
        - Thoroughly reviewed and updated.
        - Out-of-date examples replaced.
        - Chapter 15 on MPFR reworked.
        - Summary sections added to all chapters.
        - Exercises added in several chapters.
        - Heavily proof-read and copyedited.

2. The debugger's "restart" command now works again.

3. Redirected getline is now allowed inside BEGINFILE/ENDFILE.

4. A number of bugs have been fixed in the MPFR code.

5. Indirect function calls now work for both built-in and extension functions.

6. Built-in functions are now included in FUNCTAB.

7. POSIX and historical practice require the exclusive use of the English
   alphabet in identifiers.  In non-English locales, it was accidentally
   possible to use "letters" beside those of the English alphabet.  This
   has been fixed. (isalpha and isalnum are NOT our friends.)

   If you feel that you must have this misfeature, use `configure --help'
   to see what option to use when configuring gawk to reenable it.

8. The "where" command has been added to the debugger as an alias
   for "backtrace". This will make life easier for long-time GDB users.

9. Gawk no longer explicitly checks the current directory after doing
   a path search of AWKPATH.  The default value continues to have "." at
   the front, so most people should not be affected.  If you have your own
   AWKPATH setting, be sure to put "." in it somewhere. The documentation
   has been updated and clarified.

10. Infrastructure upgrades: Automake 1.15, Gettext 0.19.4, Libtool 2.4.6,
    Bison 3.0.4.

11. If a user-defined function has a parameter with the same name as another
    user-defined function, it is no longer possible to call the second
    function from inside the first.

12. POSIX requires that the names of function parameters not be the
    same as any of the special built-in variables and also not conflict
    with the names of any functions. Gawk has checked for the former
    since 3.1.7. With --posix, it now also checks for the latter.

13. A number of bugs have been fixed. See the ChangeLog.