GNU Octave is a high-level programming language that is primarily intended for numerical computations and data analysis. It provides a convenient command-line interface for solving linear and nonlinear problems numerically and for performing other numerical experiments using a language that is mostly compatible with MATLAB. Octave is also freely available under the GNU General Public License, making it a popular choice for academics, researchers, and students alike.
GNU Octave 8.4.0 (Stable version) has been released, which comes with a number of improvements and fixes.
Some of the notable improvements include the optimization of mkoctfile to skip parsing for less flags, the fixing of getting the number of non-zero elements in SuiteSparse matrices, and the avoidance of an erroneous simplex removal for integer inputs in delaunayn.
Furthermore, the release also includes a warning for precision loss for large int inputs in delaunayn and the correct loading of all-zero sparse matrices from text files. In addition, there has been an allocation of correct storage for interleaved complex mxArray objects and the avoidance of segmentation fault with ND-arrays in fft.
The release also includes improvements in the documentation, such as the correction of variable name typo in the documentation of slice(), the expansion of documentation for gcd() and lcm(), and the clarification that heuristics are used to detect the format of a date string in datevec. Additionally, the release includes the addition of help text that inputs can be arrays in datenum and datevec.
The release also includes the avoidance of the use-after-free issues in the parser, the improvement of integer input logic, and validation in betainc.m, and the removal of stray text causing errors with the demo code in mkpp.m.
There are other changes in the build system and documentation. To see the full list of bug fixes and improvements, check the release notes.
Octave no longer provides official packages for Ubuntu Linux, but Octave can still be installed on Ubuntu using the flatpak package.
If you’re installing an app as a Flatpak, it’s important to note that you’ll need to log out and back in for the app icon to become visible. Also, keep in mind that the installation process may involve downloading run-time libraries.
