GNU Scientific Library (GSL) 0.9.4 is released - 5th Beta Test Release

GNU Scientific Library (GSL) 0.9.4 is released - 5th Beta Test Release

[Brian Gough]

Dear GSL enthusiasts,

I have placed a new release snapshot of GSL (0.9.4) up for anonymous
ftp access.

The source code is available from the following locations,

       USA: ftp://mirrors.rcn.net/pub/sourceware/gsl/
        UK: ftp://ftp.mirror.ac.uk/sites/sourceware.cygnus.com/pub/gsl/

The project home page is at http://sources.redhat.com/gsl/

This release fixes all bugs reported recently and improves the
consistency of the library.  In particular, the multidimensional
minimisation ("multimin") functions now use the same interface as the
"multiroots" and "multifit" functions.

Please report any problems to gsl-discuss@sources.redhat.com.

Here are the recent entries in the NEWS file. 

* What is new in gsl-0.9.4:

* Reorganized the multmin functions to use the same interface as the
other iterative solvers.

* Added histogram _alloc functions for consistency, in addition to the
existing _calloc functions.

* Renamed all the gsl_multimin functions to be consistent with the
rest of the library.  An underscore has been removed from _minimizer
in all the function names.

* Renamed the function gsl_sf_coulomb_CL_list to gsl_sf_coulomb_CL_array

* A bug in the multimin functions where the function parameters
(params) were omitted has been fixed.

* A bug in the nonlinear minimization routines has been fixed, which
could prevent the algorithms from converging.  Additional tests from
the NIST reference datasets have been added and these now agree with
MINPACK.

* All the physical constants and conversion factors are now defined as
real numbers to avoid potential problems with integer arithmetic.

* The ODE evolution routines now allow for negative step sizes, and
integrating backwards as well as forwards.

* The implicit Burlisch-Stoer ODE algorithm 'bsimp' now detects
singularities and forces a reduction in step size, preventing runaway
instabilities.

* Fixed a bug in the ODE evolution function gsl_odeiv_evolve_apply
which could cause an erroneous value to be returned if the step size
is reduced on the last step.