GNU Scientific Library (GSL) 1.2 is released

[Brian Gough <bjg@network-theory.co.uk>]

Version 1.2 of the GNU Scientific Library is now available.  

The GNU Scientific Library is a collection of routines for numerical
computing in C.

This release is backwards compatible with previous 1.x releases.
The NEWS file entry is appended below.

Source code and patches can be downloaded from the following
locations,

  USA: http://mirrors.rcn.net/pub/sourceware/gsl/
   UK: http://www.mirror.ac.uk/sites/sources.redhat.com/pub/gsl/

The md5sums are,

518ada58964a77203b380af5744aae0e  gsl-1.2.tar.gz (2 MB)
0f82338bdd5833241879f0b4fab3ffba  gsl-1.1.1-gsl-1.2.patch.gz (125 kB)

GSL is free software distributed under the GNU General Public
License.

The project home page is at http://www.gnu.org/software/gsl/
Information for developers is at http://sources.redhat.com/gsl/

Thanks to all the contributors who reported bugs and suggested
improvements.

-------------------------
* What is new in gsl-1.2:

** Added new functions for combining permutations, converting between
cyclic and linear representations, and counting cycles and inversions.

** New multiroot functions now allow access to the current values of f
and dx.

** The default error handler now outputs a explanatory message before
aborting.

** Extended gsl_linalg_SV_decomp to handle exact zeroes in the
singular values, and added tests for 3x3 matrices.

** Fixed a bug in gsl_linalg_SV_decomp which caused singular values to
be sorted incorrectly.

** Fixed a bug in gsl_linalg_solv_symm_cyc_tridiag which caused it to
produce incorrect results.

** Added nonsymmetric tridiagonal solvers gsl_linalg_solve_tridiag and
gsl_linalg_solve_cyc_tridiag.

** The declarations used to export static objects can now be
controlled through a macro GSL_VAR and the header file
<gsl/gsl_types.h>.

** The simulated annealing routine gsl_siman_solve now keeps track of
the best solution so far.

** The values of the physical constants have been updated to the
CODATA 1998 recommendations.

** Added new physical constants, newton, dyne, joule, erg and 
power-of-ten prefixes, Mega, Giga, Tera, etc.

** The error estimate for the elliptic function gsl_sf_ellint_Kcomp_e
has been improved to take account of numerical cancellation for small
arguments.

** The domain of gsl_sf_psi_1piy has been extended to negative y.

** Fixed memory leak in the Chebyshev module.

** The seeding procedure of mt19937 has been updated to the latest
version from Makoto Matsumoto and Takuji Nishimura (Jan 2002). The
original seeding procedure is available through the generator
gsl_rng_mt19937_1999.

** A new random number generator gsl_rng_taus2 has been added to
correct flaws in the seeding procedure of gsl_rng_taus, as described
in an erratum to the original paper of P. L'Ecuyer.

** Added missing declaration for the generator gsl_rng_mt_19937_1998.

** Added missing quasi-random number generator function gsl_qrng_init.

** Removed unnecessary endpoint subtraction in chebyshev-based
QUADPACK routines to avoid possible loss of precision.

** Fixed bug in gsl_interp_cspline_periodic which caused a
discontinuity in the derivative near the boundary.

** The function gsl_min_fminimizer_minimum has been renamed to
gsl_min_fminimizer_x_minimum for consistency (the old function name is
still available but is deprecated).  Additional functions have been
added for accessing the function values at the minimum and endpoints
of the bounding interval.

** The KNOWN-PROBLEMS file of "make check" failures has been replaced
by a BUGS file, since we now require "make check" to work correctly
for stable releases.