GNU Scientific Library 2.6 released

[Patrick Alken <alken@colorado.edu>]

Version 2.6 of the GNU Scientific Library (GSL) is now available. GSL 
provides a large collection of routines for numerical computing in C.

This release introduces some new features and fixes several bugs. The 
full NEWS file entry is appended below.

The file details for this release are:

ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/gsl/gsl-2.6.tar.gz
ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/gsl/gsl-2.6.tar.gz.sig

The GSL project homepage is http://www.gnu.org/software/gsl/

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

Thanks to everyone who reported bugs and contributed improvements.

Patrick Alken

-------------------------------

* What is new in gsl-2.6:

** add BLAS calls for the following functions:
      - gsl_vector_memcpy
      - gsl_vector_scale
      - gsl_matrix_memcpy
      - gsl_matrix_transpose_memcpy
      - gsl_matrix_tricpy
      - gsl_matrix_transpose_tricpy

** deprecated functions gsl_linalg_complex_householder_hm and
    gsl_linalg_complex_householder_mh

** add unit tests for gsl_linalg_symmtd and gsl_linalg_hermtd

** multilarge TSQR algorithm has been converted to use the new Level 3 
QR decomposition

** nonlinear least squares Cholesky solver now uses the new Level 3 BLAS
    method; the old modified Cholesky solver is still available under
    gsl_multifit_nlinear_solver_mcholesky and 
gsl_multilarge_nlinear_solver_mcholesky

** implemented Level 3 BLAS versions of several linear algebra routines:
      - Triangular matrix inversion
      - Cholesky decomposition and inversion (real and complex)
      - LU decomposition and inversion (real and complex)
      - QR decomposition (courtesy of Julien Langou)
      - Generalized symmetric/hermitian eigensystem reduction to 
standard form

** removed deprecated function gsl_linalg_hessenberg()

** renamed gsl_interp2d_eval_e_extrap() to gsl_interp2d_eval_extrap_e()
    to match documentation (reported by D. Lebrun-Grandie)

** renamed some of the gsl_sf_hermite functions to be more consistent
    with rest of the library, and deprecated old function names

** updated gsl_sf_hermite_func() to use a newer algorithm
    due to B. Bunck which is more stable for large x; also added
    gsl_sf_hermite_func_fast() which uses the faster Cauchy integral
    algorithm in the same paper by Bunck

** add gsl_vector_axpby()

** add un-pivoted LDLT decomposition and its banded
    variant (gsl_linalg_ldlt_* and gsl_linalg_ldlt_band_*)

** add binary search tree module (gsl_bst); based on GNU libavl

** remove -u flag to gsl-histogram

** updated spmatrix module
    - added routines and data structures for all types (float,uint,char,...)
    - added gsl_spmatrix_scale_columns() and gsl_spmatrix_scale_rows()
    - added gsl_spmatrix_add_to_dense()
    - more efficient reallocation of COO/triplet matrices (no longer 
rebuilds binary tree)
    - enhanced test suite
    - added gsl_spmatrix_min_index()

** add routines for banded Cholesky decomposition 
(gsl_linalg_cholesky_band_*)

** documented gsl_linalg_LQ routines and added gsl_linalg_LQ_lssolve()