GNU Scientific Library (GSL) 1.1 is released

[Brian Gough <bjg at network-theory dot co dot uk>]

[This is a repost of an earlier announcement which didn't make it
 onto the list -- the current version is now 1.1.1 ]

Version 1.1 of the GNU Scientific Library is now available for
general use.  The GNU Scientific Library is a collection of
routines for numerical computing in C.

This release is an update to version 1.0 and is backwards
compatible.  In addition to bug fixes it includes the
following new features:

  - The complete set of random number generators from the new 3rd 
    edition of Knuth's Art of Computer Programming (Carlo Perassi)

  - Functions for generating combinations (Szymon Jaroszewicz)

  - Divided differences and polynomial interpolation (Dan, Ho-Jin)

  - A new incomplete Gamma function implementation with 
    improved convergence (Hans E. Plesser) 

  - Optimized linear algebra compilation is now the default

The complete 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/sourceware.cygnus.com/pub/gsl/

The md5sums are,

3a59360a631b811e519673888eb25abf  gsl-1.1.tar.gz
e80f38b58366d14fabe5ec562abc8f3f  gsl-1.0-gsl-1.1.patch.gz

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-1.1:

** The permutation module now includes a copy function
gsl_permutation_memcpy

** The implementation of gsl_sf_gamma_inc has been improved and now
avoids problems caused by internal singularities which occurred in the
series expansion for some combinations of parameters.

** IEEE comparisons of infinities and NaNs are tested during the
configure stage and the functions gsl_isnan, gsl_isinf and gsl_finite
are only compiled on platforms which support the necessary tests.

** The histogram routines now include a sum function,
gsl_histogram_sum for computing the total bin sum, and additional
statistics functions for 2d histograms.

** Internal error checking of user-defined functions has been improved
in the multiroots functions.

** Constants now include the Bohr Radius and Vacuum Permittivity.

** Range checking is now turned off when building the library, but is
still on by default when compiling user applications.

** A combinations directory has been added for generating combinations (n,k).

** The gamma function now returns exact values for integer arguments.

** Fixed bugs in gsl_sf_hyperg_1F1_int and gsl_sf_hyperg_1F1.

** Fixed internal error handling in gsl_sf_laguerre_n to allow
recovery from overflow.

** Several routines for handling divided difference polynomials have
been added to the poly/ directory.

** The interpolation routines now include polynomial interpolation,
based on divided-differences.

** Added new random number generators from Knuth's Seminumerical
Algorithms, 3rd Edition: borosh13, coveyou, fishman18, fishman20,
fishman2x, knuthran, knuthran2, lecuyer21, waterman14.

** Changed divisor in random number generator gfsr4 from 2^32-1 to
2^32 to prevent exact value of 1.0 from being returned, as specified
in the documentation.