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     22 THIS SOFTWARE.
     23 ****************************************************************/
     24 
     25 This file lists all bug fixes, changes, etc., made since the AWK book
     26 was sent to the printers in August, 1987.
     27 
     28 Dec 20, 2012:
     29 	fiddled makefile to get correct yacc and bison flags.  pick yacc
     30 	(linux) or bison (mac) as necessary.
     31 
     32 	added  __attribute__((__noreturn__)) to a couple of lines in
     33 	proto.h, to silence someone's enthusiastic checker.
     34 
     35 	fixed obscure call by value bug in split(a[1],a) reported on
     36 	9fans.  the management of temporary values is just a mess; i
     37 	took a shortcut by making an extra string copy.  thanks
     38 	to paul patience and arnold robbins for passing it on and for
     39 	proposed patches.
     40 
     41 	tiny fiddle in setfval to eliminate -0 results in T.expr, which
     42 	has irritated me for 20+ years.
     43 
     44 Aug 10, 2011:
     45 	another fix to avoid core dump with delete(ARGV); again, many thanks
     46 	to ruslan ermilov.
     47 
     48 Aug 7, 2011:
     49 	split(s, a, //) now behaves the same as split(s, a, "")
     50 
     51 Jun 12, 2011:
     52 	/pat/, \n /pat/ {...} is now legal, though bad style to use.
     53 
     54 	added checks to new -v code that permits -vnospace; thanks to
     55 	ruslan ermilov for spotting this and providing the patch.
     56 
     57 	removed fixed limit on number of open files; thanks to aleksey
     58 	cheusov and christos zoulos.
     59 
     60 	fixed day 1 bug that resurrected deleted elements of ARGV when
     61 	used as filenames (in lib.c).
     62 
     63 	minor type fiddles to make gcc -Wall -pedantic happier (but not
     64 	totally so); turned on -fno-strict-aliasing in makefile.
     65 
     66 May 6, 2011:
     67 	added #ifdef for isblank.
     68 	now allows -ffoo as well as -f foo arguments.
     69 	(thanks, ruslan)
     70 
     71 May 1, 2011:
     72 	after advice from todd miller, kevin lo, ruslan ermilov,
     73 	and arnold robbins, changed srand() to return the previous
     74 	seed (which is 1 on the first call of srand).  the seed is
     75 	an Awkfloat internally though converted to unsigned int to
     76 	pass to the library srand().  thanks, everyone.
     77 
     78 	fixed a subtle (and i hope low-probability) overflow error
     79 	in fldbld, by adding space for one extra \0.  thanks to
     80 	robert bassett for spotting this one and providing a fix.
     81 
     82 	removed the files related to compilation on windows.  i no
     83 	longer have anything like a current windows environment, so
     84 	i can't test any of it.
     85 
     86 May 23, 2010:
     87 	fixed long-standing overflow bug in run.c; many thanks to
     88 	nelson beebe for spotting it and providing the fix.
     89 
     90 	fixed bug that didn't parse -vd=1 properly; thanks to santiago
     91 	vila for spotting it.
     92 
     93 Feb 8, 2010:
     94 	i give up.  replaced isblank with isspace in b.c; there are
     95 	no consistent header files.
     96 
     97 Nov 26, 2009:
     98 	fixed a long-standing issue with when FS takes effect.  a
     99 	change to FS is now noticed immediately for subsequent splits.
    100 
    101 	changed the name getline() to awkgetline() to avoid yet another
    102 	name conflict somewhere.
    103 
    104 Feb 11, 2009:
    105 	temporarily for now defined HAS_ISBLANK, since that seems to
    106 	be the best way through the thicket.  isblank arrived in C99,
    107 	but seems to be arriving at different systems at different
    108 	times.
    109 
    110 Oct 8, 2008:
    111 	fixed typo in b.c that set tmpvec wrongly.  no one had ever
    112 	run into the problem, apparently.  thanks to alistair crooks.
    113 
    114 Oct 23, 2007:
    115 	minor fix in lib.c: increase inputFS to 100, change malloc
    116 	for fields to n+1.
    117 
    118 	fixed memory fault caused by out of order test in setsval.
    119 
    120 	thanks to david o'brien, freebsd, for both fixes.
    121 
    122 May 1, 2007:
    123 	fiddle in makefile to fix for BSD make; thanks to igor sobrado.
    124 
    125 Mar 31, 2007:
    126 	fixed some null pointer refs calling adjbuf.
    127 
    128 Feb 21, 2007:
    129 	fixed a bug in matching the null RE in sub and gsub.  thanks to al aho
    130 	who actually did the fix (in b.c), and to wolfgang seeberg for finding
    131 	it and providing a very compact test case.
    132 
    133 	fixed quotation in b.c; thanks to Hal Pratt and the Princeton Dante
    134 	Project.
    135 
    136 	removed some no-effect asserts in run.c.
    137 
    138 	fiddled maketab.c to not complain about bison-generated values.
    139 
    140 	removed the obsolete -V argument; fixed --version to print the
    141 	version and exit.
    142 
    143 	fixed wording and an outright error in the usage message; thanks to igor
    144 	sobrado and jason mcintyre.
    145 
    146 	fixed a bug in -d that caused core dump if no program followed.
    147 
    148 Jan 1, 2007:
    149 	dropped mac.code from makefile; there are few non-MacOSX
    150 	mac's these days.
    151 
    152 Jan 17, 2006:
    153 	system() not flagged as unsafe in the unadvertised -safe option.
    154 	found it while enhancing tests before shipping the ;login: article.
    155 	practice what you preach.
    156 
    157 	removed the 9-years-obsolete -mr and -mf flags.
    158 
    159 	added -version and --version options.
    160 
    161 	core dump on linux with BEGIN {nextfile}, now fixed.
    162 
    163 	removed some #ifdef's in run.c and lex.c that appear to no
    164 	longer be necessary.
    165 
    166 Apr 24, 2005:
    167 	modified lib.c so that values of $0 et al are preserved in the END
    168 	block, apparently as required by posix.  thanks to havard eidnes
    169 	for the report and code.
    170 
    171 Jan 14, 2005:
    172 	fixed infinite loop in parsing, originally found by brian tsang.
    173 	thanks to arnold robbins for a suggestion that started me
    174 	rethinking it.
    175 
    176 Dec 31, 2004:
    177 	prevent overflow of -f array in main, head off potential error in
    178 	call of SYNTAX(), test malloc return in lib.c, all with thanks to
    179 	todd miller.
    180 
    181 Dec 22, 2004:
    182 	cranked up size of NCHARS; coverity thinks it can be overrun with
    183 	smaller size, and i think that's right.  added some assertions to b.c
    184 	to catch places where it might overrun.  the RE code is still fragile.
    185 
    186 Dec 5, 2004:
    187 	fixed a couple of overflow problems with ridiculous field numbers:
    188 	e.g., print $(2^32-1).  thanks to ruslan ermilov, giorgos keramidas
    189 	and david o'brien at freebsd.org for patches.  this really should
    190 	be re-done from scratch.
    191 
    192 Nov 21, 2004:
    193 	fixed another 25-year-old RE bug, in split.  it's another failure
    194 	to (re-)initialize.  thanks to steve fisher for spotting this and
    195 	providing a good test case.
    196 
    197 Nov 22, 2003:
    198 	fixed a bug in regular expressions that dates (so help me) from 1977;
    199 	it's been there from the beginning.  an anchored longest match that
    200 	was longer than the number of states triggered a failure to initialize
    201 	the machine properly.  many thanks to moinak ghosh for not only finding
    202 	this one but for providing a fix, in some of the most mysterious
    203 	code known to man.
    204 
    205 	fixed a storage leak in call() that appears to have been there since
    206 	1983 or so -- a function without an explicit return that assigns a
    207 	string to a parameter leaked a Cell.  thanks to moinak ghosh for
    208 	spotting this very subtle one.
    209 
    210 Jul 31, 2003:
    211 	fixed, thanks to andrey chernov and ruslan ermilov, a bug in lex.c
    212 	that mis-handled the character 255 in input.  (it was being compared
    213 	to EOF with a signed comparison.)
    214 
    215 Jul 29, 2003:
    216 	fixed (i think) the long-standing botch that included the beginning of
    217 	line state ^ for RE's in the set of valid characters; this led to a
    218 	variety of odd problems, including failure to properly match certain
    219 	regular expressions in non-US locales.  thanks to ruslan for keeping
    220 	at this one.
    221 
    222 Jul 28, 2003:
    223 	n-th try at getting internationalization right, with thanks to volker
    224 	kiefel, arnold robbins and ruslan ermilov for advice, though they
    225 	should not be blamed for the outcome.  according to posix, "."  is the
    226 	radix character in programs and command line arguments regardless of
    227 	the locale; otherwise, the locale should prevail for input and output
    228 	of numbers.  so it's intended to work that way.
    229 
    230 	i have rescinded the attempt to use strcoll in expanding shorthands in
    231 	regular expressions (cclenter).  its properties are much too
    232 	surprising; for example [a-c] matches aAbBc in locale en_US but abBcC
    233 	in locale fr_CA.  i can see how this might arise by implementation
    234 	but i cannot explain it to a human user.  (this behavior can be seen
    235 	in gawk as well; we're leaning on the same library.)
    236 
    237 	the issue appears to be that strcoll is meant for sorting, where
    238 	merging upper and lower case may make sense (though note that unix
    239 	sort does not do this by default either).  it is not appropriate
    240 	for regular expressions, where the goal is to match specific
    241 	patterns of characters.  in any case, the notations [:lower:], etc.,
    242 	are available in awk, and they are more likely to work correctly in
    243 	most locales.
    244 
    245 	a moratorium is hereby declared on internationalization changes.
    246 	i apologize to friends and colleagues in other parts of the world.
    247 	i would truly like to get this "right", but i don't know what
    248 	that is, and i do not want to keep making changes until it's clear.
    249 
    250 Jul 4, 2003:
    251 	fixed bug that permitted non-terminated RE, as in "awk /x".
    252 
    253 Jun 1, 2003:
    254 	subtle change to split: if source is empty, number of elems
    255 	is always 0 and the array is not set.
    256 
    257 Mar 21, 2003:
    258 	added some parens to isblank, in another attempt to make things
    259 	internationally portable.
    260 
    261 Mar 14, 2003:
    262 	the internationalization changes, somewhat modified, are now
    263 	reinstated.  in theory awk will now do character comparisons
    264 	and case conversions in national language, but "." will always
    265 	be the decimal point separator on input and output regardless
    266 	of national language.  isblank(){} has an #ifndef.
    267 
    268 	this no longer compiles on windows: LC_MESSAGES isn't defined
    269 	in vc6++.
    270 
    271 	fixed subtle behavior in field and record splitting: if FS is
    272 	a single character and RS is not empty, \n is NOT a separator.
    273 	this tortuous reading is found in the awk book; behavior now
    274 	matches gawk and mawk.
    275 
    276 Dec 13, 2002:
    277 	for the moment, the internationalization changes of nov 29 are
    278 	rolled back -- programs like x = 1.2 don't work in some locales,
    279 	because the parser is expecting x = 1,2.  until i understand this
    280 	better, this will have to wait.
    281 
    282 Nov 29, 2002:
    283 	modified b.c (with tiny changes in main and run) to support
    284 	locales, using strcoll and iswhatever tests for posix character
    285 	classes.  thanks to ruslan ermilov (ru (at) freebsd.org) for code.
    286 	the function isblank doesn't seem to have propagated to any
    287 	header file near me, so it's there explicitly.  not properly
    288 	tested on non-ascii character sets by me.
    289 
    290 Jun 28, 2002:
    291 	modified run/format() and tran/getsval() to do a slightly better
    292 	job on using OFMT for output from print and CONVFMT for other
    293 	number->string conversions, as promised by posix and done by
    294 	gawk and mawk.  there are still places where it doesn't work
    295 	right if CONVFMT is changed; by then the STR attribute of the
    296 	variable has been irrevocably set.  thanks to arnold robbins for
    297 	code and examples.
    298 
    299 	fixed subtle bug in format that could get core dump.  thanks to
    300 	Jaromir Dolecek <jdolecek@NetBSD.org> for finding and fixing.
    301 	minor cleanup in run.c / format() at the same time.
    302 
    303 	added some tests for null pointers to debugging printf's, which
    304 	were never intended for external consumption.  thanks to dave
    305 	kerns (dkerns (at) lucent.com) for pointing this out.
    306 
    307 	GNU compatibility: an empty regexp matches anything (thanks to
    308 	dag-erling smorgrav, des (at) ofug.org).  subject to reversion if
    309 	this does more harm than good.
    310 
    311 	pervasive small changes to make things more const-correct, as
    312 	reported by gcc's -Wwrite-strings.  as it says in the gcc manual,
    313 	this may be more nuisance than useful.  provoked by a suggestion
    314 	and code from arnaud desitter, arnaud@nimbus.geog.ox.ac.uk
    315 
    316 	minor documentation changes to note that this now compiles out
    317 	of the box on Mac OS X.
    318 
    319 Feb 10, 2002:
    320 	changed types in posix chars structure to quiet solaris cc.
    321 
    322 Jan 1, 2002:
    323 	fflush() or fflush("") flushes all files and pipes.
    324 
    325 	length(arrayname) returns number of elements; thanks to
    326 	arnold robbins for suggestion.
    327 
    328 	added a makefile.win to make it easier to build on windows.
    329 	based on dan allen's buildwin.bat.
    330 
    331 Nov 16, 2001:
    332 	added support for posix character class names like [:digit:],
    333 	which are not exactly shorter than [0-9] and perhaps no more
    334 	portable.  thanks to dag-erling smorgrav for code.
    335 
    336 Feb 16, 2001:
    337 	removed -m option; no longer needed, and it was actually
    338 	broken (noted thanks to volker kiefel).
    339 
    340 Feb 10, 2001:
    341 	fixed an appalling bug in gettok: any sequence of digits, +,-, E, e,
    342 	and period was accepted as a valid number if it started with a period.
    343 	this would never have happened with the lex version.
    344 
    345 	other 1-character botches, now fixed, include a bare $ and a
    346 	bare " at the end of the input.
    347 
    348 Feb 7, 2001:
    349 	more (const char *) casts in b.c and tran.c to silence warnings.
    350 
    351 Nov 15, 2000:
    352 	fixed a bug introduced in august 1997 that caused expressions
    353 	like $f[1] to be syntax errors.  thanks to arnold robbins for
    354 	noticing this and providing a fix.
    355 
    356 Oct 30, 2000:
    357 	fixed some nextfile bugs: not handling all cases.  thanks to
    358 	arnold robbins for pointing this out.  new regressions added.
    359 
    360 	close() is now a function.  it returns whatever the library
    361 	fclose returns, and -1 for closing a file or pipe that wasn't
    362 	opened.
    363 
    364 Sep 24, 2000:
    365 	permit \n explicitly in character classes; won't work right
    366 	if comes in as "[\n]" but ok as /[\n]/, because of multiple
    367 	processing of \'s.  thanks to arnold robbins.
    368 
    369 July 5, 2000:
    370 	minor fiddles in tran.c to keep compilers happy about uschar.
    371 	thanks to norman wilson.
    372 
    373 May 25, 2000:
    374 	yet another attempt at making 8-bit input work, with another
    375 	band-aid in b.c (member()), and some (uschar) casts to head
    376 	off potential errors in subscripts (like isdigit).  also
    377 	changed HAT to NCHARS-2.  thanks again to santiago vila.
    378 
    379 	changed maketab.c to ignore apparently out of range definitions
    380 	instead of halting; new freeBSD generates one.  thanks to
    381 	jon snader <jsnader (at) ix.netcom.com> for pointing out the problem.
    382 
    383 May 2, 2000:
    384 	fixed an 8-bit problem in b.c by making several char*'s into
    385 	unsigned char*'s.  not clear i have them all yet.  thanks to
    386 	Santiago Vila <sanvila (at) unex.es> for the bug report.
    387 
    388 Apr 21, 2000:
    389 	finally found and fixed a memory leak in function call; it's
    390 	been there since functions were added ~1983.  thanks to
    391 	jon bentley for the test case that found it.
    392 
    393 	added test in envinit to catch environment "variables" with
    394 	names beginning with '='; thanks to Berend Hasselman.
    395 
    396 Jul 28, 1999:
    397 	added test in defn() to catch function foo(foo), which
    398 	otherwise recurses until core dump.  thanks to arnold
    399 	robbins for noticing this.
    400 
    401 Jun 20, 1999:
    402 	added *bp in gettok in lex.c; appears possible to exit function
    403 	without terminating the string.  thanks to russ cox.
    404 
    405 Jun 2, 1999:
    406 	added function stdinit() to run to initialize files[] array,
    407 	in case stdin, etc., are not constants; some compilers care.
    408 
    409 May 10, 1999:
    410 	replaced the ERROR ... FATAL, etc., macros with functions
    411 	based on vprintf, to avoid problems caused by overrunning
    412 	fixed-size errbuf array.  thanks to ralph corderoy for the
    413 	impetus, and for pointing out a string termination bug in
    414 	qstring as well.
    415 
    416 Apr 21, 1999:
    417 	fixed bug that caused occasional core dumps with commandline
    418 	variable with value ending in \.  (thanks to nelson beebe for
    419 	the test case.)
    420 
    421 Apr 16, 1999:
    422 	with code kindly provided by Bruce Lilly, awk now parses
    423 	/=/ and similar constructs more sensibly in more places.
    424 	Bruce also provided some helpful test cases.
    425 
    426 Apr 5, 1999:
    427 	changed true/false to True/False in run.c to make it
    428 	easier to compile with C++.  Added some casts on malloc
    429 	and realloc to be honest about casts; ditto.  changed
    430 	ltype int to long in struct rrow to reduce some 64-bit
    431 	complaints; other changes scattered throughout for the
    432 	same purpose.  thanks to Nelson Beebe for these portability
    433 	improvements.
    434 
    435 	removed some horrible pointer-int casting in b.c and elsewhere
    436 	by adding ptoi and itonp to localize the casts, which are
    437 	all benign.  fixed one incipient bug that showed up on sgi
    438 	in 64-bit mode.
    439 
    440 	reset lineno for new source file; include filename in error
    441 	message.  also fixed line number error in continuation lines.
    442 	(thanks to Nelson Beebe for both of these.)
    443 
    444 Mar 24, 1999:
    445 	Nelson Beebe notes that irix 5.3 yacc dies with a bogus
    446 	error; use a newer version or switch to bison, since sgi
    447 	is unlikely to fix it.
    448 
    449 Mar 5, 1999:
    450 	changed isnumber to is_number to avoid the problem caused by
    451 	versions of ctype.h that include the name isnumber.
    452 
    453 	distribution now includes a script for building on a Mac,
    454 	thanks to Dan Allen.
    455 
    456 Feb 20, 1999:
    457 	fixed memory leaks in run.c (call) and tran.c (setfval).
    458 	thanks to Stephen Nutt for finding these and providing the fixes.
    459 
    460 Jan 13, 1999:
    461 	replaced srand argument by (unsigned int) in run.c;
    462 	avoids problem on Mac and potentially on Unix & Windows.
    463 	thanks to Dan Allen.
    464 
    465 	added a few (int) casts to silence useless compiler warnings.
    466 	e.g., errorflag= in run.c jump().
    467 
    468 	added proctab.c to the bundle outout; one less thing
    469 	to have to compile out of the box.
    470 
    471 	added calls to _popen and _pclose to the win95 stub for
    472 	pipes (thanks to Steve Adams for this helpful suggestion).
    473 	seems to work, though properties are not well understood
    474 	by me, and it appears that under some circumstances the
    475 	pipe output is truncated.  Be careful.
    476 
    477 Oct 19, 1998:
    478 	fixed a couple of bugs in getrec: could fail to update $0
    479 	after a getline var; because inputFS wasn't initialized,
    480 	could split $0 on every character, a misleading diversion.
    481 
    482 	fixed caching bug in makedfa: LRU was actually removing
    483 	least often used.
    484 
    485 	thanks to ross ridge for finding these, and for providing
    486 	great bug reports.
    487 
    488 May 12, 1998:
    489 	fixed potential bug in readrec: might fail to update record
    490 	pointer after growing.  thanks to dan levy for spotting this
    491 	and suggesting the fix.
    492 
    493 Mar 12, 1998:
    494 	added -V to print version number and die.
    495 
    496 Feb 11, 1998:
    497 	subtle silent bug in lex.c: if the program ended with a number
    498 	longer than 1 digit, part of the input would be pushed back and
    499 	parsed again because token buffer wasn't terminated right.
    500 	example:  awk 'length($0) > 10'.  blush.  at least i found it
    501 	myself.
    502 
    503 Aug 31, 1997:
    504 	s/adelete/awkdelete/: SGI uses this in malloc.h.
    505 	thanks to nelson beebe for pointing this one out.
    506 
    507 Aug 21, 1997:
    508 	fixed some bugs in sub and gsub when replacement includes \\.
    509 	this is a dark, horrible corner, but at least now i believe that
    510 	the behavior is the same as gawk and the intended posix standard.
    511 	thanks to arnold robbins for advice here.
    512 
    513 Aug 9, 1997:
    514 	somewhat regretfully, replaced the ancient lex-based lexical
    515 	analyzer with one written in C.  it's longer, generates less code,
    516 	and more portable; the old one depended too much on mysterious
    517 	properties of lex that were not preserved in other environments.
    518 	in theory these recognize the same language.
    519 
    520 	now using strtod to test whether a string is a number, instead of
    521 	the convoluted original function.  should be more portable and
    522 	reliable if strtod is implemented right.
    523 
    524 	removed now-pointless optimization in makefile that tries to avoid
    525 	recompilation when awkgram.y is changed but symbols are not.
    526 
    527 	removed most fixed-size arrays, though a handful remain, some
    528 	of which are unchecked.  you have been warned.
    529 
    530 Aug 4, 1997:
    531 	with some trepidation, replaced the ancient code that managed
    532 	fields and $0 in fixed-size arrays with arrays that grow on
    533 	demand.  there is still some tension between trying to make this
    534 	run fast and making it clean; not sure it's right yet.
    535 
    536 	the ill-conceived -mr and -mf arguments are now useful only
    537 	for debugging.  previous dynamic string code removed.
    538 
    539 	numerous other minor cleanups along the way.
    540 
    541 Jul 30, 1997:
    542 	using code provided by dan levy (to whom profuse thanks), replaced
    543 	fixed-size arrays and awkward kludges by a fairly uniform mechanism
    544 	to grow arrays as needed for printf, sub, gsub, etc.
    545 
    546 Jul 23, 1997:
    547 	falling off the end of a function returns "" and 0, not 0.
    548 	thanks to arnold robbins.
    549 
    550 Jun 17, 1997:
    551 	replaced several fixed-size arrays by dynamically-created ones
    552 	in run.c; added overflow tests to some previously unchecked cases.
    553 	getline, toupper, tolower.
    554 
    555 	getline code is still broken in that recursive calls may wind
    556 	up using the same space.  [fixed later]
    557 
    558 	increased RECSIZE to 8192 to push problems further over the horizon.
    559 
    560 	added \r to \n as input line separator for programs, not data.
    561 	damn CRLFs.
    562 
    563 	modified format() to permit explicit printf("%c", 0) to include
    564 	a null byte in output.  thanks to ken stailey for the fix.
    565 
    566 	added a "-safe" argument that disables file output (print >,
    567 	print >>), process creation (cmd|getline, print |, system), and
    568 	access to the environment (ENVIRON).  this is a first approximation
    569 	to a "safe" version of awk, but don't rely on it too much.  thanks
    570 	to joan feigenbaum and matt blaze for the inspiration long ago.
    571 
    572 Jul 8, 1996:
    573 	fixed long-standing bug in sub, gsub(/a/, "\\\\&"); thanks to
    574 	ralph corderoy.
    575 
    576 Jun 29, 1996:
    577 	fixed awful bug in new field splitting; didn't get all the places
    578 	where input was done.
    579 
    580 Jun 28, 1996:
    581 	changed field-splitting to conform to posix definition: fields are
    582 	split using the value of FS at the time of input; it used to be
    583 	the value when the field or NF was first referred to, a much less
    584 	predictable definition.  thanks to arnold robbins for encouragement
    585 	to do the right thing.
    586 
    587 May 28, 1996:
    588 	fixed appalling but apparently unimportant bug in parsing octal
    589 	numbers in reg exprs.
    590 
    591 	explicit hex in reg exprs now limited to 2 chars: \xa, \xaa.
    592 
    593 May 27, 1996:
    594 	cleaned up some declarations so gcc -Wall is now almost silent.
    595 
    596 	makefile now includes backup copies of ytab.c and lexyy.c in case
    597 	one makes before looking; it also avoids recreating lexyy.c unless
    598 	really needed.
    599 
    600 	s/aprintf/awkprint, s/asprintf/awksprintf/ to avoid some name clashes
    601 	with unwisely-written header files.
    602 
    603 	thanks to jeffrey friedl for several of these.
    604 
    605 May 26, 1996:
    606 	an attempt to rationalize the (unsigned) char issue.  almost all
    607 	instances of unsigned char have been removed; the handful of places
    608 	in b.c where chars are used as table indices have been hand-crafted.
    609 	added some latin-1 tests to the regression, but i'm not confident;
    610 	none of my compilers seem to care much.  thanks to nelson beebe for
    611 	pointing out some others that do care.
    612 
    613 May 2, 1996:
    614 	removed all register declarations.
    615 
    616 	enhanced split(), as in gawk, etc:  split(s, a, "") splits s into
    617 	a[1]...a[length(s)] with each character a single element.
    618 
    619 	made the same changes for field-splitting if FS is "".
    620 
    621 	added nextfile, as in gawk: causes immediate advance to next
    622 	input file. (thanks to arnold robbins for inspiration and code).
    623 
    624 	small fixes to regexpr code:  can now handle []], [[], and
    625 	variants;  [] is now a syntax error, rather than matching
    626 	everything;  [z-a] is now empty, not z.  far from complete
    627 	or correct, however.  (thanks to jeffrey friedl for pointing out
    628 	some awful behaviors.)
    629 
    630 Apr 29, 1996:
    631 	replaced uchar by uschar everywhere; apparently some compilers
    632 	usurp this name and this causes conflicts.
    633 
    634 	fixed call to time in run.c (bltin); arg is time_t *.
    635 
    636 	replaced horrible pointer/long punning in b.c by a legitimate
    637 	union.  should be safer on 64-bit machines and cleaner everywhere.
    638 	(thanks to nelson beebe for pointing out some of these problems.)
    639 
    640 	replaced nested comments by #if 0...#endif in run.c, lib.c.
    641 
    642 	removed getsval, setsval, execute macros from run.c and lib.c.
    643 	machines are 100x faster than they were when these macros were
    644 	first used.
    645 
    646 	revised filenames: awk.g.y => awkgram.y, awk.lx.l => awklex.l,
    647 	y.tab.[ch] => ytab.[ch], lex.yy.c => lexyy.c, all in the aid of
    648 	portability to nameless systems.
    649 
    650 	"make bundle" now includes yacc and lex output files for recipients
    651 	who don't have yacc or lex.
    652 
    653 Aug 15, 1995:
    654 	initialized Cells in setsymtab more carefully; some fields
    655 	were not set.  (thanks to purify, all of whose complaints i
    656 	think i now understand.)
    657 
    658 	fixed at least one error in gsub that looked at -1-th element
    659 	of an array when substituting for a null match (e.g., $).
    660 
    661 	delete arrayname is now legal; it clears the elements but leaves
    662 	the array, which may not be the right behavior.
    663 
    664 	modified makefile: my current make can't cope with the test used
    665 	to avoid unnecessary yacc invocations.
    666 
    667 Jul 17, 1995:
    668 	added dynamically growing strings to awk.lx.l and b.c
    669 	to permit regular expressions to be much bigger.
    670 	the state arrays can still overflow.
    671 
    672 Aug 24, 1994:
    673 	detect duplicate arguments in function definitions (mdm).
    674 
    675 May 11, 1994:
    676 	trivial fix to printf to limit string size in sub().
    677 
    678 Apr 22, 1994:
    679 	fixed yet another subtle self-assignment problem:
    680 	$1 = $2; $1 = $1 clobbered $1.
    681 
    682 	Regression tests now use private echo, to avoid quoting problems.
    683 
    684 Feb 2, 1994:
    685 	changed error() to print line number as %d, not %g.
    686 
    687 Jul 23, 1993:
    688 	cosmetic changes: increased sizes of some arrays,
    689 	reworded some error messages.
    690 
    691 	added CONVFMT as in posix (just replaced OFMT in getsval)
    692 
    693 	FILENAME is now "" until the first thing that causes a file
    694 	to be opened.
    695 
    696 Nov 28, 1992:
    697 	deleted yyunput and yyoutput from proto.h;
    698 	different versions of lex give these different declarations.
    699 
    700 May 31, 1992:
    701 	added -mr N and -mf N options: more record and fields.
    702 	these really ought to adjust automatically.
    703 
    704 	cleaned up some error messages; "out of space" now means
    705 	malloc returned NULL in all cases.
    706 
    707 	changed rehash so that if it runs out, it just returns;
    708 	things will continue to run slow, but maybe a bit longer.
    709 
    710 Apr 24, 1992:
    711 	remove redundant close of stdin when using -f -.
    712 
    713 	got rid of core dump with -d; awk -d just prints date.
    714 
    715 Apr 12, 1992:
    716 	added explicit check for /dev/std(in,out,err) in redirection.
    717 	unlike gawk, no /dev/fd/n yet.
    718 
    719 	added (file/pipe) builtin.  hard to test satisfactorily.
    720 	not posix.
    721 
    722 Feb 20, 1992:
    723 	recompile after abortive changes;  should be unchanged.
    724 
    725 Dec 2, 1991:
    726 	die-casting time:  converted to ansi C, installed that.
    727 
    728 Nov 30, 1991:
    729 	fixed storage leak in freefa, failing to recover [N]CCL.
    730 	thanks to Bill Jones (jones (at) cs.usask.ca)
    731 
    732 Nov 19, 1991:
    733 	use RAND_MAX instead of literal in builtin().
    734 
    735 Nov 12, 1991:
    736 	cranked up some fixed-size arrays in b.c, and added a test for
    737 	overflow in penter.  thanks to mark larsen.
    738 
    739 Sep 24, 1991:
    740 	increased buffer in gsub.  a very crude fix to a general problem.
    741 	and again on Sep 26.
    742 
    743 Aug 18, 1991:
    744 	enforce variable name syntax for commandline variables: has to
    745 	start with letter or _.
    746 
    747 Jul 27, 1991:
    748 	allow newline after ; in for statements.
    749 
    750 Jul 21, 1991:
    751 	fixed so that in self-assignment like $1=$1, side effects
    752 	like recomputing $0 take place.  (this is getting subtle.)
    753 
    754 Jun 30, 1991:
    755 	better test for detecting too-long output record.
    756 
    757 Jun 2, 1991:
    758 	better defense against very long printf strings.
    759 	made break and continue illegal outside of loops.
    760 
    761 May 13, 1991:
    762 	removed extra arg on gettemp, tempfree.  minor error message rewording.
    763 
    764 May 6, 1991:
    765 	fixed silly bug in hex parsing in hexstr().
    766 	removed an apparently unnecessary test in isnumber().
    767 	warn about weird printf conversions.
    768 	fixed unchecked array overwrite in relex().
    769 
    770 	changed for (i in array) to access elements in sorted order.
    771 	then unchanged it -- it really does run slower in too many cases.
    772 	left the code in place, commented out.
    773 
    774 Feb 10, 1991:
    775 	check error status on all writes, to avoid banging on full disks.
    776 
    777 Jan 28, 1991:
    778 	awk -f - reads the program from stdin.
    779 
    780 Jan 11, 1991:
    781 	failed to set numeric state on $0 in cmd|getline context in run.c.
    782 
    783 Nov 2, 1990:
    784 	fixed sleazy test for integrality in getsval;  use modf.
    785 
    786 Oct 29, 1990:
    787 	fixed sleazy buggy code in lib.c that looked (incorrectly) for
    788 	too long input lines.
    789 
    790 Oct 14, 1990:
    791 	fixed the bug on p. 198 in which it couldn't deduce that an
    792 	argument was an array in some contexts.  replaced the error
    793 	message in intest() by code that damn well makes it an array.
    794 
    795 Oct 8, 1990:
    796 	fixed horrible bug:  types and values were not preserved in
    797 	some kinds of self-assignment. (in assign().)
    798 
    799 Aug 24, 1990:
    800 	changed NCHARS to 256 to handle 8-bit characters in strings
    801 	presented to match(), etc.
    802 
    803 Jun 26, 1990:
    804 	changed struct rrow (awk.h) to use long instead of int for lval,
    805 	since cfoll() stores a pointer in it.  now works better when int's
    806 	are smaller than pointers!
    807 
    808 May 6, 1990:
    809 	AVA fixed the grammar so that ! is uniformly of the same precedence as
    810 	unary + and -.  This renders illegal some constructs like !x=y, which
    811 	now has to be parenthesized as !(x=y), and makes others work properly:
    812 	!x+y is (!x)+y, and x!y is x !y, not two pattern-action statements.
    813 	(These problems were pointed out by Bob Lenk of Posix.)
    814 
    815 	Added \x to regular expressions (already in strings).
    816 	Limited octal to octal digits; \8 and \9 are not octal.
    817 	Centralized the code for parsing escapes in regular expressions.
    818 	Added a bunch of tests to T.re and T.sub to verify some of this.
    819 
    820 Feb 9, 1990:
    821 	fixed null pointer dereference bug in main.c:  -F[nothing].  sigh.
    822 
    823 	restored srand behavior:  it returns the current seed.
    824 
    825 Jan 18, 1990:
    826 	srand now returns previous seed value (0 to start).
    827 
    828 Jan 5, 1990:
    829 	fix potential problem in tran.c -- something was freed,
    830 	then used in freesymtab.
    831 
    832 Oct 18, 1989:
    833 	another try to get the max number of open files set with
    834 	relatively machine-independent code.
    835 
    836 	small fix to input() in case of multiple reads after EOF.
    837 
    838 Oct 11, 1989:
    839 	FILENAME is now defined in the BEGIN block -- too many old
    840 	programs broke.
    841 
    842 	"-" means stdin in getline as well as on the commandline.
    843 
    844 	added a bunch of casts to the code to tell the truth about
    845 	char * vs. unsigned char *, a right royal pain.  added a
    846 	setlocale call to the front of main, though probably no one
    847 	has it usefully implemented yet.
    848 
    849 Aug 24, 1989:
    850 	removed redundant relational tests against nullnode if parse
    851 	tree already had a relational at that point.
    852 
    853 Aug 11, 1989:
    854 	fixed bug:  commandline variable assignment has to look like
    855 	var=something.  (consider the man page for =, in file =.1)
    856 
    857 	changed number of arguments to functions to static arrays
    858 	to avoid repeated malloc calls.
    859 
    860 Aug 2, 1989:
    861 	restored -F (space) separator
    862 
    863 Jul 30, 1989:
    864 	added -v x=1 y=2 ... for immediate commandline variable assignment;
    865 	done before the BEGIN block for sure.  they have to precede the
    866 	program if the program is on the commandline.
    867 	Modified Aug 2 to require a separate -v for each assignment.
    868 
    869 Jul 10, 1989:
    870 	fixed ref-thru-zero bug in environment code in tran.c
    871 
    872 Jun 23, 1989:
    873 	add newline to usage message.
    874 
    875 Jun 14, 1989:
    876 	added some missing ansi printf conversion letters: %i %X %E %G.
    877 	no sensible meaning for h or L, so they may not do what one expects.
    878 
    879 	made %* conversions work.
    880 
    881 	changed x^y so that if n is a positive integer, it's done
    882 	by explicit multiplication, thus achieving maximum accuracy.
    883 	(this should be done by pow() but it seems not to be locally.)
    884 	done to x ^= y as well.
    885 
    886 Jun 4, 1989:
    887 	ENVIRON array contains environment: if shell variable V=thing,
    888 		ENVIRON["V"] is "thing"
    889 
    890 	multiple -f arguments permitted.  error reporting is naive.
    891 	(they were permitted before, but only the last was used.)
    892 
    893 	fixed a really stupid botch in the debugging macro dprintf
    894 
    895 	fixed order of evaluation of commandline assignments to match
    896 	what the book claims:  an argument of the form x=e is evaluated
    897 	at the time it would have been opened if it were a filename (p 63).
    898 	this invalidates the suggested answer to ex 4-1 (p 195).
    899 
    900 	removed some code that permitted -F (space) fieldseparator,
    901 	since it didn't quite work right anyway.  (restored aug 2)
    902 
    903 Apr 27, 1989:
    904 	Line number now accumulated correctly for comment lines.
    905 
    906 Apr 26, 1989:
    907 	Debugging output now includes a version date,
    908 	if one compiles it into the source each time.
    909 
    910 Apr 9, 1989:
    911 	Changed grammar to prohibit constants as 3rd arg of sub and gsub;
    912 	prevents class of overwriting-a-constant errors.  (Last one?)
    913 	This invalidates the "banana" example on page 43 of the book.
    914 
    915 	Added \a ("alert"), \v (vertical tab), \xhhh (hexadecimal),
    916 	as in ANSI, for strings.  Rescinded the sloppiness that permitted
    917 	non-octal digits in \ooo.  Warning:  not all compilers and libraries
    918 	will be able to deal with \x correctly.
    919 
    920 Jan 9, 1989:
    921 	Fixed bug that caused tempcell list to contain a duplicate.
    922 	The fix is kludgy.
    923 
    924 Dec 17, 1988:
    925 	Catches some more commandline errors in main.
    926 	Removed redundant decl of modf in run.c (confuses some compilers).
    927 	Warning:  there's no single declaration of malloc, etc., in awk.h
    928 	that seems to satisfy all compilers.
    929 
    930 Dec 7, 1988:
    931 	Added a bit of code to error printing to avoid printing nulls.
    932 	(Not clear that it actually would.)
    933 
    934 Nov 27, 1988:
    935 	With fear and trembling, modified the grammar to permit
    936 	multiple pattern-action statements on one line without
    937 	an explicit separator.  By definition, this capitulation
    938 	to the ghost of ancient implementations remains undefined
    939 	and thus subject to change without notice or apology.
    940 	DO NOT COUNT ON IT.
    941 
    942 Oct 30, 1988:
    943 	Fixed bug in call() that failed to recover storage.
    944 
    945 	A warning is now generated if there are more arguments
    946 	in the call than in the definition (in lieu of fixing
    947 	another storage leak).
    948 
    949 Oct 20, 1988:
    950 	Fixed %c:  if expr is numeric, use numeric value;
    951 	otherwise print 1st char of string value.  still
    952 	doesn't work if the value is 0 -- won't print \0.
    953 
    954 	Added a few more checks for running out of malloc.
    955 
    956 Oct 12, 1988:
    957 	Fixed bug in call() that freed local arrays twice.
    958 
    959 	Fixed to handle deletion of non-existent array right;
    960 	complains about attempt to delete non-array element.
    961 
    962 Sep 30, 1988:
    963 	Now guarantees to evaluate all arguments of built-in
    964 	functions, as in C;  the appearance is that arguments
    965 	are evaluated before the function is called.  Places
    966 	affected are sub (gsub was ok), substr, printf, and
    967 	all the built-in arithmetic functions in bltin().
    968 	A warning is generated if a bltin() is called with
    969 	the wrong number of arguments.
    970 
    971 	This requires changing makeprof on p167 of the book.
    972 
    973 Aug 23, 1988:
    974 	setting FILENAME in BEGIN caused core dump, apparently
    975 	because it was freeing space not allocated by malloc.
    976 
    977 July 24, 1988:
    978 	fixed egregious error in toupper/tolower functions.
    979 	still subject to rescinding, however.
    980 
    981 July 2, 1988:
    982 	flush stdout before opening file or pipe
    983 
    984 July 2, 1988:
    985 	performance bug in b.c/cgoto(): not freeing some sets of states.
    986 	partial fix only right now, and the number of states increased
    987 	to make it less obvious.
    988 
    989 June 1, 1988:
    990 	check error status on close
    991 
    992 May 28, 1988:
    993 	srand returns seed value it's using.
    994 	see 1/18/90
    995 
    996 May 22, 1988:
    997 	Removed limit on depth of function calls.
    998 
    999 May 10, 1988:
   1000 	Fixed lib.c to permit _ in commandline variable names.
   1001 
   1002 Mar 25, 1988:
   1003 	main.c fixed to recognize -- as terminator of command-
   1004 	line options.  Illegal options flagged.
   1005 	Error reporting slightly cleaned up.
   1006 
   1007 Dec 2, 1987:
   1008 	Newer C compilers apply a strict scope rule to extern
   1009 	declarations within functions.  Two extern declarations in
   1010 	lib.c and tran.c have been moved to obviate this problem.
   1011 
   1012 Oct xx, 1987:
   1013 	Reluctantly added toupper and tolower functions.
   1014 	Subject to rescinding without notice.
   1015 
   1016 Sep 17, 1987:
   1017 	Error-message printer had printf(s) instead of
   1018 	printf("%s",s);  got core dumps when the message
   1019 	included a %.
   1020 
   1021 Sep 12, 1987:
   1022 	Very long printf strings caused core dump;
   1023 	fixed aprintf, asprintf, format to catch them.
   1024 	Can still get a core dump in printf itself.
   1025 
   1026 
   1027