4 What's new in version series 3.0.N and 3.1.N of Octave
The 3.0.N series has enough new features to justify a major version
number change. The 3.0.N series brings
     
- integer types
     
- fixed point arithmetic
     
- sparse matrices
     
- Linear programming code based on GLPK
     
- 64-bit compilation support
     
- gzipped files and stream and consequently support of matlab v7 files
     
- better support for both msvc and mingw
     
- a fully compatible MEX interface
     
- many many other minor features and compatibility changes
   
Here are some features that have been around since 2.1.N
     
   The 3.1.N series is the current development release and will become a
3.2.N release in the future. This series brings the new features
     
- OpenGL graphics toolkit
     An experimental OpenGL graphics toolkit to replace the gnuplot.
      
- Object Orient Programming
     
- Block comments
     
- imwrite and imread
     The functions are based on the GraphicsMagick library.
      
- Lazy transpose
     Special treatment in the parser of things like "a' * b", where the
transpose is never explicitly formed but a flag is rather passed to the
underlying LAPACK code.
      
- Single precision type
     
- Improved array indexing
The underlying code used for indexing of arrays has been completely
rewritten and so the indexing of arrays is now significantly faster.