Release 0.8.7 "Signs" - Performance optimizations

This release focuses on performance improvements and bug fixes for
issues reported by users and contributors.

Features
--------

* Long array operations such as matrix multiplications can now be
  interrupted with the EXIT key.

* Eliminate local names from `LNAME` output. For example, if you
  perform a sum with a variable named `i` as an index, no longer
  report `i` as being a name used by the expression..

* Implement `HEAD` and `TAIL` for text objects.

* Allow constant definitions to contain expressions, which will be
  fully evaluated when using the `→Num`. This makes it possible to now
  define constants using other constants, in the spirit of the more
  recent CODATA recommandations.

* Library management commands `Attach`, `Detach` and `Libs` are now
  implemented. These commands make it possible to reload a library
  entry after changing its definition on disk. While they take
  arguments that are similar to what HP calculators do, they are not
  interpreting them in the same way due to hardware differences
  between SwissMicros and HP calculators.

Bug fixes
---------

* Fix hard crash when running some RPL programs using conditional
  loops, local variables and/or deep recursion. The crash was caused
  by a non-robust check of whether the call stack needed to grow or
  shrink, which was replaced with a much more robust check.

* Fixed the precedence of the unary `-` operator, so that `-X^2` now
  parses correctly (it used to be interpretd as `(-X)^2`)

* Fix a crash where an error during an array operation could cause a
  null pointer to be pushed on the stack.

* The test suite now correctly reports error detected while
  checking the examples in the online help.

* The multi-solver no longer considers the index variable in a sum or
  product as a variable to solve for. This avoids spurious errors
  claiming that a solution cannot be found. The same also applies
  other functions that take a variable name as an argument, such as
  `Root`, `Integrate` or `Isolate`.

* Fix a crash when comparing unit objects that cannot be converted
  from one to the other, e.g. comparing `1_m` and `1_h`.

* Fix the order of commands in the build instructions for Windows.

* Fix the `NDupN` command to duplicate an object N times. In earlier
  releases, it was incorrectly duplicating N objects and leaving  N on
  the stack.

* Accept addition and subtraction between a number and a unit object
  where the unit can be reduced to a number, so that `'1+1_km/m'` is
  now a valid expression. A few additional entries in the equation
  library now work thanks to that fix.

* Avoid a rare crash where the error command would be corrupted when
  cleaning temporaries.

Improvements
------------

* Performance optimizations for decimal arithmetic, using 25x25 matrix
  multiplication as a test scenario to optimize. The performance of
  such multiplication was improved by about one order of magnitude,
  and is now comparable to DM42 performance. This was achieved in
  particular by making more aggressive cleanup of temporaries, by
  reducing the need for garbage collection, by adding a fast-tracked
  path for arithmetic operations when the types are the same as for
  the last operation, and by deferring the construction of arrays
  until the value of all elements are computed.

* Add a few new sanity checks for the runtime when running on the
  simulator, notably to detect cases where the internal pointers are
  not in the expected order, and to more precisely report issues if
  integrity checks fail during garbage collection

* Add locking to the garbage collected pointers list when running on
  the simulator, in order to improve test stability. Testing on the
  simulator is the one case where multiple threads may concurently
  access the pointers list.

* Accelerate the tests that insert large amounts of text from source
  code, notably the equation parsing tests and the help examples
  checks. In addition, use a smarter method to insert RPL separators
  such as `[]` or `''`, taking advantage of the fact that they are
  usually entered in pairs. These two improvements reduce the total
  runtime of the entire test suite by a factor of more than 4.

* While testing the online help examples, only report the exact
  section title and not all the section titles that contain the same
  text.

* Systematically strip tags and assignment objects for all arithmetic
  operations.

* Add a version of the `debug_printf` that automatically selects where
  to draw on the screen, and automatically clear what follows the
  printed text using a gray pattern.

* Render the DB48x TrueType font to bitmap using a more recent version
  of the FreeType library. This causes minor glyph differences
  compared to earlier releases. The test suite was adjusted
  accordingly.

* Remove some of the leftover references to newRPL commands that will
  not be implemented or make no sense for DB48x. This work is not
  finished yet. The mechanism to remember which command caused a
  particular error was also made somewhat more efficient.

* Consolidate the two distinct documentations of the `Root` command.

Signed-off-by: Christophe de Dinechin <[email protected]>

doc/4-ReleaseNotes.md

@@ -1,5 +1,126 @@
 # Release notes
 
+## Release 0.8.7 "Signs" - Performance optimizations
+
+This release focuses on performance improvements and bug fixes for
+issues reported by users and contributors.
+
+### Features
+
+* Long array operations such as matrix multiplications can now be
+  interrupted with the EXIT key.
+
+* Eliminate local names from `LNAME` output. For example, if you
+  perform a sum with a variable named `i` as an index, no longer
+  report `i` as being a name used by the expression..
+
+* Implement `HEAD` and `TAIL` for text objects.
+
+* Allow constant definitions to contain expressions, which will be
+  fully evaluated when using the `→Num`. This makes it possible to now
+  define constants using other constants, in the spirit of the more
+  recent CODATA recommandations.
+
+* Library management commands `Attach`, `Detach` and `Libs` are now
+  implemented. These commands make it possible to reload a library
+  entry after changing its definition on disk. While they take
+  arguments that are similar to what HP calculators do, they are not
+  interpreting them in the same way due to hardware differences
+  between SwissMicros and HP calculators.
+
+
+### Bug fixes
+
+* Fix hard crash when running some RPL programs using conditional
+  loops, local variables and/or deep recursion. The crash was caused
+  by a non-robust check of whether the call stack needed to grow or
+  shrink, which was replaced with a much more robust check.
+
+* Fixed the precedence of the unary `-` operator, so that `-X^2` now
+  parses correctly (it used to be interpretd as `(-X)^2`)
+
+* Fix a crash where an error during an array operation could cause a
+  null pointer to be pushed on the stack.
+
+* The test suite now correctly reports error detected while
+  checking the examples in the online help.
+
+* The multi-solver no longer considers the index variable in a sum or
+  product as a variable to solve for. This avoids spurious errors
+  claiming that a solution cannot be found. The same also applies
+  other functions that take a variable name as an argument, such as
+  `Root`, `Integrate` or `Isolate`.
+
+* Fix a crash when comparing unit objects that cannot be converted
+  from one to the other, e.g. comparing `1_m` and `1_h`.
+
+* Fix the order of commands in the build instructions for Windows.
+
+* Fix the `NDupN` command to duplicate an object N times. In earlier
+  releases, it was incorrectly duplicating N objects and leaving  N on
+  the stack.
+
+* Accept addition and subtraction between a number and a unit object
+  where the unit can be reduced to a number, so that `'1+1_km/m'` is
+  now a valid expression. A few additional entries in the equation
+  library now work thanks to that fix.
+
+* Avoid a rare crash where the error command would be corrupted when
+  cleaning temporaries.
+
+### Improvements
+
+* Performance optimizations for decimal arithmetic, using 25x25 matrix
+  multiplication as a test scenario to optimize. The performance of
+  such multiplication was improved by about one order of magnitude,
+  and is now comparable to DM42 performance. This was achieved in
+  particular by making more aggressive cleanup of temporaries, by
+  reducing the need for garbage collection, by adding a fast-tracked
+  path for arithmetic operations when the types are the same as for
+  the last operation, and by deferring the construction of arrays
+  until the value of all elements are computed.
+
+* Add a few new sanity checks for the runtime when running on the
+  simulator, notably to detect cases where the internal pointers are
+  not in the expected order, and to more precisely report issues if
+  integrity checks fail during garbage collection
+
+* Add locking to the garbage collected pointers list when running on
+  the simulator, in order to improve test stability. Testing on the
+  simulator is the one case where multiple threads may concurently
+  access the pointers list.
+
+* Accelerate the tests that insert large amounts of text from source
+  code, notably the equation parsing tests and the help examples
+  checks. In addition, use a smarter method to insert RPL separators
+  such as `[]` or `''`, taking advantage of the fact that they are
+  usually entered in pairs. These two improvements reduce the total
+  runtime of the entire test suite by a factor of more than 4.
+
+* While testing the online help examples, only report the exact
+  section title and not all the section titles that contain the same
+  text.
+
+* Systematically strip tags and assignment objects for all arithmetic
+  operations.
+
+* Add a version of the `debug_printf` that automatically selects where
+  to draw on the screen, and automatically clear what follows the
+  printed text using a gray pattern.
+
+* Render the DB48x TrueType font to bitmap using a more recent version
+  of the FreeType library. This causes minor glyph differences
+  compared to earlier releases. The test suite was adjusted
+  accordingly.
+
+* Remove some of the leftover references to newRPL commands that will
+  not be implemented or make no sense for DB48x. This work is not
+  finished yet. The mechanism to remember which command caused a
+  particular error was also made somewhat more efficient.
+
+* Consolidate the two distinct documentations of the `Root` command.
+
+
 ## Release 0.8.6 "Daniel" - Bug fixes and optimizations
 
 This release is mostly intended to fix a number of issues reported by

help/db48x.md

@@ -2485,6 +2485,127 @@ You can edit it by recalling its content on the stack using
 back to disk using `"config:equations.csv" STO`.
 # Release notes
 
+## Release 0.8.7 "Signs" - Performance optimizations
+
+This release focuses on performance improvements and bug fixes for
+issues reported by users and contributors.
+
+### Features
+
+* Long array operations such as matrix multiplications can now be
+  interrupted with the EXIT key.
+
+* Eliminate local names from `LNAME` output. For example, if you
+  perform a sum with a variable named `i` as an index, no longer
+  report `i` as being a name used by the expression..
+
+* Implement `HEAD` and `TAIL` for text objects.
+
+* Allow constant definitions to contain expressions, which will be
+  fully evaluated when using the `→Num`. This makes it possible to now
+  define constants using other constants, in the spirit of the more
+  recent CODATA recommandations.
+
+* Library management commands `Attach`, `Detach` and `Libs` are now
+  implemented. These commands make it possible to reload a library
+  entry after changing its definition on disk. While they take
+  arguments that are similar to what HP calculators do, they are not
+  interpreting them in the same way due to hardware differences
+  between SwissMicros and HP calculators.
+
+
+### Bug fixes
+
+* Fix hard crash when running some RPL programs using conditional
+  loops, local variables and/or deep recursion. The crash was caused
+  by a non-robust check of whether the call stack needed to grow or
+  shrink, which was replaced with a much more robust check.
+
+* Fixed the precedence of the unary `-` operator, so that `-X^2` now
+  parses correctly (it used to be interpretd as `(-X)^2`)
+
+* Fix a crash where an error during an array operation could cause a
+  null pointer to be pushed on the stack.
+
+* The test suite now correctly reports error detected while
+  checking the examples in the online help.
+
+* The multi-solver no longer considers the index variable in a sum or
+  product as a variable to solve for. This avoids spurious errors
+  claiming that a solution cannot be found. The same also applies
+  other functions that take a variable name as an argument, such as
+  `Root`, `Integrate` or `Isolate`.
+
+* Fix a crash when comparing unit objects that cannot be converted
+  from one to the other, e.g. comparing `1_m` and `1_h`.
+
+* Fix the order of commands in the build instructions for Windows.
+
+* Fix the `NDupN` command to duplicate an object N times. In earlier
+  releases, it was incorrectly duplicating N objects and leaving  N on
+  the stack.
+
+* Accept addition and subtraction between a number and a unit object
+  where the unit can be reduced to a number, so that `'1+1_km/m'` is
+  now a valid expression. A few additional entries in the equation
+  library now work thanks to that fix.
+
+* Avoid a rare crash where the error command would be corrupted when
+  cleaning temporaries.
+
+### Improvements
+
+* Performance optimizations for decimal arithmetic, using 25x25 matrix
+  multiplication as a test scenario to optimize. The performance of
+  such multiplication was improved by about one order of magnitude,
+  and is now comparable to DM42 performance. This was achieved in
+  particular by making more aggressive cleanup of temporaries, by
+  reducing the need for garbage collection, by adding a fast-tracked
+  path for arithmetic operations when the types are the same as for
+  the last operation, and by deferring the construction of arrays
+  until the value of all elements are computed.
+
+* Add a few new sanity checks for the runtime when running on the
+  simulator, notably to detect cases where the internal pointers are
+  not in the expected order, and to more precisely report issues if
+  integrity checks fail during garbage collection
+
+* Add locking to the garbage collected pointers list when running on
+  the simulator, in order to improve test stability. Testing on the
+  simulator is the one case where multiple threads may concurently
+  access the pointers list.
+
+* Accelerate the tests that insert large amounts of text from source
+  code, notably the equation parsing tests and the help examples
+  checks. In addition, use a smarter method to insert RPL separators
+  such as `[]` or `''`, taking advantage of the fact that they are
+  usually entered in pairs. These two improvements reduce the total
+  runtime of the entire test suite by a factor of more than 4.
+
+* While testing the online help examples, only report the exact
+  section title and not all the section titles that contain the same
+  text.
+
+* Systematically strip tags and assignment objects for all arithmetic
+  operations.
+
+* Add a version of the `debug_printf` that automatically selects where
+  to draw on the screen, and automatically clear what follows the
+  printed text using a gray pattern.
+
+* Render the DB48x TrueType font to bitmap using a more recent version
+  of the FreeType library. This causes minor glyph differences
+  compared to earlier releases. The test suite was adjusted
+  accordingly.
+
+* Remove some of the leftover references to newRPL commands that will
+  not be implemented or make no sense for DB48x. This work is not
+  finished yet. The mechanism to remember which command caused a
+  particular error was also made somewhat more efficient.
+
+* Consolidate the two distinct documentations of the `Root` command.
+
+
 ## Release 0.8.6 "Daniel" - Bug fixes and optimizations
 
 This release is mostly intended to fix a number of issues reported by

help/db50x.md

@@ -2493,6 +2493,127 @@ You can edit it by recalling its content on the stack using
 back to disk using `"config:equations.csv" STO`.
 # Release notes
 
+## Release 0.8.7 "Signs" - Performance optimizations
+
+This release focuses on performance improvements and bug fixes for
+issues reported by users and contributors.
+
+### Features
+
+* Long array operations such as matrix multiplications can now be
+  interrupted with the EXIT key.
+
+* Eliminate local names from `LNAME` output. For example, if you
+  perform a sum with a variable named `i` as an index, no longer
+  report `i` as being a name used by the expression..
+
+* Implement `HEAD` and `TAIL` for text objects.
+
+* Allow constant definitions to contain expressions, which will be
+  fully evaluated when using the `→Num`. This makes it possible to now
+  define constants using other constants, in the spirit of the more
+  recent CODATA recommandations.
+
+* Library management commands `Attach`, `Detach` and `Libs` are now
+  implemented. These commands make it possible to reload a library
+  entry after changing its definition on disk. While they take
+  arguments that are similar to what HP calculators do, they are not
+  interpreting them in the same way due to hardware differences
+  between SwissMicros and HP calculators.
+
+
+### Bug fixes
+
+* Fix hard crash when running some RPL programs using conditional
+  loops, local variables and/or deep recursion. The crash was caused
+  by a non-robust check of whether the call stack needed to grow or
+  shrink, which was replaced with a much more robust check.
+
+* Fixed the precedence of the unary `-` operator, so that `-X^2` now
+  parses correctly (it used to be interpretd as `(-X)^2`)
+
+* Fix a crash where an error during an array operation could cause a
+  null pointer to be pushed on the stack.
+
+* The test suite now correctly reports error detected while
+  checking the examples in the online help.
+
+* The multi-solver no longer considers the index variable in a sum or
+  product as a variable to solve for. This avoids spurious errors
+  claiming that a solution cannot be found. The same also applies
+  other functions that take a variable name as an argument, such as
+  `Root`, `Integrate` or `Isolate`.
+
+* Fix a crash when comparing unit objects that cannot be converted
+  from one to the other, e.g. comparing `1_m` and `1_h`.
+
+* Fix the order of commands in the build instructions for Windows.
+
+* Fix the `NDupN` command to duplicate an object N times. In earlier
+  releases, it was incorrectly duplicating N objects and leaving  N on
+  the stack.
+
+* Accept addition and subtraction between a number and a unit object
+  where the unit can be reduced to a number, so that `'1+1_km/m'` is
+  now a valid expression. A few additional entries in the equation
+  library now work thanks to that fix.
+
+* Avoid a rare crash where the error command would be corrupted when
+  cleaning temporaries.
+
+### Improvements
+
+* Performance optimizations for decimal arithmetic, using 25x25 matrix
+  multiplication as a test scenario to optimize. The performance of
+  such multiplication was improved by about one order of magnitude,
+  and is now comparable to DM32 performance. This was achieved in
+  particular by making more aggressive cleanup of temporaries, by
+  reducing the need for garbage collection, by adding a fast-tracked
+  path for arithmetic operations when the types are the same as for
+  the last operation, and by deferring the construction of arrays
+  until the value of all elements are computed.
+
+* Add a few new sanity checks for the runtime when running on the
+  simulator, notably to detect cases where the internal pointers are
+  not in the expected order, and to more precisely report issues if
+  integrity checks fail during garbage collection
+
+* Add locking to the garbage collected pointers list when running on
+  the simulator, in order to improve test stability. Testing on the
+  simulator is the one case where multiple threads may concurently
+  access the pointers list.
+
+* Accelerate the tests that insert large amounts of text from source
+  code, notably the equation parsing tests and the help examples
+  checks. In addition, use a smarter method to insert RPL separators
+  such as `[]` or `''`, taking advantage of the fact that they are
+  usually entered in pairs. These two improvements reduce the total
+  runtime of the entire test suite by a factor of more than 4.
+
+* While testing the online help examples, only report the exact
+  section title and not all the section titles that contain the same
+  text.
+
+* Systematically strip tags and assignment objects for all arithmetic
+  operations.
+
+* Add a version of the `debug_printf` that automatically selects where
+  to draw on the screen, and automatically clear what follows the
+  printed text using a gray pattern.
+
+* Render the DB48x TrueType font to bitmap using a more recent version
+  of the FreeType library. This causes minor glyph differences
+  compared to earlier releases. The test suite was adjusted
+  accordingly.
+
+* Remove some of the leftover references to newRPL commands that will
+  not be implemented or make no sense for DB48x. This work is not
+  finished yet. The mechanism to remember which command caused a
+  particular error was also made somewhat more efficient.
+
+* Consolidate the two distinct documentations of the `Root` command.
+
+
 ## Release 0.8.6 "Daniel" - Bug fixes and optimizations
 
 This release is mostly intended to fix a number of issues reported by

src/dm32/qspi_crc.h

@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
 
-#define QSPI_DATA_SIZE   277124
+#define QSPI_DATA_SIZE   277308
 #define QSPI_DATA_CRC  0x000cfed6
 

src/dm42/qspi_crc.h

@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
 
-#define QSPI_DATA_SIZE   273332
+#define QSPI_DATA_SIZE   273508
 #define QSPI_DATA_CRC  0x000cfed6