     [file version.texi not included]

NEWS in SINGULAR VERSION
************************

The current version VERSION is an alpha-release of the upcoming new release version 2-0 (should be there at the beginning of 2000). Items labeled with "TBC" in this news file are features which still have to be implemented and/or documented.

Although there are no known bugs, it is to be expected that the current version VERSION is not as stable as the 1.2 version(s), since major changes were done to the SINGULAR kernel. Therefore, it is important to us, that users try out this new version.

Furthermore, the current version is generally not yet as fast as version 1.2. But this is going to change dramatically in the upcoming release version(s).

Thank you very much for your support!

General Changes
===============

Emacs user interface
     the recommended interface for using SINGULAR

ESingular
     new program for an out-of-the-box, pre-customized Emacs which runs Singular

The online help system
     choose in which browser the on-line help is displayed;

     wildcard expansion of help topics

     new layout of html manual pages

Source code debugger
     interactive debugging of procedures written in the SINGULAR language

example
     Provide on-line examples for all kernel and library commands.

file/directory layout of distribution
     Singular/<version>/

http://singular.uni-kl.de ftp://singular.uni-kl.de
     TBC: New WWW and FTP home-site of SINGULAR

Extensions of the ring concept
==============================

new coefficient domains: arbitrary long real and complex numbers
     The current syntax is going to change slightly in the final version 2.0.

no restriction on number of ring variables

TBC: DegBound on exponent values

TBC: parameters over real/complex

TBC: declaration with "ring of ring".

New SINGULAR libraries
======================

spectrum_lib
     TODO: docu, tests, proper incooperation

CaMuReg_lib  procedures for computing Castelnuovo-Mumford
     regularity

      TODO: docu, tests

mondromy_lib
     procedures for computing the monodromy of a singularity

spectrum_lib
     TBC: docu, examples, tests

spcurve_lib
     procedures for cm codimension 2 singularities

triang_lib
     procedures for solving triangular systems

solve_lib
     procedures for solving polynomial systems

surf_lib
     visualization of curves and surfaces with surf

New SINGULAR functions
======================

convhull, simplex
     TODO: docu, tests

division
     Extension of lift: division(M,SM) returns a list [T,U,R] with SM*U+R=M*T

breakpoint
     sets a debugger breakpoint

div
     integer division omitting remainder

ERROR
     interrupts computation in current procedure and returns with error message to top-level

fglmquot
     calculate ideal quotions using FGLM-techniques

leadmonom
     returns the leading monomial of a polynomial or a vector as a polynomial or vector whose coefficient is one

highcorner
     returns the smallest monomial not contained in and ideal/module

hres
     calculate free resolution of homogenous ideal using Hilbert-driven algorithm.

minor
     with an optional third argument minors modulo a standard basis will be computed

mpresmat
     calculate module representing the multipolynomial resultant matrix

uressolve
     compute all complex roots of a zerodimensional ideal

vandermonde
     solve Vandermonde linear system

SINGULAR functions whose syntax/semantics has changed
=====================================================

lift
     new implementation (unified handling of isSB and not isSB case); new optional third argument (a matrix name), which, if given, stores the "matrix of units"

bareiss
     new implementation after Lie-Saunders, much faster

example
     run example for all kernel commands.

fetch
     TBC

print
     Finer-grained control for formatted output.

pause
     can be called with argument, must be called with parenthesis.

TBC

Changes in SINGULAR libraries
=============================

ainvar_lib
     renamed invar.lib to ainvar.lib

deform_lib
     renamed procedures Y1, T2, T12 to T_1, T_2, T_12.

poly_lib
     new procedures numerator/denominator

Changes of command-line options and system resources
====================================================

--browser, --allow-net, --emacs, --sdb
     new command-line options

system
     values of command-line options can be inspected/set at run-time with system(<option>[,<new_value]).

.singularrc
     system administrators can put a "global" .singularrc file into the directories where SINGULAR libraries reside.

libreadline
     if found, a shared version of the readline library is linked-in dynamically at run-time. If not found, readline is emulated.

Internal Changes
================

new data structures for monomials and polynomials
     Makes polynomial arithmetic significantly faster. Especially for block - or weighted orderings. TBC: Faster polynomial arithmetic for orderings (like dp, or lp). TBC: Bucket representation of polynomials in std; TBC: DegBound during std computations.

new memory management
     Results is less memory usage, faster memory allocation/free, less fragmentation, much better locality of reference.

TBC
===

  * libreadline for other architectures than ix86-libc5, ix86-libc6,HPUX_9,HPUX_10

  * example on examples from libraries