This note is to announce the BETA release of GNU Awk 5.1.1.

It is available from:

http://www.skeeve.com/gawk/gawk-5.1.1f.tar.gz

This is a bug fix release.

The important part of the NEWS file is below.

As far as I can tell, the documentation and code have both hit the
freeze point.

So, why do a beta release? So that you, yes you, the end user, can see
if anything I've done breaks gawk for you. Then you can TELL ME ABOUT
IT so that I can fix it for the final release.

Thanks,

Arnold Robbins
arnold@skeeve.com
---------------------------------------------
Copyright (C) 2019, 2020, 2021 Free Software Foundation, Inc.

Copying and distribution of this file, with or without modification,
are permitted in any medium without royalty provided the copyright
notice and this notice are preserved.

Changes from 5.1.0 to 5.1.1
---------------------------

1. Infrastructure upgrades: Bison 3.8, Gettext 0.20.2, Automake 1.16.4,
and (will wonders never cease) Autoconf 2.71.

2. asort and asorti now allow FUNCTAB and SYMTAB as the first argument if a
second destination array is supplied. Similarly, using either array as
the second argument is now a fatal error. Additionally, using either
array as the destination for split(), match(), etc. also causes a
fatal error.

3. The new -I/--trace option prints a trace of the byte codes as they
are executed.

4. A number of subtle bugs relating to MPFR mode that caused differences
between regular operation and MPFR mode have been fixed.

5. The API now handles MPFR/GMP values slightly differently, requiring
different memory management for those values. See the manual for the
details if you have an extension using those values. As a result,
the minor version was incremented.

6. $0 and the fields are now cleared before starting a BEGINFILE rule.

7. The duplication of m4 and build-aux directories between the main
directory and the extension directory has been removed. This
simplifies the distribution.

8. The test suite has been improved, making it easier to run the entire
suite with -M. Use `GAWK_TEST_ARGS=-M make check' to do so.

9. Profiling and pretty-printing output has been modified slightly so
that functions are presented in a reasonable order with respect
to the namespaces that contain them.

10. Several example programs in the manual have been updated to their
modern POSIX equivalents.

11. Handling of Infinity and NaN values has been improved.

12. There has been a general tightening up of the use of const and
of types.

13. The "no effect" lint warnings have been fixed up and now behave
more sanely.

14. The manual has been updated with much more information about what is
and is not a bug, and the changes in the gawk mailing lists.

15. Similar to item #4 above, division by zero is now fatal in MPFR
mode, as it is in regular mode.

16. There have been numerous minor code cleanups and bug fixes. See the
ChangeLog for details.
--
Aharon (Arnold) Robbins arnold AT skeeve DOT com

On Sunday, September 19, 2021 at 6:22:24 AM UTC-4, Arnold Robbins wrote:
> This note is to announce the BETA release of GNU Awk 5.1.1.
>
> It is available from:
>
> http://www.skeeve.com/gawk/gawk-5.1.1f.tar.gz
>
> This is a bug fix release.
>
> The important part of the NEWS file is below.
>
> As far as I can tell, the documentation and code have both hit the
> freeze point.
>
> So, why do a beta release? So that you, yes you, the end user, can see
> if anything I've done breaks gawk for you. Then you can TELL ME ABOUT
> IT so that I can fix it for the final release.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Arnold Robbins
> arn...@skeeve.com
> ---------------------------------------------
> Copyright (C) 2019, 2020, 2021 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
>
> Copying and distribution of this file, with or without modification,
> are permitted in any medium without royalty provided the copyright
> notice and this notice are preserved.
>
> Changes from 5.1.0 to 5.1.1
> ---------------------------
>
> 1. Infrastructure upgrades: Bison 3.8, Gettext 0.20.2, Automake 1.16.4,
> and (will wonders never cease) Autoconf 2.71.
>
> 2. asort and asorti now allow FUNCTAB and SYMTAB as the first argument if a
> second destination array is supplied. Similarly, using either array as
> the second argument is now a fatal error. Additionally, using either
> array as the destination for split(), match(), etc. also causes a
> fatal error.
>
> 3. The new -I/--trace option prints a trace of the byte codes as they
> are executed.
>
> 4. A number of subtle bugs relating to MPFR mode that caused differences
> between regular operation and MPFR mode have been fixed.
>
> 5. The API now handles MPFR/GMP values slightly differently, requiring
> different memory management for those values. See the manual for the
> details if you have an extension using those values. As a result,
> the minor version was incremented.
>
> 6. $0 and the fields are now cleared before starting a BEGINFILE rule.
>
> 7. The duplication of m4 and build-aux directories between the main
> directory and the extension directory has been removed. This
> simplifies the distribution.
>
> 8. The test suite has been improved, making it easier to run the entire
> suite with -M. Use `GAWK_TEST_ARGS=-M make check' to do so.
>
> 9. Profiling and pretty-printing output has been modified slightly so
> that functions are presented in a reasonable order with respect
> to the namespaces that contain them.
>
> 10. Several example programs in the manual have been updated to their
> modern POSIX equivalents.
>
> 11. Handling of Infinity and NaN values has been improved.
>
> 12. There has been a general tightening up of the use of const and
> of types.
>
> 13. The "no effect" lint warnings have been fixed up and now behave
> more sanely.
>
> 14. The manual has been updated with much more information about what is
> and is not a bug, and the changes in the gawk mailing lists.
>
> 15. Similar to item #4 above, division by zero is now fatal in MPFR
> mode, as it is in regular mode.
>
> 16. There have been numerous minor code cleanups and bug fixes. See the
> ChangeLog for details.
> --
> Aharon (Arnold) Robbins arnold AT skeeve DOT com

Thanks Arnold and the team for your continuous work with gawk! As it being my preferred tool, I appreciate the regular updates, upgrades and the new great features of gawk!

On Sunday, 19 September 2021 at 06:22:24 UTC-4, Arnold Robbins wrote:
> This note is to announce the BETA release of GNU Awk 5.1.1.
> --
> Aharon (Arnold) Robbins arnold AT skeeve DOT com

Many thanks to A.R. and entire Gawk development team!

On Monday, 20 September 2021 at 01:44:34 UTC-4, J Naman wrote:
> On Sunday, 19 September 2021 at 06:22:24 UTC-4, Arnold Robbins wrote:
> > This note is to announce the BETA release of GNU Awk 5.1.1.
> > --
> > Aharon (Arnold) Robbins arnold AT skeeve DOT com

If anyone cares, I built and now run Gawk5.1.1f on Windows 10 x86_64-bit, which, for me, is a step up from the 32-bit Windows32 ports (which I use on 5 PCs locally). Gawk5.1.1f was built and used 'out of the box' on Windows WSL2 DISTRO_NAME='Ubuntu-20.04'. I love being able to invoke Ubuntu commands and tools from Win10 and vice versa. Most of my text data lives on the Windows file system. Note: this isn't a cross-compile, it is a Ubuntu build.
There are some requirements that older, smaller systems might not meet. WSL requires virtualization be turned on in BIOS/UEFI, recent CPU, latest version of Win 10, etc.

The Cygwin 64-bit version also was "built and used 'out of the box'", as described in the User’s Guide for GNU Awk. It works well, but is more difficult (for me) to easily deal with the Win & Cygwin file systems.