Scilab 6.0 is a major new release of Scilab, the open source platform for numerical computation. This 6.0.0 beta 2 is a release candidate for all users, commercial as well as community.
As a beta, this release is a preview of what will be present in Scilab 6.0.0. If you are already a Scilab user: helping us testing it, and reporting bugs, can be your great contribution to the Scilab community, to ensure it continues to be free and open-source. If you have developed code on Scilab, or if you are an experienced user, then this the moment to start upgrading your code, and report any issue, bugs or incompatibilities, on our Bug Tracker: we will try to address them before the final 6.0.0 release.
This release includes a major rewrite of Scilab's internal core, for better usability and performance: the changes to the visible aspects of the software are limited.
The first big internal change, is a complete new language parser and interpreter, with the following changes:
The language changes are not all backward compatible. You will have to update your scripts/programs/modules, but it will be very simple in pretty much all cases. In particular, the following changes may require modifications to existing code:
The second big internal change, is the ability to manipulate bigger data sets, without exhausting system resources. This includes in particular:
Xcos - the graphical tool for dynamic systems modeling and simulation - also uses the new re-written Scilab engine, and is now running in native code, which should provide much better performance as well as support for much bigger models. Xcos can load and run models created with earlier versions of Scilab.
This release includes also several features to write better and more efficient Scilab scripts:
covStart(isempty) // starts profiling the "isempty" macro; // profiling a whole library can be done // with: covStart("elementary_functions") for i=1:1e5; isempty(i); end // execute some code - this will be profiled covWrite("html", "TMPDIR/coverage") // writes the profiling/coverage report // as "report.html" in the "TMPDIR/coverage" folder covStop(); // stop profiling
slint("<sci_filename>")
A new view is available in the visual environment of Scilab: the "Newsfeed". It provides a continuous feed of news, tips, and general communication from the community and from the Scilab Team. This is technical and or/professional information, about usage of Scilab, help for specific features, usage examples... We may include some professional information from the Scilab Team, only information directly useful to the user. We see it as way to create an open line of communication with (and between) the users.
Scilab is now released under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL) v2.0, which you can find in the COPYING file at the root folder of this distribution. Prior to this version, Scilab was licensed under the terms of the CeCILL v2.1, and continues to be available under such terms, which you can find in the same COPYING file. This change has been made pursuant to article 3.5.4 of the CeCILL v2.1.
In this version, the Intel Math Kernel Library and the FFTW library optimized by Intel Math Kernel Library are included in Scilab. They are subject to the Intel EULA.
This might probably be the last Scilab 6.0.0 pre-release and it is available to ease toolbox developers transition. Both API and ABI are stable and external modules could be ported using this release.
Scilab 6 is still in a beta stage and likely to contain a number of known or unknown bugs (especially memory leaks). Do not hesitate to report them.
Toolboxes rebuild is in progress. Do not hesitate to submit patch or feature upgrade to the development mailing list for a particular toolbox.
All functionalities of Scilab are present on all platforms, with a few exceptions:
For a precise list of changes (in particular, bug fixes) between the 5.5.2 release and the 6.0.0 beta 2 release, please see the CHANGES file.
If you are new to Scilab, please use the Scilab beginners tutorial and Xcos beginners tutorial provided by the Scilab Team.
The Scilab Team provides also some documentation and tutorials.
Scilab Homepage - Consult Scilab official website
Wiki - Consult documentations, tricks, etc.
Bug Tracker - Report bugs and wishes about Scilab
Forge - Browse and publish Scilab modules
Mailing Lists - Communicate and exchange with the community
ATOMS - Browse Scilab packaged modules
File Exchange - Exchange your scripts, results and files.
Scilab.io - Use cases, tutorials and professional services.