4.2.0 released

[Peter Stephenson <pws@xxxxxxx>]

Version 4.2.0 of zsh is now on the web site at ftp.zsh.org and I will
upload it to Sourceforge later day if nothing seems to be catastrophically
wrong.

Thanks to everyone who worked on this.

In case you haven't been following, the entry from the NEWS file is
below.

The biggest priority now is UTF8 support, but I don't know who, if
anyone, is actually going to be working on this.


New features between zsh versions 4.0 and 4.2
---------------------------------------------

Configuration:
- upgraded to use autoconf post-2.50
- improved compatibility with other shells through shell options,
  builtin arguments and improved builtin option parsing

Syntax and builtins:
- new printf builtin
- `+=' to append to parameters which works for scalars, arrays and (with
  pairs) associative arrays.
- enhanced multiple parameter `for' loops:
    for key value in key1 value1 key2 value2 ...
  maintaining full compatibility with POSIX syntax.
- Suffix aliases allow the shell to run a command on a file by suffix,
  e.g `alias -s ps=gv' makes `foo.ps' execute `gv foo.ps'.  Supplied
  function zsh-mime-setup uses existing mailcap and mime.types files
  to set up suitable aliases.  Supplied function pick-web-browser is
  suitable for finding a browser to show .html etc. files by suffix alias.
- new option `no_case_glob' for case-insensitive globbing.

Add-on modules and functions:
- zsh/datetime modules makes date formatting and seconds since EPOCH
  available inside the shell.
- zsh/net/tcp module provides builtin interface to TCP through ztcp
  builtin.  Function suite for interactive and script use with expect-style
  pattern matching.
- zsh/net/socket module provides zsocket builtin.
- zcalc calculator function with full line editing.
- builtin interface to pcre library
- zsh/zselect module provides zselect builtin as interface to select
  system call

Completion system:
- general improvements to command and context support, low-level functions,
  display code.
- in verbose mode, matches with the same description are grouped
- highly configurable completions for values of specific parameters,
  specific redirections for specific commands
- support for bash completion functions (typically zsh native functions are
  more powerful where available)
- New completions provided for (some of these may be in later 4.0
  releases):  valgrind, tidy, texinfo, infocmp, Java classes, larch, limit,
  locale parameters, netcat, mysqldiff, mt, lsof, elinks, ant, debchange
  (dch), email addresses, file system types, Perforce, xsltproc.
  Plus many others.

Line editor:
- special parameters $PREDISPLAY, $POSTDISPLAY available in function
  widgets to configure uneditable text (for narrowing)
- recursive editing
- supplied widgets read-from-minibuffer, replace-string use these features
  (more intuitive prompting and argument reading than 4.0)
- access to killed text via $CUTBUFFER and $killring
- supplied highly configurable word widgets forward-word-match etc., can
  set what constitutes a word interactively or in startup script
  (implement bash-style behaviour, replacing previous bash-* word widgets)
- interface to incremental search via $LASTSEARCH
- better handling of keymaps in zle and widgets
- better support for output from user-defined widgets while zle is active
- tetris game which runs entirely in zle
- several other contributed widgets

Local internal improvements:
- disowned jobs are automatically restarted
- \u and \U print escapes for Unicode
- read -d <delimiter> allows a custom line ending.
- read -t <timeout>.
- line numbers in error messages and $PS4 output are more consistent
- `=prog' expands only paths, no longer aliases for consistency
- job display in prompts; `jobs' command output can be piped
- prompts: new $RPROMPT2, %^, %j, %y, enhanced %{, %}, %_.
- rand48() function in zsh/mathfunc for better randomness in arithmetic
  (if the corresponding math library function is present)
- $SECONDS parameter can be made floating point via `typeset -F SECONDS'
  for better timing accuracy
- improvements to command line history mechanism
- job table is dynamically sized, preventing overflow (typically seen
  previously in complex completions).
- many bugfixes

-- 
Peter Stephenson <pws@xxxxxxx>                  Software Engineer
CSR Ltd., Science Park, Milton Road,
Cambridge, CB4 0WH, UK                          Tel: +44 (0)1223 692070


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