[GAP Forum] Bugfix/Upgrade GAP 4.4.2 to 4.4.3

[Alexander Hulpke]

Dear GAP-Forum,

We are happy to announce the release of teh first bugfix for GAP 4.4 that
will upgrade the release to version 4.4.3. The release announcement,
including installation instructions and a list of the errors fixed, is
attached.

For those of you who have been using prior releases of GAP, let me add a few
remarks about small changes we have made with release 4.4:

- Bugfixes now increment the sub-version number, so instead of 4r4fix3, the
  version is called 4r4p3. However the process of installing the fix is the
  same as with previous versions.

- The only exception to this is that now the Windows binary and (in the .zoo
  archive) the MacOS binary are included in the same archive. If you are
  using GAP on another architecture you can of course delete these binaries
  and recover 2 or 3 MB of memory.

- To ease installation for persons who install GAP only after a bugfix is
  released we will also update the main GAP archive (in this case to
  gap4r4p3) to include the bugfix. Installing a previous archive and a fix,
  or installing the new archive will produce exactly the same files. (Thus
  in particular, the manual in gap4r4p3 still lists 4.4.2, as we usually do
  not update the manual with bugfixes.)

- Packages, as before, are updated by the respective authors. You will find
  the most recent versions on the GAP webpages (as single packages as well
  as a uniform archive `packages-...').

We hope that these changes will make installing and updating GAP easier.

Best wishes,

   Alexander Hulpke

-- Colorado State University, Department of Mathematics,
Weber Building, 1874 Campus Delivery, Fort Collins, CO 80523-1874, USA
email: hulpke at math.colostate.edu, Phone: ++1-970-4914288
http://www.math.colostate.edu/~hulpke

=============================================================================

Bugfix Announcement:


This is to announce a bugfix that updates GAP 4.4.2 to GAP 4.4.3 .
The priority of this fix is high.

You should not apply this fix to any version of GAP before GAP 4.4. (If you
run such an old version, please update to GAP 4.4 as release 4.4 corrects
many problems.)
GAP Bugfixes now are comprehensive. If you forgot to install prior bugfixes,
you do only need to install this, and no prior ones. If you did not yet
install GAP 4.4 you only need to install GAP 4.4.3 which will incorporate
this bugfix.

This fix corrects:

1) Problems with the online help with some manual sections.
2) Problems of the online help on Windows systems.
3) A problem in GQuotients when mapping from a finitely presented group
   which has a free direct factor.
4) The function `DisplayRevision'
5) The trivial finitely presented group on no generators was not recognized
   as finitely presented.
6) A problem with `Process'.
7) A problem when intersecting subgroups of finitely presented groups that
   are represented in ``quotient representation'' with the quotient not a
   permutation group.
8) A bug in the generic `Intersection2' method for vector spaces, in the
   case that both spaces are trivial.
9) Correct setting of system variables (e.g., home directory and command
   line options) after loading a workspace.
10) Enable ReeGroup(q) for q = 3.
11) A problem in the installation of the multiplication routine for matrices
    that claimed to be applicable for more general list multiplications.
12) A problem when computing weight distributions of codes with weights > 2^28
13) Wrong handling of integer literals within functions or loops on 64bit 
    architectures (only integers in the range from 2^28 to 2^60).

Errors 1,3,4,5,6,7,8 and 10 may cause GAP to stop with an error message.
Error 2 caused the Windows version not to display the online help properly.
Error 9 caused GAP to use wrong system variables after loading a workspace.
Errors 11 and 12 could cause GAP to crash in very rare circumstances.
Error 13 caused GAP to compute with wrong integers (only on 64bit and in the
  special situation mentioned above).

Many thanks to: Frank Heckenbach for reporting error 6.
Chris Wensley for reporting problem 13.

     Installing the bugfix.
     ======================

Load the zoo archive `fix4r4p3.zoo' (or respectively other formats) from the
bugfixes web page http://www.gap-system.org/tmpsite/Download/upgrade.html

Alternatively you can find this file in the `bugfixes' directory of the GAP4
ftp distribution.

Unpack the file in the home directory of your GAP distribution (the
directory containing the `lib' and `grp' directories), for example by
using `unzoo -x fix4r4p3.zoo' if you use the `zoo' archive.
The archive uncompressor program may ask you for permissions to overwrite files,
answer this with Y)es or A)ll. This will replace the erroneous files by
fixed versions.

(Under Windows or MacOS you will have to copy `unzoo' in the same directory
and enter the argument line after the call to `unzoo'.)

Make sure you have write permissions when applying the fix.

This fix changes the kernel. You have to recompile by calling `make' in the
directory in which you unpacked the fix.

Windows users will find a new binary as `bin/gapw95.exe' in the archive.

MacOS users must use the `zoo' archive and will find a new binary
in the root directory.

After installing the bugfix you can test whether the bugfix has been applied
correctly by starting GAP from the `gap4r4' directory and issuing

gap> ReadTest("tst/bugfix.tst");
+ bugfixes test
+ GAP4stones: 163
true

(The output should be like this if the bugfixes have been installed
correctly. The number of GAP4stones may vary according to your system.)

Running this test is not a necessary part of installing a bug fix, but only
serves as a confirmation that everything went well. The test might run for
a long time and GAP will not output information while running. Note that it
is not possible to run the test twice without restarting GAP and that an
interruption of the test with CTRL-C will produce lots of (harmless) error
messages.

You can remove this file `description3' afterwards.

  The GAP Group