[Remind-Fans] Remind 05.00.00-BETA-1 is available

[Dianne Skoll]

Hi, all,

Remind 05.00.00-BETA-1 is available from https://dianne.skoll.ca/projects/remind/

Tar: https://dianne.skoll.ca/projects/remind/download/remind-05.00.00-BETA-1.tar.gz
GPG: https://dianne.skoll.ca/projects/remind/download/remind-05.00.00-BETA-1.tar.gz.sig

The standout change in this release is the complete replacement of the
expression evaluation code with a new expression-evaluation engine.
Testers would be appreciated to make sure no reminder files are broken
by the new expression engine.  If you try out the beta and everything
works fine, please don't post on the list... just reach out to me
directly if something is broken.

Complete release notes follow.

Regards,

Dianne.

CHANGES TO REMIND

* VERSION 5.0 Patch 0 - 2024-??-??

* MAJOR CHANGE: The expression evaluation engine has been completely replaced
  with a new one that splits parsing and evaluating into two separate steps.
  It also features short-circuit evaluation of &&, ||, iif() and choose().
  This should speed up expression-heavy reminder files.

  NOTE INCOMPATIBILITY: In expressions with side-effects, the short-circuit
  evaluation might change the result you get.  For example, consider
  running the following file through: remind file.rem 2024-06-04

    SET a trig("Mon +7") || trig("Thu +7")
    MSG trig = [trig()]

  Older Remind versions will output:

    trig = 2024-06-06

  whereas this version outputs:

    trig = 2024-06-10

  because the second part of the "||" expression is not evaluated.  The vast
  majority of Remind expressions do not have side-effects and should yield
  the same results as before.

  The newer expression engine also permits recursive functions, but
  these are not recommended.  Still, if you want to, you can do:

    fset factorial(n) iif(n <= 1, 1, n*factorial(n-1))

  and it will work for values of n that don't cause integer overflow.

* NEW FEATURE: Add EXPR OFF command to completely disable expression
  evaluation.  Useful if you INCLUDE files that you don't expect to
  contain expressions and may come from slightly untrustworthy sources.

* NEW FEATURE: Add $ExpressionTimeLimit system variable to enforce a
  maximum limit on how long evaluating an expression is allowed to take.

* NEW FEATURE: Add --max-execution-time=n command-line option to terminate
  Remind if it runs for more than n seconds.

* CHANGE: Make the command-line option "-ifoo" equivalent to "-ifoo=0"

* CHANGE: Permit a literal [ in a reminder by using the sequence [[
  The old ["["] still works.

* BUG FIX: In "purge" mode, Remind would sometimes purge reminders with
  a relative "SCANFROM" which haven't actually expired.  This has been fixed.

* BUG FIX: Disallow something like: FSET func(x, x) expr
  which shouldn't have been allowed in the first place.

* BUG FIX: Replace leading spaces with tabs in Makefiles (per Emanuele Torre
  and Tim Chase)

* VERSION 4.3 Patch 7 - 2024-04-29
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