[Lrde Annonce] Vcsn 2.4

16 Nov 2016

      The Vcsn team is proud to announce the release of Vcsn 2.4, code-named "the
quotient tools"!

Noteworthy changes include, besides a few bug fixes:

- full support for quotient operators on all entities: labels, expressions,
  automata, expansions, etc.

    In [2]: c = vcsn.context('lan, q')
       ...: c
    Out[2]: {...}? -> Q

    In [3]: label = vcsn.context('law, q').label
       ...: label('abc') / label('c')
    Out[3]: ab

    In [4]: exp = c.expression

    In [5]: exp('ab').ldivide(exp('ab*c'))
    Out[5]: ab{\}ab*c

    In [6]: e = exp('ab').ldivide(exp('ab*c'))
       ...: e
    Out[6]: ab{\}ab*c

    In [7]: e.automaton().expression()
    Out[7]: b*c

  Operators {\} (left quotient) and {/} (right quotient) are available in
  the rational expressions:

    In [8]: e = exp('ab {\} abc*')
       ...: e
    Out[8]: ab{\}abc*

    In [9]: e.expansion()
    Out[9]: \e.[b{\}bc*]

    In [10]: e.derived_term().expression()
    Out[10]: c*

    In [11]: e.inductive().expression()
    Out[11]: \e+cc*

- an overhaul of the "Vcsn Tools" (previously known as TAF-Kit).  Because
  the tools are now automatically generated, they are much more extensive
  than previously: (almost) all of the dyn algorithms are now available from
  the shell.  It now also supports the 'daut' format for automata.

    $ vcsn thompson -Ee '[ab]*c' | vcsn proper | vcsn determinize | vcsn minimize | vcsn to-expression
    (a+b)*c

    $ vcsn random-expression -C 'lal(abc), z' '+, ., w., length=20, w="min=-2, max=10"'
    (a+<2>(ac)+<5>(acca))a

- an new method to construct an automaton from an extended expression:
  `expression.inductive`.  This provides an alternative to
  `expression.derived_term`.  Currently provides a single flavor: generation
  of standard automata.

    In [2]: vcsn.B.expression('! [ab]*a[ab]*').inductive().expression()
    Out[2]: \e+bb*

    In [3]: vcsn.B.expression('! [ab]*a[ab]*').automaton().expression()
    Out[3]: b*

- `automaton.evaluate` works properly on non-free automata, including
  multitape automata:

    In [2]: c = vcsn.context('lan(a-z), nmin')
            a = (c|c).levenshtein()
            a('foo|bar')
    Out[2]: 3

- input/output support for FAdo's format for transducers, and improved
  compatibility with OpenFST.

For more information, please visit http://vcsn.lrde.epita.fr, in
particular https://vcsn.lrde.epita.fr/Vcsn2.4.  Packages of Vcsn 2.4 should
appear soon on various distributions (MacPorts, Debian, ArchLinux, Docker Hub).
Vcsn 2.4 is also available online, at http://vcsn-sandbox.lrde.epita.fr.

People who worked on this release:

- Akim Demaille
- Clément Gillard
- Lucien Boillod
- Sarasvati Moutoucomarapoulé
- Sébastien Piat
- Younes Khoudli

People who have influenced this release:

- Alexandre Duret-Lutz
- Jacques Sakarovitch
- Luca Saiu
- Sylvain Lombardy