Analytica 4.0 beta Release Notes

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The following Release Notes apply to Build 4.0.0.37.

Installation Notes

  • You can install Analytica 4.0 beta while retaining an existing Analytica 3.1. Both can co-exist. After installing 4.0, the .ana file extension and OLE linking will use Analytica 4.0. So, a double-click on a model will run it in 4.0. If you want to run a model with 3.1, start up Analytica 3.1, and use the Open Model.. option from the File menu to select the model.
  • After installing 4.0, if you uninstall Analytica 3.0 or 3.1 it will wipe out the 4.0 registry tree. So, you will need to re-run the 4.0 installer.

Using Models from Analytica 3.1

Most models created in Analyica 3.1 should load and evaluate fine in 4.0. We hope beta testers will validate that 4.0 works with their pre-existing models and computes the same results (unless there is a good reason why the result should be different). Note that there are a couple areas where results are expected to be different:

  • Graphing: Many Graph Setup settings will not transfer to 4.0. For example, axis range settings are structured entirely differently in 4.0. So, some tweaking of graphs is to be expected.
  • Multiplication of 0*NaN and 0*INF: The results of multiplying a value by zero when that value is INF, -INF or NaN has changed from 3.1 to 4.0. Analytica 4.0 is now in accordance with the IEEE 754 Binary Floating Point Arithmetic standard, so that 0*NaN or 0*INF results in NaN. In 3.1 the result was zero. If your model took advantage of the old behavior to zero out NaNs or INFs, you may find many NaNs or Nulls in downstream results that were not there in 3.1. We advise keeping the "Show result warnings" preference on since a warning is issued if your model relies on the old behavior, and will pinpoint where this is occurring.

A more comprehensive set of issues is maintained at Changes in 4.0 that could impact 3.x models.

Not Working

  • Printing and Print Preview are not working well. We advise not printing for now, and we do not need you to report bugs related to printing or previewing at this time.
  • There may be some problems saving models in XML format, especially related to system variable settings. For important stuff, it is safest to stick with the default Analytica file format for now.

Changes in 4.0.0.39

Various minor bug fixes are not listed here.

Tables

  • Build 4.0.0.38 (and build 4.0.0.37 to a lesser extent) had a problem where commas would be inserted into table definitions after editing an edit table. If you made changes to edit tables using 4.0.0.38 or 4.0.0.37, you might need to remove these from the expr definition view. Two manifestations of this might have occurred:
Table(I)(12,45,22,33,,45,33,22,)
                     ^        ^

Note the double comma and the extra comma at the end. If these occurred, manually remove them from expr view in the definition pane, e.g. to get: 

Table(I)(12,45,22,33,45,33,22)

Recovery

The file path of the recovery file was added to the recovery dialog that appears when you restart Analyica following a crash or abnormal termination. This makes it easier to find if you need to send us the autosave file in a bug report, or if you need to edit it (in the event that an operation recorded in the recovery file is causing the crash).

Functions

  • GetProcessInfo: New function added. GetProcessInfo("Process ID") returns the Process ID, or PID, of the Analytica or ADE process. Primarily of use for ADE.exe users.

Graphing

  • When rendering a graph takes a very long time (e.g., a graph with a million data points), pressing Ctrl-Break aborts the rendering process and jumps to table view. A new message appears in the result window indicating this.

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