Drop win32-specific asprintf implementation (#1246)

[thirdparty/rrdtool-1.x.git] / NEWS

#####################################
Major Changes between 1.5.x and 1.6.x
-------------------------------------
API
---
* librrd_th is gone. librrd is now fully thread-safe

RRD Graph
---------
* new CDEF function SMIN: a,b,c,3,SMIN -> min(a,b,c)
* new CDEF function SMAX: a,b,c,3,SMAX -> max(a,b,c)
* new CDEF function STDEV: a,b,c,3,STDEV -> stdev(a,b,c)
* new CDEF function POW: a,b,POW -> a**b
* new CDEF function PERCENT: a,b,c,95,3,PERCENT -> find 95percentile of a,b,c

#####################################
Major Changes between 1.4.x and 1.5.x
-------------------------------------

RRD Graph
---------
* Ability to use data from a callback function to supply data
  for graphs. With perl bindings for writing the callbacks in perl.

* Second color option for AREAs causing a gradient effect
  by Rian Shelley

* RRDcached awareness. Instead of just flushing the file, data can now
  be pulled in from remote RRDcached instances.

* VDEF results do now explicitly KNOW when they have no time associated
  and can behave appropriately. -- Jean-Edouard Babin

RRDcreate
---------
Ability to use exiting rrd files to pre-populate new ones. Allowing to
preserve data even when fundamentally changing the structure of your rrd
files.

RRDcached
----------
* New FETCH command allowing rrd_fetch to operate through the daemon and
  thus work remotely. By Florian Forster

* New rrd_client commands INFO, FIRST, LAST, CREATE by Steve Shipway

API
---
* exported rrd_update_v_r for theadsave rrd_update calls

libDBI
------
* make rrdfillmissing actually work. The parameter is now in seconds and not
  in steps for ease of use by Hans J�rgen Jakobsen

Bindings
--------
* dotnet by  Chris Larsen of Euphoria Audio


#####################################
Major Changes between 1.3.x and 1.4.x
-------------------------------------

RRD Caching Daemon (rrdcached)
------------------------------
by Florian Forster and Kevin Brintnall

The RRD Caching Daemon can dramatically improve the 'update' performance
of your system.  Due to file handling overheads, the time it takes todo one
update is virtually the same as to doing two updates in a row.

The Cache Daemon intercepts rrdtool update calls, assembling multiple
updates before writing them to the actual rrd file. When calling rrdtool
graph in such a setup, the command will tell the daemon to flush out all
pending updates for the rrd files, required to draw the graph.

See rrdcached documentation.

RRD Dumping and Restoring (rrdtool dump/restore)
------------------------------------------------
by Tobi Oetiker

The output of rrdtool dump has been adjusted to be simpler to parse by
existing xml parsers.

The restore core has been completely re-written yet again and is now relying
on an incremental xml parser. This has the advantage that the memory
consumption while restoring xml files is only slightly larger than the
resulting rrd file. Which is much less than the requirements of the 1.3 and
even 1.2

RRD Graphing functions (rrdtool graph)
--------------------------------------
by Martin Sperl

* VDEF PERCENTNAN (a PRECENT that ignores NAN)

* CDEF PREDICT and PREDICTSIGMA functions for on-the-fly
  data prediction without the need to modify existing rrd files as it is
  required for HoltWinters.

* LibDBI integration provides a path to read data directly of a supported
  SQL database into rrdtool graph. See rrdgraph_libdbi documentation.

Miscellaneous Changes
---------------------
* graph legends can now be placed left, right or above the graph with the
  new --legend-direction and --legend-positon placement options.
  by Melchior Rabe

* switched to using automake 1.11 which provides a 'silent' build process,
  causing errors and warnings to stand out much more than before.
  by Tobi Oetiker

* switched from intltoolize to autopoint for the i18n configuration.
  by Tobi Oetiker

* new graph option --grid-dash on:off to configure the dash length
  in the grid painted over the graph by Tobi Oetiker

* lua bindings for rrdtool
  by Fidelis Assis

* various improvements to rrd_open functions and mmap handling
  by Daniel Pocock

* allow the HW smoothing window size to be set to 0 with rrdtool tune
  by sylvain luiset

* new graph option --border to set the 3d border width
  by Bernhard Reutner-Fischer

* draw different color markers (enable with --dynamic-labels) depending on the
  type of element in the graph by Lo�c Tortay

for more detail see the CHANGES file.

#####################################
Major Changes between 1.2.x and 1.3.x
-------------------------------------

NEW Fast file access methods (Bernhard Fischer / Tobi Oetiker)
----------------------------
* introduced file-accessor functions rrd_read/rrd_seek/rrd_write

* implemented full mmap-based file access with madvise hints for
  improved scalability, much reduced memory-footprint and much less
  blocking while accessing the disk

* implemented optional full file-descriptor access instead of FILE*
  access

NEW Graphing (Tobi Oetiker)
------------
* libart has been replaced by cairo/pango

* pango markup is supported (--pango-markup)

* full grid fitting

* --graph-render-mode=mono for non anti aliased graphing

* --font-render-mode=mono for non anti aliased fonts

* fonts come through fontconfig, use the Pango font naming scheme
  -> 'Times 20' ... it is not possible to use true-type fonts
  directly anymore.

* Tabs are position independent.

* TRENDNAN filter that ignores NAN values while calculating the
  TREND data. (Timo Stripf)

* --full-size-mode to specify the outer border of the image and not
  just of the graphing canvas (Matthew Chambers)

* TEXTALIGN command to alter default text alignment behavior

* C API in-memory graphing with rrd_graph_v (Evan Miller)

* draw dashed lines in graphs (Thomas Gutzler)

* new interface graphv which returns information using the rrd_info
  interface (Tobi Oetiker and Mark Plaksin)

* improved horizontal grid. Have a bit more grid lines and y-axis
  labels while keeping them far enough apart to not run into each
  other.

NEW Forecasting (Evan Miller)
---------------
* the new MHWPREDICT consolidation function uses a variation of the
  Holt-Winters method. It is a drop-in replacement for HWPREDICT,
  and is better suited for data whose seasonal variations grow or
  shrink in proportion to the average.

* If you create an RRD with the new MHWPREDICT function, the
  resulting rrd file will be version 0004 and can only be used in
  rrdtool 1.3.

Rewrites
--------
* rrd_restore now uses libxml for parsing which makes things much
  more tolerant towards xml variations. The old code could mostly
  just parse the XML as it was output by rrdtool dump. See also:
  the note at the bottom of this document. (by Florian octo
  Forster)

* rrd_update rewritten to make it more modular. Fixed two
  longstanding HW bugs in the process (Evan Miller)

Internationalization (Takao Fujiwara and Tobi Oetiker)
--------------------
* The help output by rrdtool has been internationalized. There are
  no real translations included with rrdtool yet, contributions are
  welcome.

* The internationalization will only be compiled if libintl and
  friends are available on your system. Use the configure option
  --disable-libintl if you want to disable this feature

Language Bindings
-----------------
* ruby rrd_fetch will return step as a last property -- Mike Perham

RRDtool dump / restore incompatibility
--------------------------------------
* rrdtool dump 1.3 does emit completely legal XML. Basically this
  means that it contains an XML header and a DOCTYPE definition.
  Unfortunately this causes older versions of rrdtool restore to be
  unhappy.

* To restore a new dump with an old rrdtool restore version, either
  remove the XML header and the doctype by hand (both on the first
  line of the dump) or use rrdtool dump --no-header.


######################################################################################
Major Changes between 1.0.x and 1.2.x
======================================================================================
Graphing
--------

* rewritten graphics generation based on libart.
  - anti-aliased output
  - alpha transparency support
  - truetype fonts

* additional graphics formats: EPS, PDF, SVG

* extended multi-part documentation

* VDEF support; define and use variables.  Find, and use, the
  maximum rate seen by rrdtool; compute and show the average

* Sliding window (trend) analysis
  Compute a smoother average, for instance over the last 6 CDPs

* percentile (95th or other)
  Remove peaks, 95 percent of all rates are at or below the
  returned value

Logging
-------
* a second logging interface: rrdtool updatev
  Verbose updating of the database; show CPDs being created

* Aberrant Behavior Detection with Holt-Winters Forecasting
  Compare current data with expected data, detect and log when
  the rates are outside expected levels

* COMPUTE data type for artificial data-sources calculating their
  input using RPN math and data from the other data-sources.

Incompatibilities
-----------------
* Colons in COMMENT arguments to rrdtool graph must be escaped with a backslash

* the --alt-y-mrtg option is gone or rather since 1.2.7 it is back but
  without functionality.

* In pipe mode, rrdtool answers with OK only if it was successful with the
  command. Otherwise the answer will be ERROR...


Behind the Scenes
-----------------
* In order to support Holt-Winters and Calculated Datasources,
  the rrdtool data format has changed. While the new version of rrdtool can
  read files created with rrdtool 1.0.x. It is not possible to read files
  created by rrdtool-1.2.x with rrdtool-1.0.x

* External libraries are not included with rrdtool anymore. This is in line
  with todays trend of using shared libraries everywhere. With the exception
  of the cgi library most things required by rrdtool will be found on every recent
  system.

* Memory Mapped IO support for faster logging.