Copyright (C) 2005, 2006, 2010 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
  
  Copying and distribution of this file, with or without modification,
  are permitted in any medium without royalty provided the copyright
  notice and this notice are preserved.

This file lists future projects and enhancements for gawk.  Items are listed
in roughly the order they will be done for a given release.  This file is
mainly for use by the developers to help keep themselves on track, please
don't bug us too much about schedules or what all this really means.

With the 3.0 release, we are acknowledging that awk is not PERL, nor should
it become PERL.  (To paraphrase Dennis Ritchie, "If you want PERL, you
know where to get it.")

The focus on the future is thus narrowed to performance and functional
enhancements, with only minor plans for significant new features.

(OK, so 3.1 had a bad case of feature-itis.  I think I'm mostly over it
now, though. :-)

For 3.1.8 + bytecode
====================
	DONE: Performance fixes / improvements

	DONE: Change @sourcefile to @include per awk.info poll

	DONE: Document @include

	DONE: Update copyrights

	DONE: Document dgawk

For 4.0
=======
	DONE: Add a single letter option for all long options & document them.

	DONE: Add an FPAT variable and patsplit function where the regex
	describes the fields, not the separators.

	DONE: Remove support for all unsupported systems.

	DONE: Remove all old README* files.

	DONE: Remove --copyleft, leaving just --copyright.

	DONE: Enable \s, \S in regexes (regcomp.c and dfa.c) and document them.

	DONE: Integrate byte code changes and dgawk
		Indirect functions
		BEGINFILE, ENDFILE

	DONE: Simplify awk.h.

	Consider moving var_value info into Node_var itself
	to reduce memory usage.

	Consider removing use of and/or need for the protos.h file.

	DONE: Make POSIX 2001 behavior the default for sub/gsub.

	DONE: Add IPv6 support.

	DONE: Add true multidimensional arrays.

	Gnulib?

	DONE: Move to git.

	Additional manual features:
		Remove all page breaks
		Review internal notes about reorganization
		DONE: Full front to back read through - before editing
		Full front to back read through - after editing

For 4.1
=======
	Implement designed API for loadable modules

	Merge xmlgawk -l feature

	Merge xmlgawk XML extensions

	Redo the loadable modules interface from the awk level.

	Rework management of array index storage. (Partially DONE.)

	DBM storage of awk arrays. Try to allow multiple dbm packages.

	? Move the loadable modules interface to libtool.

	? Add an optional base to strtonum, allowing 2-36.

	? Optional third argument for index indicating where to start the
	search.

	?? A RECLEN variable for fixed-length record input. PROCINFO["RS"]
	would be "RS" or "RECLEN" depending upon what's in use.

	?? Use a new or improved dfa and/or regex library.

For 4.x:
========
	Look at ISO C 99 printf features.

Probably never:
===============
	Do an optimization pass over parse tree?

	Consider integrating Fred Fish's DBUG library into gawk.

	Make 	awk '/foo/' files...	run at egrep speeds (how?)

	? Have strftime() pay attention to the value of ENVIRON["TZ"]

	Add a lint check if the return value of a function is used but
	the function did not supply a value.

	Additional manual features:
		? A section on where gawk is bounded
			regex
			i/o
			sun fp conversions