Release 8.2.0

8.2.0

Release Date : 01-07-2022

What's New

• Allow multiple BEFORE/AFTER blocks of same type in a MOD file. #1722
• Several documentation updates, including randomness in NEURON models #1727,
  NEURON course exercise sets from 2018 #1735 and publications using NEURON #1819.
• CMake: improved documentation targets. (#1725)

Breaking Changes

• Support for Python 3.6 was dropped, as it has reached end-of-life (#1733).
• In this release, more declarations of NEURON methods (typically nrn_ and
  hoc_ functions) are implicitly included in translated MOD files. This can
  cause compilation errors with MOD files that include incorrect declarations
  of these methods in VERBATIM blocks. (#1755, #1811, #1825).
• Declaring STATE variables as GLOBAL is now disallowed. (#1723)

Deprecations & future changes

• NEURON is in the process of being fully migrated to a C++ codebase.
  Starting with next major release 9.0.0, MOD files will be converted to C++ instead of C.
  This will break compatibility with some legacy MOD files containing VERBATIM blocks and code may have to be updated
  given that some valid C code is not valid C++.
  A migration guide
  is being compiled in the latest online documentation (note that it may change post release).
• Random123 will be the default random number generator in NEURON and most of the random number distributions implementations will be
  replaced by those in the C++ standard library, while a few will be discontinued. See #1330 for follow-up and questions.

Bug Fixes

• Fix for #335: Return proper exit code in hoc execution #1633
• Build on Ubuntu21.10 WSL: escape special characters (#1862)

Improvements / Other Changes

• Support for using mallinfo2() (#1805)
• HOC domain for Sphinx 5.0.1

Upgrade Steps

• If your MOD files contain VERBATIM blocks you may need to refer to the aforementioned
  C++ migration guide
  and make minor changes to prepare for the upcoming 9.0.0 release.
  Remaining compatible with 8.2.0 and older versions is typically straightforward.

For the complete list of features and bug fixes, see the list in GitHub Issue #1879

PyPI

https://pypi.org/project/NEURON/8.2.0/#files