This blog is updated daily.
A general description is here.
readline() in non-interactive use returns "" and does not attempt to read from the 'terminal'.
New function file_ext() in package 'tools'.
The main HTML help page now links to a reformatted copy of this NEWS file. (Suggested by Henrik Bengtsson.) Package index files link toto the package DESCRIPTION and NEWS files and a list of demos when using dynamic help.
The [ method for class "AsIs" allows the next method to change the underlying class. (Wish of Jens Oehlschläägel.)
The use of .required by require/detach has been replaced by .Depends which is set from the 'Depends' field of a package (even in packages with name spaces). By default detach() prevents such dependencies from being detached in interactive use, and warns otherwise. [The default is intended to be changed before release.]: this can be overridden by the argument 'force'.
Making the refman.pdf works around a problem with the indexing with hyperref 6.79f.
New print() (S3) method for class "function", also used for auto-printing. Further, .Primitive functions now print and auto-print identically. The new method is based on code suggestions by Romain Franççois.
Trying to assign into a raw vector with an index vector containing NAs could cause a segfault. Reported by Hervéé Pagèès.
gregexpr() no longer segfaults when "" is given as the search pattern. Thanks to Hervéé Pagèès for the bug report.
CHAR() now returns (const char *) since CHARSXPs should no longer be modified in place. This change allows compilers to warn or error about improper modification. Thanks to Hervéé Pagèès for the suggestion.