Welcome to Scilab 2026.1.0

Scilab 2026.1.0 is a new stable release of Scilab, the open-source platform for numerical computation.

Here is a tour of the changes since Scilab 2025.1.0.

To view it in the documentation browser, enter doc("2026.1.0") in the console, and browse related pages.

Feature changes and additions

• New functions:
  • cdftnc(): Cumulative distribution function of the non-central student's T distribution.
  • check_help(): Validate Scilab XML help files against the Scilab Relax NG schema.
  • dbscan(): Density-based clustering.
  • enumeration(): Get the enumeration of a classdef or an object.
  • estimate_bandwidth(): Estimate an appropriate bandwidth for mean shift clustering.
  • help(): Display an inline summary of a documentation page in Scilab console.
  • gallery(): Generate test matrices.
  • gradient(): Compute numerical gradient.
  • isa(): Check variable type.
  • ishermitian(): Check whether a matrix is hermitian.
  • issymmetric(): Check whether a matrix is symmetric.
  • meanshift(): Mean shift clustering algorithm.
  • methods(): Get accessible methods of a classdef or an object.
  • parquetRead(): Read a Parquet or Arrow file and return a table.
  • parquetWrite(): Write a table in a Parquet or Arrow file.
  • pdist(): Pairwise distances between observations.
  • pdist2(): Pairwise distances between two sets of observations.
  • properties(): Get accessible properties of a classdef or an object.
  • sortrows(): Sort rows of a vector, matrix, table, or timeseries.
  • spset(): Set non-zero entries of a sparse matrix.
  • squareform(): Conversion between a distance vector and a symmetric distance matrix.
  • summary(): Summary of table or timeseries variables (properties, statistics...).
  • xcosDiagramExport(): Export an Xcos diagram to an image.
  • xlsxInfo(): Get information about an Excel file.
  • xlsxRead(): Read data from an Excel file and return a matrix or cell.
  • xlsxSheet(): Manage sheets in an Excel file.
  • xlsxWrite(): Write data (matrix or cell) to an Excel file.
• Features improvements:
  • New web-based GUIs for ATOMS & Scilab Demonstration using "browser" uicontrols.
  • Objects defined using classdef now support static properties and methods.
  • csvTextScan() now manages a "substitute" option as csvRead() to enable replacement of particular strings in the read file.
  • dbscan() now accepts two more input arguments to specify metric distances and parameters.
  • dbscan(), kmeans() and meanshift() now use pdist2() for better performances.
  • format() now supports engineering notation (similar to the exponential notation but with exponent value divisible by three).
  • gallery() can now generate "minij" (Symmetric positive definite matrix) and "moler" (Moler symmetric positive definite matrix) test matrices.
  • host() has been rewritten and is now used as a backend for all other functions that perform system calls (dos(), unix(), unix_g(), unix_s(), unix_w(), and unix_x()), which are now obsolete.
  • intersect() now manages duration, datetime, table, and timeseries types.
  • lib() can now load a library without exposing its symbols (default behavior remains unchanged).
  • setdiff() now manages duration, datetime, table, and timeseries types.
  • table(), and timeseries() now manage integers.
  • union() now manages duration, datetime, table, and timeseries types.
  • Options names are now case-insensitive for duration(), calendarDuration(), datetime(), timeseries(), table() functions.
  • "use_vectorized" parameter is now available for optim_ga(), optim_moga(), optim_nsga(), optim_nsga2() to indicate that the cost function is vectorized (called with the whole population at once).
• Language evolutions:
  • Classes/Objects can now be defined and used in Scilab based on the new classdef, enumeration, properties & methods keywords.
  • The end keyword can now be used to specify the last row/column index of an array, similarly to $.
  • Arithmetic operators now perform automatic expansion with no memory overhead: a singleton dimension is automatically replicated to match the other operand, making manual expansion (using .*. or repmat()) unnecessary for most case. See doc operator_expand.
• Graphics:
  • Axes handles can now have their own colormap. If not provided, then the parent figure colormap is used (as in previous versions).
• Xcos:
  • Diagrams are saved as SSP (System Structure and Parametrization) files by default. This setting can be edited in user preferences.
  • Users are now enabled to save their diagrams as COSF files.
  • COS format is no longer associated with Xcos under Windows.
  • SSP files are associated with Scilab during installation under Windows.

Detailed information about those improvements can be found in the CHANGES file.

Documentation and help

If you are new to Scilab, please use the Scilab beginners tutorial and Xcos beginners tutorial provided by the Scilab Team.

The Scilab Team also provides some documentation and tutorials.

Other resources

Scilab Website - Consult Scilab official website

Wiki - Consult documentation, tricks, etc.

Issues - Report bugs and wishes about Scilab

Forge - Browse and publish Scilab modules

Discourse - Communicate and exchange with the community

ATOMS - Browse Scilab packaged modules

File Exchange - Exchange your scripts, results, and files.