DOC: sync release notes of 1.8 branch and add some missing 1.9 sections

[ci-skip]

3 files changed, 120 insertions, 2 deletions

diff --git a/doc/release/1.8.0-notes.rst b/doc/release/1.8.0-notes.rst
index b1adbf87e..f06785f5d 100644
--- a/doc/release/1.8.0-notes.rst
+++ b/doc/release/1.8.0-notes.rst
@@ -373,6 +373,14 @@ an inner loop for user types using the descr.
 
 * PyUFunc_RegisterLoopForDescr
 
+C-API Developer Improvements
+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+The ``PyArray_Type`` instance creation function ``tp_new`` now
+uses ``tp_basicsize`` to determine how much memory to allocate.
+In previous releases only ``sizeof(PyArrayObject)`` bytes of
+memory were allocated, often requiring C-API subtypes to
+reimplement ``tp_new``.
+
 Deprecations
 ============
 
diff --git a/doc/release/1.8.1-notes.rst b/doc/release/1.8.1-notes.rst
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..c26a03eff
--- /dev/null
+++ b/doc/release/1.8.1-notes.rst
@@ -0,0 +1,95 @@
+NumPy 1.8.1 Release Notes
+*************************
+
+This is a bugfix only release in the 1.8.x series.
+
+
+Issues fixed
+============
+
+* gh-4276: Fix mean, var, std methods for object arrays
+* gh-4262: remove insecure mktemp usage
+* gh-2385: absolute(complex(inf)) raises invalid warning in python3
+* gh-4024: Sequence assignment doesn't raise exception on shape mismatch
+* gh-4027: Fix chunked reading of strings longer than BUFFERSIZE
+* gh-4109: Fix object scalar return type of 0-d array indices
+* gh-4018: fix missing check for memory allocation failure in ufuncs
+* gh-4156: high order linalg.norm discards imaginary elements of complex arrays
+* gh-4144: linalg: norm fails on longdouble, signed int
+* gh-4094: fix NaT handling in _strided_to_strided_string_to_datetime
+* gh-4051: fix uninitialized use in _strided_to_strided_string_to_datetime
+* gh-4093: Loading compressed .npz file fails under Python 2.6.6
+* gh-4138: segfault with non-native endian memoryview in python 3.4
+* gh-4123: Fix missing NULL check in lexsort
+* gh-4170: fix native-only long long check in memoryviews
+* gh-4187: Fix large file support on 32 bit
+* gh-4152: fromfile: ensure file handle positions are in sync in python3
+* gh-4176: clang compatibility: Typos in conversion_utils
+* gh-4223: Fetching a non-integer item caused array return
+* gh-4197: fix minor memory leak in memoryview failure case
+* gh-4206: fix build with single-threaded python
+* gh-4220: add versionadded:: 1.8.0 to ufunc.at docstring
+* gh-4267: improve handling of memory allocation failure
+* gh-4267: fix use of capi without gil in ufunc.at
+* gh-4261: Detect vendor versions of GNU Compilers
+* gh-4253: IRR was returning nan instead of valid negative answer
+* gh-4254: fix unnecessary byte order flag change for byte arrays
+* gh-3263: numpy.random.shuffle clobbers mask of a MaskedArray
+* gh-4270: np.random.shuffle not work with flexible dtypes
+* gh-3173: Segmentation fault when 'size' argument to random.multinomial
+* gh-2799: allow using unique with lists of complex
+* gh-3504: fix linspace truncation for integer array scalar
+* gh-4191: get_info('openblas') does not read libraries key
+* gh-3348: Access violation in _descriptor_from_pep3118_format
+* gh-3175: segmentation fault with numpy.array() from bytearray
+* gh-4266: histogramdd - wrong result for entries very close to last boundary
+* gh-4408: Fix stride_stricks.as_strided function for object arrays
+* gh-4225: fix log1p and exmp1 return for np.inf on windows compiler builds
+* gh-4359: Fix infinite recursion in str.format of flex arrays
+* gh-4145: Incorrect shape of broadcast result with the exponent operator
+* gh-4483: Fix commutativity of {dot,multiply,inner}(scalar, matrix_of_objs)
+* gh-4466: Delay npyiter size check when size may change
+* gh-4485: Buffered stride was erroneously marked fixed
+* gh-4354: byte_bounds fails with datetime dtypes
+* gh-4486: segfault/error converting from/to high-precision datetime64 objects
+* gh-4428: einsum(None, None, None, None) causes segfault
+* gh-4134: uninitialized use for for size 1 object reductions
+
+Changes
+=======
+
+NDIter
+~~~~~~
+When ``NpyIter_RemoveAxis`` is now called, the iterator range will be reset.
+
+When a multi index is being tracked and an iterator is not buffered, it is
+possible to use ``NpyIter_RemoveAxis``. In this case an iterator can shrink
+in size. Because the total size of an iterator is limited, the iterator
+may be too large before these calls. In this case its size will be set to ``-1``
+and an error issued not at construction time but when removing the multi
+index, setting the iterator range, or getting the next function.
+
+This has no effect on currently working code, but highlights the necessity
+of checking for an error return if these conditions can occur. In most
+cases the arrays being iterated are as large as the iterator so that such
+a problem cannot occur.
+
+Optional reduced verbosity for np.distutils
+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+Set ``numpy.distutils.system_info.system_info.verbosity = 0`` and then
+calls to ``numpy.distutils.system_info.get_info('blas_opt')`` will not
+print anything on the output. This is mostly for other packages using
+numpy.distutils.
+
+Deprecations
+============
+
+C-API
+~~~~~
+
+The utility function npy_PyFile_Dup and npy_PyFile_DupClose are broken by the
+internal buffering python 3 applies to its file objects.
+To fix this two new functions npy_PyFile_Dup2 and npy_PyFile_DupClose2 are
+declared in npy_3kcompat.h and the old functions are deprecated.
+Due to the fragile nature of these functions it is recommended to instead use
+the python API when possible.
diff --git a/doc/release/1.9.0-notes.rst b/doc/release/1.9.0-notes.rst
index 9a97dba09..723b2aadc 100644
--- a/doc/release/1.9.0-notes.rst
+++ b/doc/release/1.9.0-notes.rst
@@ -1,7 +1,7 @@
 NumPy 1.9.0 Release Notes
 *************************
 
-This release supports  Python 2.6 -2.7 and 3.2 - 3.3.
+This release supports Python 2.6 - 2.7 and 3.2 - 3.4.
 
 
 Highlights
@@ -88,6 +88,13 @@ Percentile supports more interpolation options
 which way points should be interpolated if the percentiles fall between two
 values.  See the documentation for the available options.
 
+Generalized axis support for median and percentile
+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+``np.median`` and ``np.percentile`` now support generalized axis arguments like
+ufunc reductions do since 1.7. One can now say axis=(index, index) to pick a
+list of axes for the reduction. The ``keepdims`` keyword argument was also
+added to allow convenient broadcasting to arrays of the original shape.
+
 Ufunc and Dot Overrides
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 
@@ -113,7 +120,7 @@ for ``tostring`` which exports arrays as ``bytes``. This is more consistent
 in Python 3 where ``str`` and ``bytes`` are not the same.
 
 
-compatibility to python ``numbers`` module
+Compatibility to python ``numbers`` module
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 All numerical numpy types are now registered with the type hierarchy in
 the python ``numbers`` module.
@@ -166,6 +173,12 @@ rather than a template in order to implement a common interface. This makes
 importing the polynomial package faster as the classes do not need to be
 compiled on import.
 
+More GIL releases
+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+Several more functions now release the Global Interpreter Lock allowing more
+efficient parallization using the ``threading`` module. Most notably the GIL is
+now released for fancy indexing and ``np.where``.
+
 Changes
 =======
 
@@ -281,6 +294,7 @@ of checking for an error return if these conditions can occur. In most
 cases the arrays being iterated are as large as the iterator so that such
 a problem cannot occur.
 
+This change was already applied to the 1.8.1 release.
 
 C-API
 ~~~~~
@@ -310,6 +324,7 @@ declared in npy_3kcompat.h and the old functions are deprecated.
 Due to the fragile nature of these functions it is recommended to instead use
 the python API when possible.
 
+This change was already applied to the 1.8.1 release.
 
 New Features
 ============