warnings which don't help user to undesrtand where the problem is

[Ben Abbott]

On Jan 6, 2009, at 5:09 AM, Steven Verstoep wrote:

>
>>
>> On Jan 5, 2009, at 8:43 AM, bugs_bunny wrote:
>>
>>> I use GNU Octave, version 2.1.53 (powerpc-apple-darwin7.2.0). I  
>>> checked for
>>> updates, but there were no packages to install.
>>
>> There is certainly an update. The current release is 3.0.3.
>>
>> How did you check for an update? Are you running Fink or Darwin/ 
>> MacPorts?
>>
>> If not, follow the link below and install the Ocave.app from  
>> Sourceforge.
>>
>> 	http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=2888&package_id=237839
>>
>> Ben
>>
>
> I use Fink 0.23.6:

As you are running 10.3.9, you have a rather substantial problem. Fink  
no longer supports 10.3.x :-(

> [domain:~] user% fink update octave
> Password:
> Information about 2072 packages read in 8 seconds.
> No packages to install.
> [domain:~] user%

You should first do a "fink selfupdate" and then "update octave" ...  
however, I do not think it will change anything, as 10.3.x is no  
longer supported.

> I have downloaded octave 3.0.3 but that only makes things worse.

How did you download and install octave?

> -*- The bug I had with fscanf is gone. I read on the internet that  
> it was a problem with 2.1.52 (and later)
>
> -*- opening octave from the command line still loads octave 2.1.53

This is the Fink version. If you downloaded the binary version from  
sourceforge, you'll need to double click on it's icon to run it (I do  
not know if it runs on Mac OSX 10.3.x).

> -*- the statement if(charc == '\n') is no longer true if charc is  
> indeed a newline (see code below, \n is now read as 2 characters)

Since 2.1.53 Octave's maintainers have been improving compatibilty  
with Matlab. To get the functionality you want use char(10) or  
"\n" ... i.e. single-quotes and double-quotes have different meanings  
in Octave. The single-quotes work in a compatible manner.

> -*- I now get warnings on any string definition like:


This I do not see. Perhaps there are some settings in your octaverc  
file that produce these warnings.

Ben