path: octave 3.0.0 can't find itself

[Ben Abbott]

On Dec 27, 2007, at 11:40 AM, Dushan Mitrovich wrote:

> Ben Abbott <bpabbott at mac.com> wrote:
>>
>> On Dec 26, 2007, at 3:26 PM, Dushan Mitrovich wrote:
>>> I've been using Octave 2.9.15 on a Mac (Intel) under X.4.11.  When
>>> Octave 3.0.0 became available a few days ago I decided to update my
>>> installation to it.
>>>
>>> Not wanting to dump the older app, residing in /Applications,  
>>> until I had
>>> a chance to test the new one, I renamed the old one  
>>> Octave-2.9.15.app,
>>> then dragged the new Octave.app from the .dmg file to the /  
>>> Applications
>>> folder.  I expected to have to tell the new one the path to search  
>>> for my
>>> personal script files and functions.
>>>
>>> Instead, when I open the new Octave.app it announces
>>>
>>> warning: addpath: /Applications/Octave.app/Contents/Resources/ 
>>> share/...
>>>                    octave/2.9.15/m/<filename>
>>>
>>> where as in Octave '...' denotes continuation, and '<filename>'  
>>> refers
>>> to different files.  To the command 'path' the respond is
>>>
>>> /Users/dushanm/Octave
>>> /Applications/Octave.app/Contents/Resources/share/octave/site/m/
>>> /Applications/Octave.app/Contents/Resources/share/octave/site/m/ 
>>> startup
>>>
>>> So from somewhere it got correct information about the path to my
>>> personal files (the first reference), but wrong information about  
>>> other
>>> paths.
>>>
>>> I looked everywhere on my system for some file that refers to  
>>> '2.9.15'
>>> and found exactly 5 files, 4 of them in ~/Trash, with that  
>>> reference.
>>> In each case it was in a comment line.  Where in the world is Octave
>>> getting all this information, much of it wrong?  First I'd like to
>>> understand this, and second I want to correct it.
>>
>> Do you see the file ".octaverc" in your home folder when you type  
>> "ls -
>> ah" in a terminal window?
>
> BINGO!  Thanks, Ben, that was it.  Spotlight had screwed me up again  
> by
> not showing what it considered hidden files.
>
>> If so, that is likely where the problem lies.  You can verify by
>> "cat .octaverc" to see the contents of the path defined in that file.
>
> Once I found the file, I edited it (even tho it said 'do not edit') by
> changing '2.9.15' to '3.0.0' and then Octave came up without  
> complaint.
>
>> I've not tried to set up different versions of Octave on my Mac, so
>> I'm not much help there.
>
> As soon as I'm comfortable with 3.0.0 I'll get rid of the older  
> version.

I've had the same problem when upgrading to a newer version ...  
meaning that you would have encountered the same error even if you had  
removed the 2.9.15 installation before installing 3.0.0.

The solution that worked for me was to delete the .octaverc file  
altogether. I doubt this is a desirable solution for all cases, but if  
you don't have any information that is local to your setup, I'd  
recommend deleting the .octaverc file.

Ben