'system': bug or misunderstanding?

[clerke]

Shouldn't these two commands both send 'foo' back to my screen? 
(Octave 3.0.0 on gentoo/amd64, but I noticed it in earlier Octave versions 
too). 

octave:1> system ("echo foo; exit 2",1,"async")
ans =  829
octave:2> foo

octave:2> system ("echo foo; exit 2",1,"sync")
ans =  2
octave:3>
octave:3>

In particular, i would have thought the sync version should do it.

I noticed this because 'edit foo' doesn't work for me - the editor (nano) 
runs, but does not display on my screen, yet the editor accepts input. 
It looks like the edit.m code uses [] for the return_output parameter, but 
testing that system call as above produces exactly the same results as 
return_output == 1.

I can use the editor from within Octave with:
system("nano foo")
but i'd like to be able to use 'edit foo' as documented (since it does other 
nice things as well).

Sooo...am i totally misunderstanding how system should work? 
And either way, how do I get 'edit' to work?

Thanks,
wayne