downloading package

[Søren Hauberg]

Hi,
  (answers below)

Steve MC Han skrev:
> I am a beginner of Octave.
>  
> I am using Window xp and installed Octave 3.1.50
>
You do realise that 3.1.50 is meant for Octave developers and not for 
users, right? You probably should use a release from the 3.0.x series -- 
they also come with most packages pre-installed.

> After installation, I typed 'pkg list' at the prompt, but it responds 
> "no packages installed"
>
Yes, no packages are provided in the developer snapshot you downloaded.

>  
> So, I tried to install a package by following the guidance describe in 
> here
>  
> http://octave.sourceforge.net/index.html
>  
> and chose a package from here
>  
> http://octave.sourceforge.net/packages.html
>  
> If I click download beside a package, say nnet, then small 
> unzip window shows up asking
>  
> open save cancel
>  
> and if I click open then nnet-0.1.8.tar[1] file folder shows up. If I 
> click extract, then extract window shows up.
>
You should click 'save' such that you just download the file. Assuming 
you download the file to C:\   (probably not a good place, but I don't 
know much about windows), then you can install the package by typing

  pkg install C:\nnet-0.1.8.tar.gz

from within Octave. Then the package should be installed. This, however, 
assumes that the package only contains m-files. If something needs to be 
compiled, you also need to install a compiler. But that's a separate 
problem...

Cheers,
Søren