e in octave

[Ben Abbott]

On Nov 7, 2008, at 11:06 PM, james mcskimming wrote:

> i've always accepted that e=exp(1) is a constant available in Octave
> just like pi and others.  But i wrote code using e as a constant  
> only to
> discover it didn't work when a friend tried to run it on Matlab.
> I've never used Matlab but assumed there would be compatability at  
> such
> a basic level.
> Is there a reason why? and other than defining the variable e=exp(1)  
> in
> code for Matlab, is there a better way?
> thx
> Jas

Octave tries to be compatible with Matlab, but also includes some  
conveniences and/or capabilities which are absent in Matlab. If you  
require that your code be compatible with both, then you have a two  
(more) options.

(1) Don't use the predefined variable "e" in Octave.
(2) Write a trivial Matlab function to mimc the behavior of Octave.

function result = e()
   result = exp(1);
end

Ben