[Pkg-octave-devel] Plotting in octave

[Jan Vermeulen]

Thomas Weber wrote:
> Additionally, Octaviz is a pain to build. One hour of build time even on
> fast machines.
>
> Feel free to test compiles of these versions against Octave 2.9 and
> report back. If you don't want to risk your system, you can setup a
> chroot for the compiles. Please ask if you are interested, so I can give
> you further advice.
>   
Right now I'm focussed on getting the tools I need to do the research 
for my final year project. Once I'm confident that I can get some work 
done I'll try and help out here. It sounds like a fun challenge, but 
right now I'm dealing with more fun challenges than I feel capable of 
handling :-)
> That's not how you should use this packages. Taken from 
> /usr/share/doc/octave-plplot/README.Debian
>
> "octave-plplot: Glue library with bindings for Octave 2.1.  In order
>  to use this package, issue the command "use_plplot" at the Octave 2.1
>  prompt."
>   
I tried this and this is what I got (I am updating against the unstable 
Debian mirror, so I don't know if this problem exists in a plain Sarge 
version of Debian):

---snip---
GNU Octave, version 2.1.73 (i486-pc-linux-gnu).
Copyright (C) 2006 John W. Eaton.
This is free software; see the source code for copying conditions.
There is ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY; not even for MERCHANTIBILITY or
FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  For details, type `warranty'.

Additional information about Octave is available at http://www.octave.org.

Please contribute if you find this software useful.
For more information, visit http://www.octave.org/help-wanted.html

Report bugs to <bug at octave.org> (but first, please read
http://www.octave.org/bugs.html to learn how to write a helpful report).

octave:1> use_plplot
This function is deprecated.  Use toggle_plplot_use instead.
octave:2> toggle_plplot_use
error: This version of octave-plplot only works with Octave 2.1
---snip---

I included the full octave header to show that I was most definately 
trying to do this in Octave 2.1. Time to submit a bug or am I still 
doing something wrong?

The reason I did it the other way (writing a LOADPATH directive in my 
~/.octaverc) is because of the documentation in 
/usr/share/doc/octave_plplot/USAGE.octave.gz:

---snip---
You must add the plplot_octave script installation directory to Octave
LOADPATH *before* the standard Octave LOADPATH. The best way to do this
is to create a .octaverc file in your home directory. By default

LOADPATH ="<install-directory>/share/plplot_octave//:"
---snip---

> Eh, I consider this list to be quite friendly, so no apologies are
> needed. Just a note for the future: if you file a bug, include a
> complete non-working example (that is everything you type right from the
> first Octave prompt). This makes it easier for both us and upstream to
> reproduce your problem.
Thanks for the  tip, will do my utmost to do this.

Regards

-- 
Jan Vermeulen
The Extremist

"God has such a deep reverence for our freedom that he'd much rather have us freely go to Hell, 
than be compelled to go to Heaven"
                                                ----------Desmond Tutu
                        Beyers Naude Memorial Lecture 2003 (15 August)