From bug-octave-request at bevo dot che dot wisc dot edu  Mon Sep 25 19:54:11 1995
Subject: norm() incopatibility with matlab
From: Michael Smolsky <fnsiguc at weizmann dot weizmann dot ac dot il>
To: bug-octave at che dot utexas dot edu
Date: Tue, 26 Sep 1995 01:45:00 +0300 (IST)

Hi

Thanks a lot for supporting such a great and free tool!

I found a noncompatibility between octave and matlab norm functions. 
Matlab's norm can accept arguments like norm([1,0],"inf"), while octave's 
norm can only crunch norm([1,0],inf), that is it can't take inf as a 
string. If that is the incopatibility which is found in most other 
functions, I'd suggest to include the following in the octave distribution:

function p=strinf(x)
#test whether x="Inf" or x="inf" or x="INF"

p=(isstr(x) && (x=="inf" || x=="Inf" || x=="INF"));
end

and in all the functions, where one of the arguments can be "Inf" 
(string) to add:

  if (nargin == 2 & strinf (p))
    p = inf;

(p is the suspected argument, and nargin == 2 tests whether this argument 
is defined).

Good luck in future development, MSi