From bug-request at octave dot org Wed Apr  5 13:44:47 2006
Subject: Re: addpath, rmpath, savepath
From: "John W. Eaton" <jwe at bevo dot che dot wisc dot edu>
To: "Robert S. Weigel" <rweigel at gmu dot edu>
Cc: bug at octave dot org
Date: Wed, 5 Apr 2006 14:44:35 -0400

On  5-Apr-2006, Robert S. Weigel wrote:

| octave:1> addpath('/tmp');addpath('/tmp/');path
| 
| adds /tmp and /tmp/ to the path.  This is both a compatability and an 
| unexpected behavior issue.

Probably single trailing slashes should be removed before doing any
processing.

| However, tcsh allows multiple instances of the same directory in 
| the path environment variable which neither Octave nor Matlab do.).  

Not that it is useful, but I don't think there is anything currently
preventing you from doing

  LOADPATH = "/tmp:/tmp"

in Octave.

| Also, you will notice that '.' gets pushed down in the path list.  This is a 
| problem that caught me a few times.  Matlab always has '.' first in the path 
| list (and it is not listed by when "path" is invoked, but I think it is 
| better to list it).

I'm not sure what to do here.  I don't think we should prevent people
from placing "." wherever in the path they choose, or prevent them
from leaving it out completely.  Forcing it to always be present and
first seems like a bit of a misfeature to me.

| Also, I suggest a warning about incompatable behavior when the (extremely 
| useful) "//" syntax is used.

It might be OK to have a warning, but only if warn_matlab_incompatible
is true.

jwe



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