From bug-request at octave dot org Fri Apr 14 13:00:24 2006
Subject: Re: addpath, rmpath, savepath
From: "Robert S. Weigel" <rweigel at gmu dot edu>
To: bug at octave dot org
Cc: "John W. Eaton" <jwe at bevo dot che dot wisc dot edu>
Date: Fri, 14 Apr 2006 13:59:05 -0400


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On Friday 14 April 2006 12:37, John W. Eaton wrote:
> On 11-Apr-2006, Robert S. Weigel wrote:
> | I was not able to make simple changes to the existing addpath/rmpath
> | files because there were other major differences besides the ones I
> | described in my first email.  For example,

> | As you will see from the demo, the current addpath and rmpath do
> | unexpected things besides allowing '.'  to be removed or not be first.
> | xaddpath and xrmpath allow strange things too (most are listed in the
> | help).  Note that xaddpath and xrmpath both generate a warning because
> | they set DEFAULT_LOADPATH to ''.

> If you would like to get changes accepted, then please send context
> diffs relative to the version you started with.  Please do follow the

> I'm not sure what the best thing is to do with DEFAULT_LOADPATH, but I
> don't think that you should set it to the empty string.  Probably it
> should not be modified at all.

Given the number of things that would need to be changed simultaneously for 
Matlab compatability I think it is best to leave things as they are.  Both 
the Matlab compatable and existing functions do unexpected things, and I 
don't have a strong reason to prefer Matlab compatability over backward 
compatability for users of the addpath/rmpath functions that were previously 
in octave-forge.

I can only suggest that it may help users if a note is added to the help of 
addpath and rmpath. For what it is worth, diffs for this are attached. 

Bob


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Index: addpath.m
===================================================================
RCS file: /cvs/octave/scripts/path/addpath.m,v
retrieving revision 1.3
diff -u -r1.3 addpath.m
--- addpath.m	4 Apr 2006 19:41:45 -0000	1.3
+++ addpath.m	14 Apr 2006 17:40:22 -0000
 at @ -30,6 +30,9 @@
 ## An error will be returned if the string is not a directory, the
 ## directory doesn't exist or you don't have read access to it.
 ##
+## Caution: When you add a path, the current directory gets pushed
+## down in the search list.
+##
 ## BUG: This function can't add directories called  at samp{-end} or
 ##  at samp{-begin} (case insensitively).
 ##

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Index: rmpath.m
===================================================================
RCS file: /cvs/octave/scripts/path/rmpath.m,v
retrieving revision 1.3
diff -u -r1.3 rmpath.m
--- rmpath.m	4 Apr 2006 19:41:45 -0000	1.3
+++ rmpath.m	14 Apr 2006 17:40:43 -0000
 at @ -18,6 +18,8 @@
 ##  at deftypefn {Function File} {} rmpath (@var{dir1}, @dots{})
 ## Remove  at var{dir1}, @dots{} from the current @code{LOADPATH}.
 ##
+## Caution: /path and /path/ are treated as different directory names.
+##
 ##  at seealso{LOADPATH, addpath, savepath, setpath}
 ##  at end deftypefn
 

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