From help-octave-request at bevo dot che dot wisc dot edu Tue Nov 17 15:00:26 1998 Subject: Re: source-ing files vs. entering on cmd line? From: Mario Storti To: help-octave at bevo dot che dot wisc dot edu cc: mstorti at minerva dot unl dot edu dot ar Date: Tue, 17 Nov 1998 17:45:41 -0300 >>>>> On Tue, 17 Nov 1998 14:39:49 -0600 (CST), >>>>> "John W. Eaton" said: > On 17-Nov-1998, Daniel Friedman wrote: > | I am running Octave version 2.0.13. Suppose I start Octave while in > | directory 'foo', and I have a file in ./bar/mstuff.m I wish to run, > | to declare a bunch of special functions at the beginning of a particular > | session. Without adding the 'bar' directory to LOADPATH, since I need > | the bar directory only once, is there a way to specify to octave where to > | look for mstuff.m just one time? If I could enter "bar/mstuff" on the > | command line, that would be great, but this of course doesn't work. > The reason that you can't do that is that there is no way for Octave > to know that what you've typed is not a division expression. > | Do > | I have to change to the bar directory, run mstuff, and then change back > | where I was? > | > | I tried source("bar/mstuff"), and this executes without error, but the > | functions defined in mstuff are not remembered by Octave for later use. > As Mario Storti noted, you need to give the full name of the file: > source ("bar/mstuff.m"); > That you don't get an error when the file name is wrong looks like a > bug. I think the following patch should fix the problem. > Thanks, > jwe Well. Now, I see that I found the correct answer by pure 'serendipity'. >From the WordNet dictionary: > The noun serendipity has 1 sense (no senses from tagged texts) > > 1. serendipity -- (accidental sagacity; the faculty of making > fortunate discoveries of things you were not looking for) . Mario