From help-request at octave dot org Wed Aug  3 16:30:15 2005
Subject: Re: %, comments, EOS, and parenthesis
From: Colin Ingram <octave at charter dot net>
To: barrowes at alum dot mit dot edu, help@octave.org
Date: Wed, 03 Aug 2005 16:26:07 -0500

Ben Barrowes wrote:

> I use the matlab.el with octave programs. Pretty much the only 
> stylistic annoyance is that matlab.el doesn't recognize # as a comment 
> character.

Interesting I will check out the Lisp code for mathlab.el maybe this 
feature can be added to octave mode.

> Anyway, % inside strings (single quote) are not interpreted as 
> comments and are properly recognized as strings instead of a comment 
> char.
>
This is what I want.

> % inside a double quoted string (octave only, no such support in ml) 
> is interpreted as a comment char in matlab mode.
>
I have a similar but different problem with double quotes.  With double 
quotes Emacs recognizes the code as a string (colored green) but if you 
have long line, when Emacs will insert continuation marks and indent the 
next line as it should but it then will insert `%' at the beginning of 
each line as if it were an inline comment. 

example:
  fprintf (parafid, "tauD = %-.3f\nK = %-.3f\nF(inf) = %-#.4g\nF(-) = 
%-.4g\nError Code = %d\nIterations used: %d\nR2: %f\nGuess Used: 
%.3f\n%12s%-.3f\nFraction Recovered: %-.3f\nImmobile Fraction: 
%-.3f\n",param(1), K, Finf ,pref, error, iter, r2, pin(1),"", pin(2), f, 
param(2));

would get formated as:
fprintf (parafid, "tauD = %-.3f\nK = %-.3f\nF(inf) = %-#.4g\nF(-) ...
                %= %-.4g\nError Code = %d\nIterations
  used: %d\nR2: %f\nGuess Used: %.3f\n%12s%-.3f\nFraction Recovered:
                %-.3f\nImmobile Fraction:
                %-.3f\n",param(1), K, Finf ,pref,
                %error, iter, r2, pin(1),"", pin(2),
                %f, param(2)); 
Only the last two lines which are outside the double quotes are colored 
red for comment though.

This is really annoying

> Is this double quoted case your concern?
>
> If so, this is another difference in the string handling between 
> octave and ml that is potentially confusing.

No, The case I was talking about in my email was a single quote case.  I 
just noticed remembered the double quote situation when you spoke of it, 
I went back a dragged out that code example.  Interested I just noticed, 
that at least on my system octave mode doesn't recognize single quotes 
as strings at all.  Is this supposed to be the case. 





-------------------------------------------------------------
Octave is freely available under the terms of the GNU GPL.

Octave's home on the web:  http://www.octave.org
How to fund new projects:  http://www.octave.org/funding.html
Subscription information:  http://www.octave.org/archive.html
-------------------------------------------------------------