From help-request at octave dot org Sat Feb 12 09:57:13 2005
Subject: Data types (was: Re: Access the neighbors of an element)
From: "John W. Eaton" <jwe at bevo dot che dot wisc dot edu>
To: Joerg Sommer <joerg at alea dot gnuu dot de>
Cc: help at octave dot org
Date: Sat, 12 Feb 2005 11:03:01 -0500

On 12-Feb-2005, Joerg Sommer <joerg at alea dot gnuu dot de> wrote:

| "John W. Eaton" <jwe at bevo dot che dot wisc dot edu> wrote:
| > On 12-Feb-2005, Joerg Sommer <joerg at alea dot gnuu dot de> wrote:
| >
| > | Is it possible to tell octave it should use integer data types? I don't
| > | need floating point operations.
| >
| > As of 2.1.64, Octave has integer data types with operations that
| > should be compatible with Matlab 7.x.  There are the usual +, -, .*,
| > ./, etc. ops on signed and unsigned 8-, 16-, and 32-bit integer types.
| 
| How are data types set?

  x = int8 ([1,2;3,4])

or

  x = ones (dims, "int8")

| > Unfortuantely, compatibility dictates that the operations on the
| > elements are done using doubles with the result converted back to ints
| 
| And a switch "matlab_compatible=0"?

No, I don't think built-in variables that change the behavior of
fundamental language features are a good idea.  It is OK to change
output formats or things like that.  But I don't think you really want
someone to be able to set a variable in their .octaverc file and
suddenly get different results without any clue about why that
happened.  Octave had a lot of these kinds of variables in the past.
Most have been removed because they caused more problems than they
solved.

| Or special octave types?

No, but you could define your own and contribute them.

jwe



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