Re: issue with user preferences (was "problem with column specification in matrices")

[Mike Miller]

On Thu, 31 Oct 2002, John W. Eaton wrote:

> Some of the preference variables don't cause any real problems.  For
> example, the ones that affect how output is displayed, or what is
> printed for the prompt.  The troublemakers are things like
> whitespace_in_literal_matrix, do_fortran_indexing,
> implicit_str_to_num_ok, implicit_num_to_str_ok, prefer_column_vectors,
> etc.  My general plan at this point is to eliminate as many of these
> as possible, and to not introduce any more.

I see what you mean.  It might be nice if such things could be controlled
within a script or function, but they wouldn't alter the global octave
environment (and interfere with other scripts/functions).  They would then
work like unix shell variables.  Maybe that doesn't make sense for
functions but it might be good for scripts.


> | Is there a way to start octave with all user preferences turned off
> | (set to defaults)?
>
> But which defaults do you want?  The ones that make Octave most like
> Matlab, or the ones that are most sensible?

I'll vote for the most sensible.  Once they are set to known defaults, the
script could then set them to whatever was needed.  It would be handy for
developing code to know that it will work the same for everyone.

Thanks *very* much for your quick replies!

Mike

-- 
Michael B. Miller, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Division of Epidemiology
University of Minnesota
http://taxa.epi.umn.edu/~mbmiller/



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