Re: What's the correct order of things in a file? (beginner's question)

[Bill Denney]

I'm changing the order of your questions a bit to avoid being 
repetitive...

On Mon, 13 Jun 2005, David Collett wrote:

> 3.  Finally, why does Wikipedia refer to their 7 blocks as "scripts"? 
> Why not just have all of these lines in a single file, as I have done?

They can be in the same or different files.  If you put them into the same 
file, then when you run one part of it, you run all of it, and there are 
many cases where you would only want to run parts individually.

They call it a script because it is a set of commands to run as opposed to 
a function which will (generally) return a value.  Scripts generally run 
functions (which, in octave, are most often separate files).  Think of a 
script as just saving you some typing while a function is something that 
you'd call.

> 1.  Why did the order I have work, but the one that Wikipedia gave 
> wouldn't? In other words, why does the function have to be moved up?

The function population was not defined.  It wasn't defined because octave 
didn't see its definition (the function population line) until after you 
tried to call it.

> 2.  In the Wikipedia version, they use for...end, and function...end, 
> whereas in the Octave manual, I believe it says to use: for...endfor, 
> and function...endfunction (which I did).
>
> Can you use either? Are there different "flavors" of Octave that use 
> different commands?

I believe that endfor, endfunction, are older variants.  They're still 
valid, but you can just use end for all types of end (that I know of) now.

Bill

--
A professor is one who talks in someone else's sleep.  -- unknown




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