Re: path: octave 3.0.0 can't find itself

[Dushan Mitrovich]

"John W. Eaton" <address@hidden> wrote:
>On 27-Dec-2007, Ben Abbott wrote:
>
>| On Dec 27, 2007, at 11:40 AM, Dushan Mitrovich wrote:
>|
>| > Ben Abbott <address@hidden> wrote:
>| >>
>| >> On Dec 26, 2007, at 3:26 PM, Dushan Mitrovich wrote:
>| >>> I've been using Octave 2.9.15 on a Mac (Intel) under X.4.11.  When
>| >>> Octave 3.0.0 became available a few days ago I decided to update my
>| >>> installation to it.
>| >>>
>| >>> Not wanting to dump the older app, residing in /Applications,
>| >>> until I had
>| >>> a chance to test the new one, I renamed the old one
>| >>> Octave-2.9.15.app,
>| >>> then dragged the new Octave.app from the .dmg file to the /
>| >>> Applications
>| >>> folder.  I expected to have to tell the new one the path to search
>| >>> for my
>| >>> personal script files and functions.
>| >>>
>| >>> Instead, when I open the new Octave.app it announces
>| >>>
>| >>> warning: addpath: /Applications/Octave.app/Contents/Resources/
>| >>> share/...
>| >>>                    octave/2.9.15/m/<filename>
>| >>>
>| >>> where as in Octave '...' denotes continuation, and '<filename>'
>| >>> refers
>| >>> to different files.  To the command 'path' the respond is
>| >>>
>| >>> /Users/dushanm/Octave
>| >>> /Applications/Octave.app/Contents/Resources/share/octave/site/m/
>| >>> /Applications/Octave.app/Contents/Resources/share/octave/site/m/
>| >>> startup
>| >>>
>| >>> So from somewhere it got correct information about the path to my
>| >>> personal files (the first reference), but wrong information about
>| >>> other
>| >>> paths.
>| >>>
>| >>> I looked everywhere on my system for some file that refers to
>| >>> '2.9.15'
>| >>> and found exactly 5 files, 4 of them in ~/Trash, with that
>| >>> reference.
>| >>> In each case it was in a comment line.  Where in the world is Octave
>| >>> getting all this information, much of it wrong?  First I'd like to
>| >>> understand this, and second I want to correct it.
>| >>
>| >> Do you see the file ".octaverc" in your home folder when you type
>| >> "ls -
>| >> ah" in a terminal window?
>| >
>| > BINGO!  Thanks, Ben, that was it.  Spotlight had screwed me up again
>| > by
>| > not showing what it considered hidden files.
>| >
>| >> If so, that is likely where the problem lies.  You can verify by
>| >> "cat .octaverc" to see the contents of the path defined in that file.
>| >
>| > Once I found the file, I edited it (even tho it said 'do not edit') by
>| > changing '2.9.15' to '3.0.0' and then Octave came up without
>| > complaint.
>| >
>| >> I've not tried to set up different versions of Octave on my Mac, so
>| >> I'm not much help there.
>| >
>| > As soon as I'm comfortable with 3.0.0 I'll get rid of the older
>| > version.
>|
>| I've had the same problem when upgrading to a newer version ...
>| meaning that you would have encountered the same error even if you had
>| removed the 2.9.15 installation before installing 3.0.0.
>|
>| The solution that worked for me was to delete the .octaverc file
>| altogether. I doubt this is a desirable solution for all cases, but if
>| you don't have any information that is local to your setup, I'd
>| recommend deleting the .octaverc file.
>
> Why is there any version-specific path info in your ~/.octaverc file?
> Did you add it by hand?  If so, why?

That's puzzled me too.  I don't know the answer, but here's my best
guess: When muddling thru my initial setup of Octave on my still-un-
familiar OSX, I had done some un-necessary steps that tripped me up
on this occasion.  What that means is that I have still got unneeded
references (to 3.0.0) in .octaverc that do no harm now but are poised
to trip me on the next go-around.  I'll try deleting all these refe-
rences in the file and see what happens.  And I'll also try deleting
the file altogether, starting Octave, then re-specifying the location
of my personal Octave files.

- Dushan