Re: Mac OSX user problem; where should my octaverc be?

[Ben Abbott]

On Feb 1, 2010, at 12:00 PM, Harbinson, Jeremy wrote:

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Ben Abbott [mailto:address@hidden
> Sent: Mon 2/1/2010 2:27 PM
> To: Harbinson, Jeremy
> Cc: address@hidden
> Subject: Re: Mac OSX user problem; where should my octaverc be?
> 
>> On Feb 1, 2010, at 5:04 AM, Harbinson, Jeremy wrote:
>> 
>>> Hi, 
>>> This is one of those problems that is the fault of the user rather than the 
>>> software. For a while now I have been manually updating an .octaverc file 
>>> located in my home directory (ie Users/jeremyharbinson) to reflect changes 
>>> in octave.app as octave evolved. Recently the path structure of octave has 
>>> changed so that some of the paths in my .octaverc file (which originated in 
>>> Octave 2 point something) no longer exist and I get lots of 'paths not 
>>> found messages' when I start Octave. Given the maturity of Octave I suppose 
>>> the procedure I am using is unneccesary, so my question is which octaverc 
>>> is automatically modified when I update Octave (then I can just work with 
>>> this to include my own octave script directories), or where, ideally, 
>>> should my octaverc be and what should be in it given the recent changes in 
>>> Octave.
>>> 
>>> A last question, which may have a bearing on the above; when I start Octave 
>>> by typing 'Octave' in terminal (rather than clicking on Octave.app) an 
>>> older version of Octave (2.9.9) starts (Octave.app is 3.2.2), which I guess 
>>> means that some of the path information in my system is outdated. Is this 
>>> parallel installation undesirable?
>>> 
>>> Thanks 
>>> all the best, 
>>> Jeremy Harbinson
>> 
>> Re: "which octaverc is automatically modified when I update Octave"
>> 
>> What do you do to "update Octave"?
>> 
>> I'll assume you mean "savepath"?
>> 
>> Your .octaverc should in your home directory. Since the 2.0 series the way 
>> your path information is stored has been changed. I recommend you ...
>> 
>> (1) Type "pathdef" to see what is in your path and make note of the local 
>> portion you want to keep.
>> (2) Type "restoredefaultpath"
>> (3) Type "addpath ("<the local portion you want>")
>> (4) Type :"savepath"
>> 
>> Ben
> 
> Hi,
> Thanks for your advice. Everything is working OK though structure of the new 
> .octaverc seems quite different to my old one, which listed all the 
> directories within which Octave should search rather than just the 
> additional, user directories.
> Thanks,
> Jeremy 
> 

The change you noticed was intended to make upgrading to new versions easier. 
The next time you upgrade to a newer version the path info for the older 
version will not cause you any trouble.

Ben