[Octave-bug-tracker] [bug #49794] display vs. disp functions

[John W. Eaton]

Follow-up Comment #14, bug #49794 (project octave):

Rik: Yes, it works if you do something like


  x = blah ();  ## blah is a class
  display (x)


but


  x = blah ()


alone does not call display.  I think it should.  So the dispatch seems
backward to me.

I'm thinking of something more like the attached patch that always calls the
"display" method for an object, and that simply prints a name tag and then
calls disp to actually print the values.

But the attached patch is not complete, and certainly not appropriate for
stable.  We would also need to install "display" and "disp" methods for the
built-in classes (double, single, logical, etc.) so that it would not be easy
to screw up displaying those types simply by creating a global function called
"display".

So, for stable, I guess it is OK to fix the bug in whatever way works with the
fewest surprises.  But I don't think we can be fully compatible until we are
calling "display" directly when an expression doesn't end with a semicolon,
and then "display" should call "disp", same as Matlab does.


(file #39193)
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