Re: octave version

[John W. Eaton]

On 22-May-1997, Kurt Hornik <address@hidden> wrote:

| It's probably too late now that all changes have already been made, but
| I am not too happy about them.

No, it's never too late.

I either want to solve the problem so that multiple versions can
be installed together reliably if you just run

  configure ; make all install

for two different versions of Octave, or I want to do away with all
the version information that is included in the installed stuff and
tell people that if they want to install multiple versions, they
should just run something like

  configure --prefix=/usr/local/octave/2.0.5 ; make all install

and then set their path appropriately (or make some symbolic links) to
select the default version.

The real reason is to avoid giving the impression that it is possible
to install several versions and have them all work, when it really
doesn't quite work.

I suppose another possibility for the libraries would be to add
version numbers to their filenames instead of adding another set of
directories.  That is common with shared libraries, but I've not seen
it done with plain old .a files.

Also, the problem with info files remains.

I don't think this is just a problem for people who want to work on
Octave.  Some people will want to have previous versions installed
`just in case'.

Suggestions?

Thanks,

jwe