Display order of structure elements changed in 2.9.7

[Benjamin Lindner]

Hello list,

I noticed a difference in the display order of structure elements in octave 
2.9.7 compared to 2.9.6 and 2.1.73.

octave-2.1.73:1:~
> A.d=1; A.b=2; A.c=3; A.a=4
A =
{
  a = 4
  b = 2
  c = 3
  d = 1
}

octave-2.9.6:1:~
> A.d=1; A.b=2; A.c=3; A.a=4
A =
{
  a =  4
  b =  2
  c =  3
  d =  1
}

octave-2.9.7:1:~
> A.d=1; A.b=2; A.c=3; A.a=4
A =
{
  d =  1
  b =  2
  c =  3
  a =  4
}

Is this change intentional?
I did a look into the changelog file but did not find a hint concerning this.

I know, the octave manual states that octave may print the elements of 
structures in any order (so basically one should not rely on a specific order), 
but - frankly said - I found the old behaviour of listing in alphabetical order 
very useful. it makes it much more user-friendly to read listings - especially 
if there are a large number of elements.

Is there a chance to get the old behaviour back?
Or - assuming that there is of course a good reason for the new behaviour - 
could one introduce an option to enable/disable alphabetic sorting? e.g. a 
builtin variable like struct_display_sort_order having either "alphabetic" and 
a second option?

benjamin

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