Re: is octave slow and missing functions?

[Peter Cloetens]

David Bateman wrote:
> Przemek Klosowski wrote:
> > > I got this response re. octave as alternative to matlab:
> > >
> > >     
> > > > I should make a note about this; I use octave a lot at home as it's
> > > > rather cheap (free). It can be an alternative in some instances but
> > > > there are some limitations with it:
> > > >       
> >    ....
> >   
> > > > * there is no GUI (and the CLI lacks the very useful !-command)
> > > >       
> > Opinionated ignorance. Matlab uses ! for external shell commands, so
> > for instance '!ls' prints the current directory listing. In Octave
> > you'd just do 'ls'. I guess he has a point---Octave does lack the !
> > command (nb, in Octave ! is the logical negation operator).
> > _______________________________________________
> >   
>
> Tell them to use "system" instead that exists on both matlab and windows
> and leave the "!" for its traditional use as the NOT operator....
>
> D.
I completely agree that "!" should be used for the NOT operator. This is 
one of the annoying matlab particularities.
In order to make the system calls easier we use the small octave command 
"u" given below.
In this case it is possible to type simply:
u top
for example.
This is the same solution as in the instrument control software "spec" 
from CSS.
Peter

Lines in .octaverc:
___________________

if (exist('u') == 2)
    # to be able to call unix commands easily a la spec: u top
    mark_as_command u
end




Content of u.m :
________________

## Copyright (C) 2006 P. Cloetens
##
## This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
## it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
## the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
## (at your option) any later version.
##
## This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
## but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
## MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
## GNU General Public License for more details.
##
## You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
## along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
## Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307 USA

## u unix-command
## u('unix-command')

## Author: P. Cloetens <address@hidden>
##
## 2006-07-27 P. Cloetens <address@hidden>
## * Initial revision

## PKG_ADD: mark_as_command u

function  u(varargin)
    if !nargin
        help u
        return
    else
        comm = '';
        for k = 1:nargin
            comm = [comm ' ' varargin{k}];
        end
        system(comm);
    endif
endfunction