edit on a read only file

[Peter Cloetens]

Hello,
When you call 'edit' on a read only file, a copy of the file is made in 
your home directory and the copy is edited.
People tend to edit scripts just to view the code and learn from it. The 
issue is that after they used 'edit' a single time on a standard script 
they will have a copy in their home directory that will become their 
default.
This copy will not be maintained and necessarily give incompatibility 
issues with later versions of octave.
Is there a way to change this behavior and just edit the read only file 
as it is (read only)?
It could be solved by asking the user if a copy should be made or not, 
something along the lines:

 ## If the file exists and is modifiable in place then edit it,
 ## otherwise copy it and then edit it.
 if (! isempty (path))
   fid = fopen (path, "r+t");
   if (fid < 0)
     copyreadonly = input("File is read-only, make a copy [y/n] ? ","s");
     if strcmp(copyreadonly, "y")
       from = path;
       path = strcat (FUNCTION.HOME, from (rindex (from, filesep):end))
       [status, msg] = copyfile (from, path, 1);
       if (status == 0)
         error (msg);
       endif
     endif
   else
     fclose(fid);
   endif
   system (sprintf (FUNCTION.EDITOR, strcat ("\"", path, "\"")),
       [], FUNCTION.MODE);
   return;
 endif

Peter



--
Peter Cloetens
X-Ray Imaging Group
Tel: +33 4 76 88 26 50
Mailto: address@hidden

European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF)
6 rue Jules Horowitz
F-38043 Grenoble
http://www.esrf.eu