addpath bug?

[Avraham Rosenberg]

Hi all,
After the crash of my old computer, I am so far: A new computer,
Debian stable, kernel 2.6.8, installed + Octave version 2.1.69.
I tried to append the directory containing my own m-files to
LOADPATH: 
octave:2> addpath("/home/avraham/mfiles//", "-end")...But the result was that 
this was prepended
octave:3> LOADPATH
LOADPATH = /home/avraham/mfiles//::/usr/local/share/octave/site-m//:
After looking up help addpath and wondering about the
non-intuitive syntax, I tried:
octave:4> addpath("/home/avraham/mfiles//", "-begin")
octave:5> LOADPATH
LOADPATH = 
/home/avraham/mfiles//:/home/avraham/mfiles//::/usr/local/share/octave/site-m//:
Again prepended.
Same result when using single quotes or capital letters for
BEGIN/END.

The only way I was able to put the additional directory where I
intended to was by using string concatenation with LOADPATH:
octave:1> LOADPATH
LOADPATH = :/usr/local/share/octave/site-m//:
octave:2> LOADPATH=[LOADPATH,"/home/avraham/mfiles//"]
LOADPATH = :/usr/local/share/octave/site-m//:/home/avraham/mfiles//

Is this a problem with my system or a known problem ?

Thanks, Avraham