misbehavior in Octave 2.9.4 for OS/2

[Dushan Mitrovich]

I'm new to Octave, so my apologies if some of these questions are naive.

Yesterday I downloaded version 2.9.4 compiled for OS/2 by Dmitry Froloff
<http://froloff.homeip.net/zips/octave-2.9.4-bin.zip>, and installed it.
My OS is eComStation 1.2, the current version of OS/2.

In trying out Octave to learn it, I ran into some behavior that I don't
understand, and I don't know whether it's due to my ignorance, a bad set-
ting, or a problem with the compilation that ought to be brought to Mr.
Froloff's attention.  I would appreciate all guidance and suggestions.

As installed, Octave uses E.EXE as the editor and LESS.EXE as the pager.

Here is the behavior I encountered:

#  If I define a simple function from the command line, it works fine;
   but if I then edit the function using 'edit_history n1 n2' (where n1
   and n2 are the appropriate history line numbers for the function),
   there is no result even tho the function is unchanged (I had added a
   space, then saved the function before exiting the editor).  In other
   words, I just get the standard Octave prompt back.


#  A more complicated function 'sinc(x) = sin(x) / x' that I would like
   to have work for vector x as well as scalar, and for '0' argument,
   works if defined from the command line but not after it is edited.
   Here is the function definition:

        function sinc (x)
          if (1-isvector(x))
            if (x==0)
              sinc = 1
            else
              sinc = sin(x) / x
            endif
            return
          else
            nc = length(x);
            sinc = linspace(1,nc,nc);
            for i=1:nc
              if (x(i)==0)
                sinc(i) = 1
              else
                sinc(i) = sin(x(i)) / x(i)
              endif
            endfor
            return
          endif
        endfunction

   When defined from the command line for a vector 'a = 0:pi/10:2*pi' it
   produces 21 sets of vectors, each with an additional element computed,
   looking something like this, but spread out over many more lines :

        sinc = 1.0000   2.0000  3.0000  4.0000  5.0000  ...     21.0000
        sinc = 1.0000   0.9836  3.0000  4.0000  5.0000  ...     21.0000
        sinc = 1.0000   0.9836  0.9355  4.0000  5.0000  ...     21.0000
        sinc = 1.0000   0.9836  0.9355  0.8584  5.0000  ...     21.0000
        sinc = 1.0000   0.9836  0.9355  0.8584  0.7568  ...     21.0000
        . . .
        sinc = 1.0000   0.9836  0.9355  0.8584  0.7568  ...       ~ 0.

   Is this normal, or a consequence of my function definition?

   Originally I had used 'is_vector' instead of 'isvector' in the defini-
   tion.  When I tried to compute 'sinc(1)' I got the error messages:

   error: no such file, 'I:/octave/I:\octave/scripts/deprecated/is_vector.m'
   error: 'is_vector' undefined near line 2 column 12
   error: evaluating binary operator `-' near line 2, column 11
   error: if: error evaluating conditional expression
   error: evaluating if command near line 2, column 6
   error: called from `sinc'

   So I edited the function definition to change 'is_vector' to 'isvector'
   and discovered that asking for 'sinc(1)' kept producing the exact same
   message.  Only after I quit Octave, then restarted it, did it recog-
   nize the change and produce a different message.
   
   I suspect part of the problem here is that there's an inconsistency
   between Octave's path references using a forward slash '/' and OS/2's
   using a backward slash '\', but I'm not sure how to resolve that.


#  If I type 'help function', I get a short explanation, as expected.
   But if I type 'help history' or 'help edit_history' I get:

        SYS0003: The system cannot find the path specified
        < a one-line definition >

        warning: help: Texinfo formatting filter exiting abnormally
        warning: help: raw Texinfo source of help text follows...

   except that for 'help edit_history' there are an additional two lines:

        WARNING: terminal is not fully functional:
        -   (press RETURN)

   This warning also appears when I ask for 'history 100'.


At least some of these problems seem to be related to an incomplete trans-
lation from linux-speak to OS/2-speak, so should probably be refered to
Mr. Froloff.  But any insight from this group would be appreciated.

Thanks, and sorry for the length of the message.

- Dushan Mitrovich