load function doesn't check path

[John W. Eaton]

On 13-Nov-2006, Frederick (Rick) A Niles wrote:

| I'm sure this is a FAQ, but it seems the "load" function in Octave 
| doesn't check the "path" that's used for functions.
| 
| I've noticed a lot of MATLAB code that relies on this behavior.  Is this 
| something that will change in the future?

In

   http://velveeta.che.wisc.edu/octave/lists/help-octave/2004/2134

I wrote:

  Yes, it is intentional, because it seemed to me that looking in the
  LOADPATH for files to open could easily lead to a lot of confusion and
  possibly bad science if you thought you were opening one file and
  happened to find another somewhere on the path.

  Perhaps we should fix this for compatibility.  If we do, then I
  propose that we have Octave issue a warning if the file is found on
  the load path rather than by using the supplied name.

  If you must find data files on the load path with the current version
  of Octave, you might try using the function

    file_in_loadpath

  to search for you before calling fopen.


This message was about fopen, which also searches MATLABPATH in
Matlab, but it also applies to load.

So, should we search the load path?  Is a warning acceptable if the
file is not an absolute filename and it is also not found in the
current directory?  I suppose the warning should be disabled at
startup if --traditional is used.

jwe