Re: Emacs and Octave

[Francesco Potorti`]

>Can someone explain some very basics of emacs to me? I have used matlab for
>years and would like to set up octave and emacs in a similiar way but emacs
>makes no sense to me at all.
>
>What is a buffer?
>
>I am able to open a window named *Inferior Octave* 

Each "window" in Emacs shows a "buffer".  For example, in Emacs you can
open several files, and each file is contained in a buffer.  You can
display one buffer ina window, another buffer in another window, all
while keeping other files open, which are not displayed.  A buffer can
also contain a shell process, or an Octave process, or other things.
You opened a buffer containing an Octave process.  That's good.

>but how do I run a octave command?

In the Inferior Octave buffer you should see the Octave prompt.  You
just write at the prompt as you would do with Octave running in a
terminal.  If you do not see the Octave prompt or the commands you write
do not work, then it's a system configuration issue.  What system are
you on?

>The octave tutorial says that "C-c i l" will send the current line to the
>inferior Octave process 

I do not know about "C-c i l", it's undefined on my Emacs.  You just
write a command at the prompt and hit RET.

>but I get a response "C-c TAB is undefined".

That is strange.  How it comes that you hit "C-c i l" and Emacs
understood "C-c TAB"?  Hmm.  C-c means Ctrl-C.  I have no clue.