Re: Can't Install Or Load Packages

[A. Kalten]

On Tue, 04 Mar 2008 11:08:07 +0100
David Bateman <address@hidden> wrote:

> 
> What OS and version of Octave? Also what does
>  pkg("global_list")
> return?
>

The OS is Linux (x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu) and the version
of octave is 3.0.0 compiled with gcc-4.3.2.  As I mentioned,
this problem was not present with previous versions.

pkg("global_list"):

/opt/octave/share/octave/octave_packages


>
> Is the file writable by the user you are installing the package
> with?
> 

I run as the root user, so it can be written.  But even if I manually
set the permissions of the file to 0666, which enables everybody,
the same problem occurs.

The file doesn't even exist until it is created by octave following
the installation (or attempted installation) of the first package.
After the first install octave_packages has length zero.

However, what is more interesting is that although I cannot load
the package using "pkg load pkg-name" it *can* be loaded using
"pkg load all".

As an example, I can attempt to install the audio package:

pkg install /tmp/audio-1.1.0.tar.gz

The message is:

warning: save: unable to save global_packages in ASCII format

The /opt/octave/share/octave/octave_packages file has been created
with zero length and all the actual package files are installed.

Attempting to load:

pkg load audio (or pkg load audio-1.1.0)

gives the error:

error: package audio is not installed

But if I use:

pkg load all

the audio package is loaded and can be used normally.

Since I plan on installing several packages, it would not be
preferable to load them all to use just one.

I have even tried to rebuild the package using "pkg rebuild pkg-name"
but that fails in the same way:

error: octave_base_value::matrix_value(): wrong type argument `cell'
warning: save: unable to save global_packages in ASCII format

Is it possible to make a manual entry into octave_packages using
a text editor?  I could then enter the name of the package and
all should be well since the files have actually been compiled
and installed.  What is the format of octave_packages or where
could I get a sample of the file?

So far, there have been no other users reporting a similar problem
so I will have to conclude that it is somehow peculiar to my
setup -- but I can't see how because I've done nothing unusual
in compiling or installing octave.

AK