3.8 qualification

[Vic Norton]

I'm writing a paper that will be supported by an Octave package. For me there 
is a huge difference between Octave 3.8 and prior versions of Octave. Does the 
following qualification make any sense to anyone? Any suggestions as to how I 
should phrase it?


The dxneg function is the main subroutine. In outline it looks like this.

   function [P, Lambda, do_again] = dxneg(X, Y, do_again)
     # global j0 J K q Q R A b; # uncomment for Octave versions < 3.8
       ... <code> ...
     # endfunction  # dxneg  # uncomment for Octave versions < 3.8

The “global” variables in the second line of the dxneg outline need not be 
declared since these variables occur only inside dxneg and inside subroutines 
of dxneg. In versions of Octave prior to 3.8, the first hash mark in the second 
line of dxneg would have to be removed; this would make the “global” variables 
truly global in scope. And this would be necessary, in versions of Octave prior 
to 3.8, because all subroutines in these versions have global scope. But this 
is a technical point; let’s forget it.



Thanks for your input.   - Vic