Re: kmeans is not right

[Philip Nienhuis]

John Guin wrote:
> -----Original Message-----
> From: address@hidden
> [mailto:address@hidden On Behalf Of
> PhilipNienhuis
> Sent: Tuesday, December 08, 2015 9:41 AM
> To: address@hidden
> Subject: RE: kmeans is not right
>
> John Guin wrote
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: help-octave-bounces+johnguin=
>
> > hotmail.com@
>
> > [mailto:help-octave-bounces+johnguin=
>
> > hotmail.com@
>
> > ] On Behalf Of John
> > Guin
> > Sent: Tuesday, December 08, 2015 7:26 AM
> > To: 'JokerOne' <
>
> > address@hidden
>
> > >;
>
> > help-octave@
>
> > Subject: RE: kmeans is not right
> >
> > Does the statistics package work with Octave 4.0?  When I try to
> > install, I get an error that statistics needs io >= 1.0.18.  I have io
> > 2.2.11 installed.
> >
> > Win7, if that matters.
> >
> > John
> >
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: help-octave-bounces+johnguin=
>
> > hotmail.com@
>
> > [mailto:help-octave-bounces+johnguin=
>
> > hotmail.com@
>
> > ] On Behalf Of
> > JokerOne
> > Sent: Tuesday, December 08, 2015 3:55 AM
> > To:
>
> > help-octave@
>
> > Subject: Re: kmeans is not right
> >
> > kmeans is a function of the statistics package. It is not a package of
> > its own.
> >
> > use
> > pkg install -forge statistics
> >
> > then see:
> > http://octave.sourceforge.net/statistics/function/kmeans.html
> >
> >
> > -------------------
> >
> > Found the error - just having the io package installed is not sufficient.
> > You need to force load the io package before installing statistics:
> >
> > pkg load io
> >
> > then statistics will install without error.
> >
> > Should I file a bug to have the error message say " statistics needs
> > io >= 1.0.18 (is the package loaded?)"
> >
> > It would be wordier, but might point people in the right direction.
> >
> > (or just try to load required packages at pkg install time...)
>
> Hmmm.... never knew that packages need to be loaded in order to be found by
> the pkg.m function.
>
> Remarkable, as it is the pkg.m function that writes the octave_packages file
> in which the package database is kept.
>
> A bug report would do well if this is reproducible. I never encountered
> this.
>
> BTW you can also install packages with the -nodeps flag. Dependency checks
> are skipped then (at your own risk, that is).
>
> Philip
>
>
>
> -----------------
>
> Are there setup logs I can get that would help diagnose this?  I have a
> second machine to try and repro and would love to get some actionable
> logs/reports rather than just posting a bug that no one else can repro.

You could try something like:

diary on
:
pkg install ......
:
diary off
diary <filename>

and report the results.
(Use "help diary" for details on how to use it.)

Anyway I cannot reproduce this issue.
In Octave-4.0.0 for Windows the build_packages.m command installs one OF 
package after the other using a declared function ("try-install) that in 
turn calls pkg.m.
After one OF package is installed, build_packages.m simply invokes 
try-install to install the next. Although there's a certain order in 
which build_packages.m installs packages (to satisfy dependencies) no 
packages are loaded at all in between. So I conclude that the pkg.m 
command merely checks for *presence* (being installed) of dependency 
packages rather that rely on dependencies being loaded.

To summarize: I find it odd that pkg.m requires a package (io in this 
case) to be loaded to be able to recognize it as a dependency (for the 
statistics package).

Philip