Re: proper way to build octave on ubuntu

[Clinton S]

Much clearer; thanks.

I'm not new to programming, but I don't have experience with Octave's type of build system, so I'm sure I have plenty to learn.

I started with this page - wiki.octave.org/Windows_Installer, which instructed me to build on Linux first, so I found this page - http://wiki.octave.org/Octave_for_Debian_systems.  That page did not give any hints as to how to obtain the source, so I ended up finding the mercurial page at http://wiki.octave.org/Mercurial, which I followed in order to obtain the source files.

I'd like to add a subsection to the Octave_for_Debian_systems wiki page, just before the "Configuration" subsection, as follows:

=== Obtaining the Source ===

The source files can be obtained as a tarball from [https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/octave/ https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/octave/], or by cloning from the [[Mercurial|mercurial repositories]].  Note that, if you use mercurial, you will need to call {{Codeline|./bootstrap}} to generate the necessary scripts before configuration.

Is that correct and appropriate?  I know it would have made things much simpler for me to get started.  (I figured I'd check here rather than risk getting inappropriate changes reverted like last time...)

Thanks,

Clint

On Wed, Jan 10, 2018 at 12:22 PM, Andreas Weber <address@hidden> wrote:

Am 10.01.2018 um 16:31 schrieb Clinton S:
> I am wondering what the expected procedure is to build octave on
> ubuntu.  I tried following the instructions at this page: 
> http://wiki.octave.org/Octave_for_Debian_systems, but before I could
> call ./configure, I had to run ./bootstrap so that ./configure would
> have the necessary files, after which I was able to successfully build
> octave.
>
> My confusion arises from the fact that I edited the above wiki page to
> reflect my experience, but user Carandraug reverted my change.  I am
> trying to figure out whether calling ./bootstrap was not the expected
> way to do things, or whether there was something wrong with my specific
> edit to the wiki page or its style, as I included a caveat that I wasn't
> experienced with building octave.


There is a difference if you download a source tarball or the source
code via mercurial.

The source tarball from https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/octave/ includes the
configure script (you don't need/have bootstrap) and you don't need a
number of other programs like bison (which create c++ code) because the
generated files are already included in the tarball.

If you checkout the sources via mercurial (hg clone ...) you have to
create these files. ./bootstrap for example creates the configure script
(via automake/autoreconf).

Now clear?

PS: Btw, this is nothing specific GNU Octave and you'll see this in many
other projects.


-- Andy







>
> Thanks,
> Clint
>
>
>
>
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