output from eig() is complex?

[Mario Storti]

I want to compute the eigenvalues of  a symmetric matrix and sort them
as real  numbers  but   I  don't  obtained the  expected   result. For
instance:

octave:7> A=rand(10);
octave:8> A=A+A';
octave:9> sort(eig(A))
ans =

   0.0089208
   0.5152296
  -0.5608954
  -0.6509429
   0.9682804
   1.5698353
   1.9441555
  -2.0148139
  -2.5246725
   9.5114825

My  interpretation is that  Octave is sorting   the vector by absolute
value since this is the action for complex numbers, and in general the
result from  the  eig()   operation   should be   a list  of   complex
numbers. However the result of the operation is strictly real:

octave:18> v=eig(A);
octave:19> whos

*** local user variables:

prot  type               rows   cols  name
====  ====               ====   ====  ====
 wd   real matrix          10     10  A
 wd   real matrix          10      1  v

I can solve the problem easily but I wonder if  this is a sort of bug,
since splitting the   sort(eig(A)) in two  commands  gives the correct
result:

octave:20> v=eig(A); sort(v)
ans =

  -2.5246725
  -2.0148139
  -0.6509429
  -0.5608954
   0.0089208
   0.5152296
   0.9682804
   1.5698353
   1.9441555
   9.5114825

This is also a source of incompatibility with Matlab, since with it I
can use always sort(eig(A)) for symmetric matrices.

Octave version: 1.1.1
internal variable: ok_to_lose_imaginary_part = warn

Mario

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