Re: nested functions?

[Vic Norton]

On Feb 18, 2014, at 1:21 PM, Mike Miller <address@hidden> wrote:

> On Tue, Feb 18, 2014 at 12:50:26 -0500, Vic Norton wrote:
>> Octave now supports nested functions with scoping rules that are
>> compatible with Matlab.
>> 
>> Why then does
>> [...example...]
>> produce the error message
>> 
>> octave-cli-3.8.0> test2
>> parse error near line 11 of file 
>> /Users/vic/Norton/Programming/octave/m/tests/test2.m
> 
> I get the same parse error with your example. If I convert it to a
> function file named outerfunc.m and call outerfunc from the shell,
> then it works as you intended.
> 
>  octave:1> outerfunc
>  hello world
> 
> Does the test2.m example script run as you expect in Matlab?
> 
> -- 
> mike

I haven't used Matlab for many years, Mike. I wouldn't know. But this is
becoming interesting.

The file "outerfunc.m" consisting of

   1;
   function outerfunc()
     global printhello = 1;
     nested1();
     function nested1()
       global printhello;
       if printhello
         printf("hello world\n");
       else
         printf("goodbye world\n");
       endif
     endfunction
   endfunction

produces the "nested functions not implemented in this context" error
message in Octave 3.8.0. However, if you comment out the "1;" line, it
works fine:

   octave-cli-3.8.0> outerfunc
   hello world
   octave-cli-3.8.0> global printhello    
   octave-cli-3.8.0> printhello = 0;
   octave-cli-3.8.0> outerfunc
   goodbye world

It would be interesting to see how this file works in Matlab. I don't
particularly like the Octave behavior.

Regards,

Vic