[Octave-bug-tracker] [bug #47480] [octave forge] (io) relies on deprecated octave_config_info

[Philip Nienhuis]

Follow-up Comment #8, bug #47480 (project octave):

@Mike:
Thanks for reminding me, I forgot about this one.
I have little time until later this week; but reading TL;DR trough the
dscussion here I think it's about automatically finding the place where users
or distros keep .jar files.
That was meant as a service for users; in the past a lot of io package users
had quite bit of trouble finding and loading the required Java libraries
(.jars) for their favorite spreadsheet support SW, so I automated a lot of it
based on existing code that checked the requirements for spreadsheet I/O.

A patch would be kind but I can also fix it myself if I know how to find out
if there's built-in Java support w/o __octave_config_info__. Once there the
existing io package code can do the rest, maybe after some adaptations a.o.,
for backwards compatibility considerations.
As to 32 vs. 64 bit Octave: that will get moot in the coming years I suppose.
But I need to read up on what is at issue here.


Some background on why that code is there at all: 
w/o Java, Octave + io can only read spreadsheet files in .xlsx (reasonably
rapid), .ods (terribly slow) and .gnumeric (fairly quick but rarely used)
formats.
Java support is indispensable for the older but still widely used .xls format
and for acceptable speed of .ods I/O.
With the windows package, Octave can read all kinds of spreadsheet file
formats, and rapidly, because then io invokes Excel behind the scenes and all
formats that Excel can read are available (save .csv and .txt). Similar holds
for LibreOffice (invoked through Java/UNO bridge). Note that -like Excel-
LibreOffice can also be invoked through ActiveX/COM on Windows systems (I have
code for that lying around but never finished it).

I don't expect Java jars to be dropped into Octave subdirs (is that what you
mean?); all that is needed is finding where they are and load them (add to
Java path). That is equally valid for Windows, Linux and OSX systems.


    _______________________________________________________

Reply to this item at:

  <https://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?47480>

_______________________________________________
  Message sent via Savannah
  https://savannah.gnu.org/