Re: packaging system

[Stefan van der Walt]

On Sun, Jun 19, 2005 at 09:30:31PM -0400, Bill Denney wrote:
> On Sun, 19 Jun 2005, Stefan van der Walt wrote:
> 
> >Anyway, I don't see it being a major hassle: include an INDEX file
> >with each package, and let Octave parse those index files whenever
> >someone wants help('toolbox').  We have the code to do so already.
> 
> Here's what strikes me as the simplest solution: a modification to the 
> help function.
> 
> Toolboxes could work as follows:
> 
> They become packages with no specific functions.  When a package is part 
> of a toolbox, it is symlinked into the toolbox directory, and within the 
> toolbox directory is effectively nothing.  Then, when "help toolboxname" 
> is called, it will scan each subdirectory for functions.  This could be 
> done as follows:

That's an interesting idea.  Another factor to take into account is
that toolboxes are divided into Categories.  The reason we have INDEX
files for octave forge is so that we can do classification of the
functions.  Quoting from main INDEX file:

# An index file has the following format:
#
#  toolbox >> Toolbox name
#  Category Name
#   fn fn fn
#   fn fn fn
#  Category Name
#   fn
#
# Toolbox and category definitions are on the left, function
# lists are indented.
#
# If no toolbox is specified, then the categories will go into
# extra.  Only use this if you are contributing a small number
# of specialized functions.

system >> System Utilities
Clock functions
 now 
 date 
 clock 
 cputime 
 tic 
 toc 
 etime gmtime
 ctime time localtime mktime
Date conversion
 is_leap_year
 asctime
 datenum 
 datestr 
 datevec 
 weekday 
 eomday 

etc.

This isn't something that has to implement immediately, but since we
are designing a packaging structure, I believe it's worth taking into
account.

Regards
Stéfan