Re: Matlab references in docs; distinguishing between ML and Octave

[Ben Abbott]

On Mar 24, 2013, at 3:46 PM, Philip Nienhuis wrote:

> bpabbott wrote
>> On Mar 24, 2013, at 2:54 PM, Philip Nienhuis wrote:
>> 
>>> While perusing the Octave documentation about Java I noted several
>>> references
>>> to Matlab; one in particular about "how to distinguish between Octave and
>>> Matlab".
>>> 
>>> 1. Is there a policy about mentioning ML in the Octave docs?
>>> IMO it should be minimized to "only when unavoidable"; but because of
>>> Octave's aim for ML compatibility, references to Matlab are all over the
>>> place.
>>> 
>>> 2. What would be a good place in the doc for a description of how to
>>> distinguish between ML and Octave? The Java section is too narrow-scoped. 
>>> Dropping this info entirely or referring to the wiki seems a bit
>>> inappropriate to me. I'd find it a bit double-hearted to aim to be
>>> ML-compatible while mentioning nowhere how to differentiate between the
>>> two
>>> in scripts and m-file functions.
>>> 
>>> 3. A way to distinguish Octave and ML, that works in both, could be to
>>> use
>>> the "computer" function; I saw that ML and Octave return different
>>> answers
>>> for the first output arg ('win32' and "i686-pc-mingw32", resp.; when
>>> called
>>> with 'arch': 'win32' and "mingw32-i686", resp.).
>>> I don't know what answers Matlab and Octave give on OSX, nor what ML
>>> would
>>> answer on Linux.
>>> 
>>> Philip
>> 
>> I think the easiest way to distinguish is to use the "ver" command.
>> 
>> "x = ver ()" returns a structure array with fields "Name", "Version",
>> "Release", and "Date".  For Octave x(1).Name equals "Octave", and for
>> Matlab x(1).Name equals "Matlab".
> 
> Good hint.
> 
> In Octave ver() gives a fairly big struct array, depending on installed
> packages. (In ML having many toolboxes is at least financially discouraged).
> The call to ver() does take a bit of time:

To exclude the toolboxes, pass the name of the product ...

a = ver ('matlab')

a = 

       Name: 'MATLAB'
    Version: '8.0'
    Release: '(R2012b)'
       Date: '20-Jul-2012'

a = ver ('Octave')
a =

  scalar structure containing the fields:

    Name = Octave
    Version = 3.7.2+
    Release = [](0x0)
    Date = [](0x0)

There's no need to check both ...

        if (isempty (ver ('Octave'))
                % Running Matlab
        else
                % Running Octave
        end

Ben