Re: Display order of structure elements changed in 2.9.7

[David Bateman]

Benjamin Lindner wrote:
> Hello list,
>
> I noticed a difference in the display order of structure elements in octave 
> 2.9.7 compared to 2.9.6 and 2.1.73.
>
> octave-2.1.73:1:~
>   
>> A.d=1; A.b=2; A.c=3; A.a=4
>>     
> A =
> {
>   a = 4
>   b = 2
>   c = 3
>   d = 1
> }
>
> octave-2.9.6:1:~
>   
>> A.d=1; A.b=2; A.c=3; A.a=4
>>     
> A =
> {
>   a =  4
>   b =  2
>   c =  3
>   d =  1
> }
>
> octave-2.9.7:1:~
>   
>> A.d=1; A.b=2; A.c=3; A.a=4
>>     
> A =
> {
>   d =  1
>   b =  2
>   c =  3
>   a =  4
> }
>
> Is this change intentional?
> I did a look into the changelog file but did not find a hint concerning this.
>
> I know, the octave manual states that octave may print the elements of 
> structures in any order (so basically one should not rely on a specific 
> order), but - frankly said - I found the old behaviour of listing in 
> alphabetical order very useful. it makes it much more user-friendly to read 
> listings - especially if there are a large number of elements.
>
> Is there a chance to get the old behaviour back?
> Or - assuming that there is of course a good reason for the new behaviour - 
> could one introduce an option to enable/disable alphabetic sorting? e.g. a 
> builtin variable like struct_display_sort_order having either "alphabetic" 
> and a second option?
>
> benjamin
>
>   
Trying this under matlab R2006a I get

>> A.d=1; A.b=2; A.c=3; A.a=4

A =

    d: 1
    b: 2
    c: 3
    a: 4

seems its one of those stupidities to be compatiable with matlab. The
patch that affected this was  "cvs diff -r 1.73 -r 1.74
src/ov-struct.cc" and the Changelog entry is

2006-07-06  John W. Eaton  <address@hidden>

        * ov-struct.cc (octave_struct::print_raw): Print keys in key_list
        order.

Given, the matlab compatibility is considered more important that
compatibility with older versions of octave, I don't imagine this will
be changed...

Regards
D.

-- 
David Bateman                                address@hidden
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