Re: embedded octave: how to define new functions?

[Andrea Latina]

Hi John,

thanks for your answer. I'm glad to see that you confirmed what, in
the meanwhile, I had already found looking at the code. Now I use the
scripts mkbuiltins and mkdefs in order to create my own builtins.cc
and I install my functions calling install_builtins().

So far everything works more than fine and I'm really eager to see my
simulation code working together with octave. Nevertheless I would
like to pose some other questions to the group, because I'm doubtful
about something. Here follow my questions:

As I didn't want to write any command line interface or a main's-argv
parsing routine (the octave's ones are ok and I actually need only to
extend the octave's instruction set with my own functions and data
structures, not more), I've thought of calling

int octave_main(argc, argv, embedded);

with embedded=0, i.e. "pretending" octave is not embedded, in order to
leave the control to octave itself and explot its solid interface
(after having installed my own functions, of course).

Here is the problem: this would be fine, if I only could call
my_install_builtins() at the "right" moment, which, as far as I
understamd, should be at some point in the octave_main() itself.
But... how can I do this?

How do you suggest to do?

The solution I've found is: I copied octave-main.cc into my project
dir and I've created my own version of the octave_main(). Which looks
exactly like the original, but calls my_install_builtins() right after
the original install_builtins() call.

This solution works correctly but I wonder if there is a better
solution to do that.

What would you think of putting some kind of hook, in the
octave_main() routine, in order to allow the users, in a situation
similar to mine, to call their own initialization functions, at the
right moment?

Thanks.

Regards,
Andrea

> | I would like to embed octave into my code. I've used the canonical
> | octave_embed.tgz example as a starting point. It compiles and works
> | fine, but I've encountered a problem as soon as I've tried to define,
> | with DEFUN(), my first new function.

> You have to register them with the interpreter.  When Octave is built,
> there is a script that scans the sources for DEFUN macros and builds
> the file builtins.cc.  Look at that script and the generated file to
> see what it is doing, and do that.