Re: package manager patch + problem

[John W. Eaton]

On  2-Mar-2007, David Bateman wrote:

| That might be addressed with something like
| 
| autoload("glog",file_in_loadpath("gf.oct")[1]);
| 
| In any case we should decide on one way of doing it and it appears that
| "which" isn't the right way due to the issue of unloading DLL's under
| windows..

The autoload function is supposed to link a function name to a
specific file.  The name of the file should not depend on searching
the loadpath.

To see why it should not depend on the loadpath, suppose you have a
file called gf.oct in your home directory that is just some junk file
that you've been using to do some testing of a function called gf.  It
only defines one function (gf) and doesn't define glog.  Then there is
also another gf.oct file somewhere else in the path that does define
glog.  You start Octave in your home directory and Octave can't find
glog.  You start Octave anywhere else, and it works.  I think that
kind of behavior is going to be very confusing.

Maybe we should just eliminate autoload and allow only one function to
be defined in a file (.m or .oct), and no functions on the command
line and no functions in script files.  Then we gain complete
compatibility and everything is simple to understand etc.  :-/

jwe