Re: File found by searching load path

[John W. Eaton]

On 12/10/18 10:11 AM, Carnë Draug wrote:

> There's a third option.  There could be a variable that specifies the
> data directory for Octave.  So someone could use:
>
>      load (fullfile (OCTAVE_DATA_DIR, "penny.mat"));
>
> And be explicit about what they want.  But since this is really only
> for Octave's data, maybe a function instead?  Something like this:
>
>      load_octave_data ("penny.mat");
>      load_demo_data ("penny.mat");

The directory name is already in the struct returned by 
__octave_config_info__.  On IRC, you pointed out that it's probably bad 
form to ask users to access this info using a "private" function and I 
agree.  We recently renamed the "public" octave_config_info function to 
the "private" name __octave_config_info__ because a lot of that info is 
really internal to Octave's build configuration.  But some of it is 
useful and might be made public.  So we could split this into a public 
and private function.  That might be better than having a special 
function just for loading Octave demo data files.

> The warning seems fine to me.  Searching the path for a file with the
> same name and ignoring file extension is the type of feature that I
> think we only support for Matlab compatibility.  But it's so crazy
> that a warning against such terrible practice is justified.

Yes, this is the reason that I added this warning.  Do file reading 
functions in other languages search a path for files?  That seems like a 
strange feature to me that can lead to unpredictable results.  It also 
seemed bad to me that the path used to search for data files was the 
same as the one used for searching for program (.m) files.

For those who want more faithful Matlab compatibility, there is the 
"--braindead^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Htraditional" option.  This warning is 
already disabled when invoking Octave with that option.

I could be persuaded that the warning should always be disabled by 
default, but please don't remove it.

jwe