[h-e-w] Unable to use initialisation file .octaverc in Windows 7 64-bit

[John Frain]

I have a problem with Octave Emacs Support.  I have the same problem
with Emacs  23.3 and 23.4.  I have windows 7 64-bit.  I have tried
various versions of Vincent Goulet's Emacs bundles including his
latest (23.4-modified-2) and the build
EMACS-20120215-r107296-bin-i386.zip

 If I have no .octaverc script in my home directory I have no problem.
For example when I start inferior octave mode with

M-x run-octave

I can source a file start.octave and get the following results.

 - MSYS shell available (c:\Octave\3.6.1_vs2010\Octave-3.6.1\msys).
 - Graphics backend: gnuplot.

octave.exe> source("start.octaverc")
>>pwd()
ans = C:\Users\frainj\octave
>>

The file start.octaverc here contains just two octave commands

PS1(">>");
chdir("~/octave");

However if I change the name of the file to ".octaverc", restart Emacs
and try to start and Octave inferior process with

 M-x run-octave

Octave hangs and windows displays the busy signal.  I then must use
Task manager to stop Emacs.

What is the difference between sourcing the file as my first command
after the inferior octave process has started?  The problem is not
specific to the particular commands included in the start up file.  If
the .octaverc script contains only comments the inferior process
starts.

I am not sure if this query should go to the emacs or octave "help"
lists.  If one suggests an alternative source of help that would be
helpful. In my .emacs script. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

I have used various combinations of the  suggestions on
http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs-de/OctaveMode and
http://sunsite.univie.ac.at/textbooks/octave/octave_34.html and none
appear to solve the problem.

The current default.el site initialisation file is

;;; default.el --- Default configuration for GNU Emacs
;;; Used mainly to load custom extensions.
;;; (Loaded *after* any user and site configuration files)

;; Copyright (C) 2012 Vincent Goulet

;; Author: Vincent Goulet

;; This file is part of Emacs for Windows Modified
;; http://vgoulet.act.ulaval.ca/emacs

;; GNU Emacs for Windows Modified is free software; you can
;; redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General
;; Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either
;; version 3, or (at your option) any later version.

;; GNU Emacs is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
;; but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
;; MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
;; GNU General Public License for more details.

;; You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
;; along with GNU Emacs; see the file COPYING.  If not, write to the
;; Free Software Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor,
;; Boston, MA 02110-1301, USA.


;;;
;;; Easier printing
;;;
(require 'w32-winprint)
(require 'htmlize-view)
(htmlize-view-add-to-files-menu)

;;;
;;; ESS
;;;
;; Load ESS and activate the nifty feature showing function arguments
;; in the minibuffer until the call is closed with ')'.
(require 'ess-site)
(require 'ess-eldoc)

;;;
;;; org
;;;
;; Load recent version of org-mode.
(require 'org-install)


;;;
;;; AUCTeX
;;;
;; We assume that MiKTeX (http://www.miktek.org) is used for
;; TeX/LaTeX. Otherwise, change the (require ...) line as per the
;; AUCTeX documentation.
(load "auctex.el" nil t t)
(load "preview-latex.el" nil t t)
(require 'tex-mik)


;;;
;;; SVN
;;;
;; Support for the Subversion version control system
;; (http://http://subversion.tigris.org/) in the VC backend. Use 'M-x
;; svn-status RET' on a directory under version control to update,
;; commit changes, revert files, etc., all within Emacs. Requires an
;; installation of Subversion in the path.
(add-to-list 'vc-handled-backends 'SVN)
(require 'psvn)

;;;
;;; Use Aspell for spell checking
;;;
(setq-default ispell-program-name "C:/GNU/GNU_Emacs_23.4/aspell/bin/aspell.exe")

;;;
;;; Other site extensions
;;;
;; Emacs will load all ".el" files in "
;; C:/GNU/GNU_Emacs_23.4/site-lisp/site-start.d/"
;; on startup.
(mapc 'load
      (directory-files "C:/GNU/GNU_Emacs_23.4/site-lisp/site-start.d"
t "\\.el\\'"))









-- 
John C Frain, Ph.D.
Trinity College Dublin
Dublin 2
Ireland
www.tcd.ie/Economics/staff/frainj/home.htm
mailto:address@hidden
mailto:address@hidden