Private functions and user objects

[John W. Eaton]

On 22-Jul-2008, WMennerich wrote:

| I played a little with Octave 3.1.50, investigating the new user objects
| features
| (Windows built) and was wondering a little bit:
| If a object function is private, i.e. it is stored in an subdirectory named
| 'private' of the class definition directory (@dirname), octave does not find
| this function anymore.
| 
| Example:
| 
| Directory '@testObj' contains the constructor 'testObj.m' and a function
| 'fun.m'
| 
| 
| A subdirectory of '@testObj', named 'private' contains the function
| 'privFun.m'.
| 
| 'fun.m' calls only 'privFun.m' in the 'private' subdirectory
| 
| Test:
| Create an object:
| 
| >>x=testObj(<some arguments>)
| 
| 
| Now, call the private function via fun.m:
| 
| >>fun(x)
| 
| Result: Error: privFun.m was not found.
| 
| Is this only a bug or are private functions not yet provided by octave?

I guess it is a missing feature.  I think if you look at
load-path.{h,cc} and the symbol_table::fcn_info::fcn_info_rep::find
function in symtab.cc, you'll see that private directories that are
themselves subdirectories of @ directories aren't considered.  This
isn't an intentional omission, it's just that this case didn't occur
to me when I implemented the new load path and symbol table code.

jwe