Bug when installing packages

[Dr. Alexander Klein]

Hello,

While trying to install some packages from octave-forge under  
Octave-3.2.3, which is the latest available in Xubuntu 10.04, I have  
encountered the following bug:

Although I try to force an install in local mode, pkg install -local  
always wants to put the packages in the global directory, which is not  
writable, of course. When I tried to debug pkg I got the following  
result:

octave:4> dbstop ("pkg",1)
ans =  200
octave:5> pkg install -local "struct-1.0.9.tar.gz"
pkg: line 200, column 1
keyboard: stopped in /usr/share/octave/3.2.3/m/pkg/pkg.m at line 200
200:   persistent user_prefix = false;
debug> user_prefix
error: `user_prefix' undefined near line 5 column 1
debug> dbstep
pkg: line 201, column 3
keyboard: stopped in /usr/share/octave/3.2.3/m/pkg/pkg.m at line 201
201:   persistent prefix = -1;
debug> user_prefix
user_prefix =  1
debug> prefix
error: `prefix' undefined near line 5 column 1
debug> dbstep
pkg: line 202, column 3
keyboard: stopped in /usr/share/octave/3.2.3/m/pkg/pkg.m at line 202
202:   persistent archprefix = -1;
debug> prefix
prefix = /usr/share/octave/packages/3.2

Obviously, neither user_prefix nor prefix are initialised, so pkg has  
run before, probably during startup and with a prefix issued.

Later on in pkg, at line 245, user_prefix being persistently true  
seems to prevent "-local" from ever becoming effective again:

     case "-local"
        global_install = false;
        if (! user_prefix)
          prefix = tilde_expand (fullfile ("~", "octave"));
          archprefix = prefix;
        endif

The easiest fix I see would be to remove the persistence of  
user_prefix, which would necessitate issuing the prefix in each pkg  
command. A bit less convenient, but still more transparent I'd think.

Then again, maybe someone else has a better idea?

Kind regards,

        Alex

--
          Dr. Alexander Klein, Diplom-Mathematiker

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