Re: warning: package ovtoolbox is empty

[Mike Miller]

On Sun, Feb 21, 2016 at 16:06:48 -0500, Joseph C Slater, PhD, PE wrote:
> My understanding it that the pkg install process can automate this for
> the user, putting things in a nice place, setting paths, without my
> writing much of a script to do that. 
> 
> I must presume nearly complete computer illiteracy for the
> installation (or students won't tentatively take that first step). In
> matlab, I have a script that students can download and simply run in
> matlab. It does all the rest for them. I need to get to this level of
> simplicity in Octave if I'm to convince them to use Octave (which I'd
> like to support.).

Ok, then making a proper package that can be installed with pkg sounds
exactly like what you want.

> Note: I'm asking to how to package it (as the developer) not a user
> trying to install it. There is no mention of any special directory
> structure required in
> https://www.gnu.org/software/octave/doc/interpreter/Creating-Packages.html.
> The only things listed as required are the COPYING and DESCRIPTION
> files. 

At the end of that page, it describes the "inst" and "src" directories.
These are the directories that are expected to contain m-file functions
and compiled functions (typically C++), respectively. The bin and doc
subdirectories are also described there.

They are "optional" in the sense that a package may contain all m-files
or all compiled functions. But a package must contain at least one of
those. That may not be described completely clearly.

If the package contains none of bin, doc, inst, or src, then Octave
declares the package to be "empty".

Your github project looks like it's entirely m-files and maybe some
associated data files. You may find that simply moving all of those
files to an "inst" subdirectory gives you the package that you want.

I hope that helps.

-- 
mike