[Octave-bug-tracker] [bug #35187] the "help" command displays truncated help (words missing, etc)

[Philip Nienhuis]

Follow-up Comment #12, bug #35187 (project octave):

Hmmm.. on another WinXP SP3 PC, both Octave-3.4.3_gcc4.5.2 and
Octave-3.6.0_gcc4.6.2 both show clean help text.

Octave 3.4.3_gcc4.5.2 on that box reports:

octave:3> system ("makeinfo --version")
makeinfo (GNU texinfo) 4.7

Copyright (C) 2004 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
There is NO warranty.  You may redistribute this software
under the terms of the GNU General Public License.
For more information about these matters, see the files named COPYING.
ans = 0
octave:4>


...but when opening a command prompt in 
<octave3.4.3 install dir>/msys/bin and calling makeinfo I get:


C:ProgramsOctaveOctave3.4.3_gcc4.5.2msysbin>makeinfo --version
makeinfo (GNU texinfo) 4.13

Copyright (C) 2008 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later <http://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>
This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it.
There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.

C:ProgramsOctaveOctave3.4.3_gcc4.5.2msysbin>


(...hmmmm....intruiging....)

while Octave-3.6.0_gcc4.6.2 gives:

octave:1> system ("makeinfo --version")
makeinfo (GNU texinfo) 4.13

Copyright (C) 2008 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later <http://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>
This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it.
There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.
ans = 0
octave:2>


and shows largely the same output if makeinfo --version is run in a cmd32
window.

I'm sure both Octave versions (3.4.3 and 3.6.0) on that box each have only one
makeinfo.exe present (in ./msys/bin/).

One of the differences is that I call Octave-3.6.0 using a bat file and that
in Octave-3.4.3 ./bin/octave.exe is called directly.
Furthermore, Nitzan provided a very short octaverc in
./share/octave/3.6.0/m/startup/, where the following stanzas are lacking:


msys_path = fullfile( octave_config_info("prefix"), "MSYS" );
if( exist( msys_path, "dir" ) )
   msys_path = cat(2, msys_path, filesep, "bin", ";", EXEC_PATH );
   EXEC_PATH( msys_path );
endif
clear msys_path

## check for mingw32

mingw_path = fullfile( octave_config_info("prefix"), "MINGW32" );
if( exist(mingw_path, "dir") )
   mingw_path = cat(2, mingw_path, filesep, "bin", ";", EXEC_PATH );
   EXEC_PATH( mingw_path );
endif
clear mingw_path


Perhaps try again with these commands in your octaverc file, and see if adding
the mingw32 and msys /bin dirs in this way to your shell path fixes the help
text problems.
Or you could start octave using an octave.bat file looking like:


@echo off
set
PATH=C:Programsoctave3.6.0msysbin;C:ProgramsOctave3.6.0bin;C:ProgramsOctave3.6.0MinGWbin;%path%

set LANG=us
set CPPFLAGS=-IC:/include -IC:/mingw/include

start C:ProgramsOctave3.6.0binoctave --eval  "PS1('octave:#> ')"  --persist

(watch out for line wrap)


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