[Octave-bug-tracker] [bug #50283] `help sym` from symbolic package results in corrupt "less" output

[anonymous]

URL:
  <http://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?50283>

                 Summary: `help sym` from symbolic package results in corrupt
"less" output
                 Project: GNU Octave
            Submitted by: None
            Submitted on: Sun 12 Feb 2017 03:25:03 AM UTC
                Category: GUI
                Severity: 3 - Normal
                Priority: 5 - Normal
              Item Group: Regression
                  Status: None
             Assigned to: None
         Originator Name: Mingye Wang
        Originator Email: address@hidden
             Open/Closed: Open
         Discussion Lock: Any
                 Release: 4.2.0
        Operating System: Microsoft Windows

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Details:

OS: Windows 10, build 15031 (weird one);
Build: Octave 4.2.0, Windows x64, grabbed from ftp.gnu.org
Previous build: Octave 4.0.0, Windows x86, something that installs to
C:\Octave\Octave-4.0.0

Steps to reproduce:

0 Install the symbolic package from octave-forge. Since "pkg install -forge"
never works for me, I grabbed the tarball and manually ran "pkg install
symbolic-2.5.0.tar.gz".
0 Load the package by running "pkg load symbolic"
0 Run "help sym".

== Output prior to regression (broken in another way): ==

Output is paged into multiple less pages. A few navigations forward with "f"
shows mojibake typical of decoding UTF-8 characters into certain Windows code
pages. (cp1252/cp437 in my case, I guess).

== Current more broken output: ==

Output seems paged into multiple pages, but the navigation prompt is not
visible. Only the first few lines are printed, along with a perl warning that
also flushed the screen during installation: (Transcripted by hand; less
doesn't want me to copy it?)


>> pkg load symbolic
>> help sym
Use of uninitialized value in lc at /usr/lib/perl5/5.8/utf8_heavy.pl line
123.
'sym' is a function from the file
C:address@hidden

 -- Constructor on @sym: X = sym (Y)
 -- Constructor on @sym: X = sym (Y, ASSUMESTR)
[cursor goes here]
+verbatim

A few 'f's ahead, some text gets skipped (compare this to the correct comments
in sym.m from the package):


[identical part omitted]

 -- Constructor on @sym: X = sym (Y)
 -- Constructor on @sym: X = sym (Y, ASSUMESTR)

     A matrix can be input:
          sym ([1 2; 3 4])
(true)[another f ahead]
ymbol：
          x = sym ('x', 'positive')
[another f ahead]: for discussion of the
     details

     See also: syms, assumptions, @sym/assume, @sym/assumeAlso.

[normal  "Additional help" paragraphs]
-- less -- (f)orward, (b)ack, (q)uit


(The "symbolic" package is located at
https://octave.sourceforge.io/symbolic/.)




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