Re: default ~/.octaverc template

[Keith Goodman]

On 4/29/05, John W. Eaton <address@hidden> wrote:
> On 29-Apr-2005, Keith Goodman wrote:
> 
> | ## Set command-line prompt.
> | ##
> | ## PS1 = ">> ";
> 
> Why would you want a prompt that doesn't give any additional useful
> information like line numbers, or tell you what program you are
> running?

I think the default Octave prompt is too long. But I'm not trying to
advocate a shorter one in  ~/.octaverc. I was trying to avoid an
example that used things like \# and \t since most users who need an
octaverc template won't know what they mean. Of course they also won't
know how to restore the default. I could show what the default is.

Or I could include

`\t'  The time. 
`\d'  The date. 
`\n'  Begins a new line by printing the equivalent of a carriage
return followed by a line feed.
`\s'  The name of the program (usually just octave). 
`\w'  The current working directory. 
`\W'  The basename of the current working directory. 
`\u'  The username of the current user. 
`\h'  The hostname. 
`\H'  The hostname, up to the first `.'. 
`\#'  The command number of this command, counting from when Octave starts. 
`\!'  The history number of this command. This differs from `\#' by
the number of commands
     in the history list when Octave starts. 
`\$' If the effective UID is 0, a #, otherwise a $. 
`\nnn'  The character whose character code in octal is `nnn'. 
`\\'  A backslash.

What do you use the line numbers for? In case you paste a mutli-line
code fragment at the prompt and want to see on which line it crashed?

My prompt is PS1 = "> ";

> 
> | ## What is the maximum number of commands the history file should
> | ## contain? The default is 1024.
> | ##
> | ## history_size = 256;
> 
> Why would you want to shorten the history list?

I think we should keep this one but increase it to 2048. And we should
dump the two below.

> 
> | ## Octave should try to ring your terminal's bell before printing an error
> | ## message. The default value is to not try.
> | ##
> | ## beep_on_error = 1;
> 
> Really, you want this?
> 
> | ## Do not warn if the name of a function defined in a function file differs
> | ## from the name of the file.
> | ##
> | ## warn_function_name_clash = 0;
> 
> Does this problem happen so often for you that it is an annoying
> warning?
> 
> jwe
>