Re: Behavior of 'mkdir'

[WMennerich]

First:

This (simple) solution should work in both environments:

>
>[ack msg]=mkdir('testDirectory')
>
>if ~ack
>    if strcmp(msg,'File exists')
>        % 'Wrong alert'  by octave, -->do nothing
>    else
>        % some other thing is wrong, e.g. throw an errror here.
>    end
>end

But another thing which could increase the Octave/Matlab compatiblility:

The message string of the mkdir-function differs in the discussed case:

Matlab wrotes: 'Directory already exists.' (also with the point at the end)

Octave wrotes: 'File exists'


I would suggest to fit the message string given back by the octave mkdir to
the output which comes from matlab to make strcmp-constructs more compatible
between Matlab and Octave. Also because 'File exists' may be
misleading: Sure, in UnixU/Linux everything is a 'file', also directories.
But since
the name of this function is 'mkdir' and not 'mkfile' or something else, the
message should have a relation to 'directory'.


Second:

Yes, you may be right, one can not conclude that programmers using 'mkdir'
have
more background than others: This conclusion came from my own experience:
With my first matlab programms, I was happy that it runs somehow, but I was
far away from playing
with directories and stuff like that, e.g user inputs, loading and writing
data, ....
;-)

Wolfgang
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