stable branch release policy [was Re: Possible bug in intersect]

[Carlo de Falco]

On 11 Apr 2009, at 22:54, Carlo de Falco wrote:

> On 11 Apr 2009, at 19:03, address@hidden wrote:
>
> > Message: 3
> > Date: Sat, 11 Apr 2009 17:38:51 +0200
> > From: Thomas Weber <address@hidden>
> > Subject: Re: Possible bug in intersect
> > To: Jaroslav Hajek <address@hidden>
> > Cc: Massimiliano Culpo <address@hidden>, address@hidden
> > Message-ID: <address@hidden>
> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
> >
> > On Sat, Apr 11, 2009 at 02:11:25PM +0200, Jaroslav Hajek wrote:
> > > On Sat, Apr 11, 2009 at 12:26 PM, Massimiliano Culpo
> > > <address@hidden> wrote:
> > > > Please find attached a possible bug occurring in octave-3.0.4.
> > > > The same behavior is very likely to be found also in octave-3.0.5.
> > > >
> > > > Massimiliano Culpo
> > >
> > > I fixed this in the development sources.
> >
> > Test for this bug attached.
> >
> >         Thomas
> > -------------- next part --------------
> > # HG changeset patch
> > # User Thomas Weber <address@hidden>
> > # Date 1239464264 -7200
> > # Node ID 68036841138c9ef0365ff0f188f3edfee8eb8460
> > # Parent  22ae6b3411a769d62f66f196473336440194404a
> > Add test for bugfix b2459d21a207
> >
> > diff --git a/scripts/set/intersect.m b/scripts/set/intersect.m
> > --- a/scripts/set/intersect.m
> > +++ b/scripts/set/intersect.m
> > @@ -104,3 +104,8 @@
> > %! assert(ib,[3;1]);
> > %! assert(a(ia,:),c);
> > %! assert(b(ib,:),c);
> > +%!test
> > +%! a = [1 1 1 2 2 2];
> > +%! b = [1 2 3; 4 5 6];
> > +%! c = intersect(a,b);
> > +%! assert(c, [1,2]);
> >
> > ------------------------------
>
> This behaviour is not compatible:
>
> ---------
> >> a = [1 1 1 2 2 2]
>
> a =
>
>     1     1     1     2     2     2
>
> >> b = [1 2 3; 3 2 1]
>
> b =
>
>     1     2     3
>     3     2     1
>
> >> intersect(a,b)
> ??? Error using ==> intersect at 51
> A and B must be vectors, or 'rows' must be specified.
>
> >> intersect(a,b,'rows')
> ??? Error using ==> intersect at 198
> A and B must have the same number of columns.
>
> >> version
>
> ans =
>
> 7.5.0.338 (R2007b)
>
> >>
> ---------
>
> I would suggest to change the test to
>
> ---------
> c = intersect(a,b(:));
> assert(c, [1,2]);
> ---------
>
> so that it won't fail if intersect gets changed to be strictly  
> compatible.
> c.


Hi,

It seems this bug was introduced inbetween releases 3.0.3 and 3.0.4 by  
the following changeset:

hg log -r 7920
changeset:   7920:e56bb65186f6
user:        Jaroslav Hajek <address@hidden>
date:        Wed Jun 25 22:11:07 2008 +0200
summary:     improve set functions for Matlab compatibility

so the question I have is, is there a "bug-fixes only, no new  
features" policy for the "stable" branch?

Now, this particular bug is probably to be considered minor as  
compared to the one in "load -ascii" so I'm not sure whether it is  
worth a 3.0.6 release,
but, as it is found in an m-file, maybe a warning about the bug and a  
link to the 3.0.3 version of the set scripts on the web page would  
suffice?

As an other alternative to new releases in the stable branch, to fix  
bugs in m-files and DLD functions maybe a "bugfix" package in Octave- 
Forge could be used?

Sorry if my suggestions sound stupid, I was just trying to think of a  
way to keep the number of bugs in the stable branch a monotone non- 
increasing function of the release number while requiring as little  
effort on developers like Jaroslav whos precious time is better spent  
on improving the development version.

c.