R: EXEC_PATH

[Marco Atzeri]

--- Gio 25/11/10, John W. Eaton <address@hidden> ha scritto:

> 
> Currently that is done by
> 
>   1. storing the value of PATH when Octave starts
> 
>   2. setting PATH in the environment to the original
> PATH + EXEC_PATH
>      when EXEC_PATH is initialized or
> any time EXEC_PATH changes
> 
> I added the following note in the set_exec_path function
> in
> src/defaults.cc:
> 
>   // FIXME -- should we really be modifying PATH in
> the environment?
>   // The way things are now, Octave will ignore
> directories set in the
>   // PATH with calls like
>   //
>   //   setenv ("PATH", "/my/path");
>   //
>   // To fix this, I think Octave should be searching
> the combination of
>   // PATH and EXEC_PATH for programs that it executes
> instead of setting
>   // the PATH in the environment and relying on the
> shell to do the
>   // searching.
> 
> so I'm considering this change as well, so that changes to
> PATH while
> Octave is running will not be ignored when executing
> programs.  I
> think the current behavior might be confusing. 
> However, it has always
> been this way and I don't recall complaints (though
> previously, the
> extra directories were prepended to PATH).  The recent
> changes were
> in response to bug report #31695.  Oops, I see there
> was no ChangeLog
> entry for this change.  I will fix that.
> 
> BTW, how did you notice this, and in what way did it cause
> a problem
> for you?
> 

print("prova.jpg", "-djpg")

it complains that ghostscript and other programs are not in 
EXEC_PATH.

gs is on /usr/bin that is missing from EXEC_PATH


> Maybe I should mention this change in the NEWS file.
> 
> jwe
>