Default value of "ans" variable when starting Octave

[Rik]

8/29/11

All,

Immediately after starting Octave there is only one variable defined in the
workspace which is "ans".  This variable seems to contain the possible
values of optimset().  Is there any obvious reason why we do this?

I like to start the a new session with a clean workspace and this has
always slightly bothered me.  A quick and easy solution would be to add a
line to the default site-wide octaverc file which clears or initializes
ans.  Yes, it wouldn't be run when users start with the '-f' option nor
would it be run if sites already have an existing octaverc file.  On the
other hand, I'm not sure I want to track down why ans is getting the
particular value it has right now.

So would it bother anyone if I went ahead and added 'ans = [];' to
local-rcfile which is installed as
'$PREFIX/local/share/octave/site/m/startup/octaverc'.

Cheers,
Rik