Re: more import tests

[John W. Eaton]

Thanks for running the tests.

Some things I noticed:

** The test of a user-defined import function shows that it is only 
executed if it is called with the function-style syntax, but not if 
called with command-style syntax.  For command-style syntax, it appears 
that the user-defined import function is ignored.  Does that happen for 
ANY other function name in Matlab?

** If the command-style syntax is used, then it appears to affect all 
function calls, as Rik noted.  So when a command-style import statement 
is parsed, the import name is added to a list that will affect function 
lookup.  This can be done when the function that contains the import 
statement is parsed or when it is evaluated.  Doing it at parse time 
requires a lot more smarts for the parser because it must determine what 
is a variable vs. what is a function.  Octave is not quite there yet. 
Also, I need to test what happens when eval is used to give a symbol a 
value when that symbol also exists as a function.  For example:

  import pkg.sin;
  eval ('sin = pi');
  sin (1)

Is pkg.sin called, or does sin (1) index the variable sin?  Does the 
result change if sin is "declared" to be a variable?

  sin = [];
  import pkg.sin;
  eval ('sin = pi')
  sin (1)

I suspect that in the former case, the variable sin is ignored, but in 
the latter case, sin is treated as a variable, not the pkg.sin function.

** If the function-style syntax is used, then import still has an 
effect, but it behaves more like a normal function, and only changes the 
lookup for symbols that appear after the call to import.

** If an import function isn't found, it's an error.

jwe