[Texmacs-dev] Re: GNU Octave interface

[michael graffam]

--- Joris van der Hoeven <address@hidden>
wrote:

> I propose that we continue the discussion on
> interfaces on the mailing list for TeXmacs
>developers:
> 
>       address@hidden

Ok. :)

I said:

> > Also, it would be good for TeXmacs to set an
> > environment variable TEXMACS_RUNNING or something
> that
> > can be used to certify that we are talking to
> TeXmacs
> > .. the existence of TEXMACS_PATH doesn't strictly
> > imply
> > this. I could do it in the script before I launch
> > Octave, but this really ought to be standardized
> by
> > TeXmacs itself. 
> 
> Since Octave is a free program, the best way to do
> this
> would be to let Octave support a --texmacs option.
> Otherwise, I think that testing for the existence
> of TEXMACS_PATH is a pritty safe proposal;
> we do not want to create a new environment variable
> for every system. If you really demand this,
> then you may always set some TM_OCTAVE variable in
> the script.

Well, we wouldn't need a new variable for each 
system, just one variable that certifies that TeXmacs
is the output engine. If you want to standardize on
using TEXMACS_PATH, thats ok by me. 

But, just using --texmacs isn't a complete solution.
Octave, Bash or other languages need to have some
way to tell their underlying scripts that TeXmacs is
available so that those scripts know to generate
\002verbatim and so forth, or whether to use plain
output. Just telling the interpreter isn't enough, we
need to tell the interpreter's programs and their
children, and ... 

This is precisely what environment vars are for, to
describe a general feature of the user environment. 

We are basically saying that TERM=texmacs.. something
that is VERY important.

>At a first stage, we mainly want pretty-printed
>matrices and polynomials (and all other special
>mathematical output if this is possible).

Octave supports vectors and matrices of complex
numbers and polynomials with complex coefficients. 

I have two routines num2scm and mat2scm that convert
real and complex numbers and matrices to Scheme
expressions respectively. tmdisp uses these routines
to prettily display matrices and complex numbers in
Octave. 

Polynomials are "prettily" printed via a seperate
function in Octave, called polyout. I have patched
the stock Octave polyout to detect and use TeXmacs
features if available. 

The first stage is complete. 

>At a second stage, we may think about online
>documentations and special menus and keyboard
>behaviour in Octave mode.

Ok. Octave online documentation is in texinfo format
and it executes the text-based texinfo reader to view
these documents. Ideally we'd like to load them into
TeXmacs directly. 

I can easily redefine the texinfo viewer that Octave
launches, so if we could signal TeXmacs to load a
given file either through the data pipe, or via a
signal we'd be in business.

All we'd really need is a texinfo converter, which we
really ought to have anyhow. 

>But just finishing the first stage would be enough
>for inclusion inside TeXmacs.

I should start packaging stuff up for you, then? :)



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