Re: Octave Help Mode?

[Christian Herenz <herenz@physik.hu-berlin.de>]

David Hansen schrieb:
> [Cc: to emacs-devel]
> 
> On Tue, 15 Apr 2008 01:10:17 +0200 Christian Herenz wrote:
> 
>> I have a problem with Ocatve Mode. C-x C-h (or M-x octave-help) does
>> not work. It seems that octave-hlp.el cannot find the entrys, so no
>> symbol can be described. However, the variable octave-help-files is
>> set to "octave". Maybe this is a bug in my distribution?
>> I use openSUSE 10.2, and I get no error message, but as stated above I
>> cannot get help on anything.
> 
> It's working here but I use a developer version of emacs.  Is C-h S
> working?

I am not at my computer at the moment, so I cannot test this. However, I 
  noted yesterday, when browsing the GNU Octave Info File lots of Nodes 
which are shown in the index are actually not present. Is this right, or 
does openSUSE ship a wrong info file. Sorry, this tends to be more an 
octave question, but since I am using it inside Emacs, I ask here.

> 
> To the emacs-devels:
> 
> Is there any need for `ocatave-help' if `info-lookup-symbol' is doing
> the same (as far as I can see)?

Mh, maybe octave-help, if working properly should just search the octave 
manual, so if there is an ambivalence between a octave 'symbol' and 
something which is actually not octave, wrong results could be retrived.

> 
>> At another system running Debian (Sarge) I get the error message
>> "Info-find-node: Info file octave does not exist", but on the bash
>> "info octave" shows the info file. However, it is not shown in M-x
>> info (info-mode) inside emacs?
> 
> Maybe adjust INFO_PATH but that sounds like a Debilian bug.
> 

Do you mean the shell-variable INFO_PATH, which I would export in my 
.profile (or simialar), or do you mean something emacs-specific?
As stated above, just entering "info octave" in a normal terminal works 
fine.

The thing is, I really want to work with octave, and I just think it is 
good to look something up directly inside the environment I am doing my 
octave stuff (i.e. emacs), however since I am fan of printed works I 
ordered via my libary today the "GNU Octave Manual" by J.W. Eaton 
(Network Theory Ltd.). Since it is not present in my home-libary I have 
to wait a little bit (cause its inter-libary loan), but I will fill out 
some forms today, that more "official" printed GNU Documentation will be 
available in our libary soon. At present, there is actually none :(

Greets,
Christian