[Pkg-octave-devel] Bug#375646: octave2.9: Error on line 45 of /usr/share/octave/2.9.6/m/time/etime.m -> bad use of datenum.m

[Jan Vermeulen]

Package: octave2.9
Version: 2.9.6-2
Severity: normal
Tags: experimental



-- System Information:
Debian Release: testing/unstable
  APT prefers unstable
  APT policy: (500, 'unstable')
Architecture: i386 (i686)
Shell:  /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash
Kernel: Linux 2.6.16-1-686
Locale: LANG=en_ZA, LC_CTYPE=en_ZA (charmap=ISO-8859-1)

Versions of packages octave2.9 depends on:
ii  atlas3-base [liblapack.so.3]  3.6.0-20   Automatically Tuned Linear 
Algebra
ii  fftw3                         3.0.1-14   library for computing Fast 
Fourier
ii  libc6                         2.3.6-7    GNU C Library: Shared libraries
ii  libgcc1                       1:4.1.1-5  GCC support library
ii  libgfortran0                  4.0.3-1    Runtime library for GNU 
Fortran ap
ii  libglpk0                      4.10-1     linear programming kit 
(shared lib
ii  libhdf5-serial-1.6.5-0 [libhd 1.6.5-1    Hierarchical Data Format 5 
(HDF5)
ii  libncurses5                   5.5-1      Shared libraries for 
terminal hand
ii  libpcre3                      6.4-1.1    Perl 5 Compatible Regular 
Expressi
ii  libreadline5                  5.1-7      GNU readline and history 
libraries
ii  libstdc++6                    4.1.1-5    The GNU Standard C++ Library v3
ii  libufsparse                   1.2-6      collection of libraries for 
comput
ii  texinfo                       4.8-8      Documentation system for 
on-line i
ii  zlib1g                        1:1.2.3-11 compression library - runtime

octave2.9 recommends no packages.

-- no debconf information

Given a script such as:
   t = clock()
   etime(clock(), t)

results in the following error message:
   error: element number 2 undefined in return list
   error: evaluating assignment expression near line 45, column 13
   error: called from `etime' in file 
`/usr/share/octave/2.9.6/m/time/etime.m'
   error: near line 2 of file `xxx.m'

Investigating the error message shows that it is generated by the 
following line of code in etime.m:
   [d1, s1] = datenum (t1);

Further investigating the function datenum(...) with `help datenum', 
gives the following text:
 -- Function File:  datenum(Y, M, D [, h , m [, s]])
 -- Function File:  datenum('date' [, P])
     Returns the specified local time as a day number, with Jan 1, 0000
     being day 1. By this reckoning, Jan 1, 1970 is day number 719529.
     The fractional portion, corresponds to the portion of the
     specified day.

datenum(...) does not have two returns! Reverting to the etime.m of 
2.1.73 (in the stable tree), in 
/usr/share/octave/2.1.73/m/miscellaneous/ *seems* to provide a temporary 
workaround to the problem.

-- 
Jan Vermeulen
The Extremist
23137216

"God has such a deep reverence for our freedom that he'd much rather have us freely go to Hell, 
than be compelled to go to Heaven"
                                                ----------Desmond Tutu
                        Beyers Naude Memorial Lecture 2003 (15 August)