[Pkg-octave-devel] Bug#710564: Bug#710564: octave-secs2d: makes Octave do not work for simple tasks

[Rafael Laboissiere]

* Francesco Potortì <Potorti at isti.cnr.it> [2013-05-31 19:42]:

> Package: octave-secs2d
> Version: 0.0.8-4
> Severity: important
>
> Here is what I observe:
>
> $ echo "disp(version); a=magic(3); save -ascii a"| octave -qf 
> 3.6.4
>
> $ echo "disp(version); a=magic(3); pkg load secs2d; save -ascii a"| octave -qf 
> 3.6.4 
> error: octave_base_value::matrix_value(): wrong type argument 'cell' 
> warning: save: unable to save dirlist in ASCII format
>
> The error makes no sense, it appears like memory corruption or something 
> like that which is triggered by loading secs2d.

This "bug" has nothing to do with octave-secs2d.  I can "trigger" it 
with this:

     $ echo "disp(version); a=magic(3); b = {}; save -ascii a"| octave -qf
     3.6.4
     error: octave_base_value::matrix_value(): wrong type argument 'cell'
     warning: save: unable to save b in ASCII format

Actually, this in not even a bug.  The problem is that your save command 
"save -ascii a" is trying to save all the variables present in the 
workspace into a file named "a" using the ASCII format.  According to the 
documentation of the save function:

     '-ascii'
          Save a single matrix in a text file without header or any
	 other information.

It seems that you meant something like "save -ascii a a" in your original 
report.

If you do not object, I will close this bug report.

Rafael