bugGNU Octave - Bugs: bug #32750, save in 3.4.0 is not backwards...

 
 

bug #32750: save in 3.4.0 is not backwards compatible with load in 3.2.2

Submitter:  Daniel Arteaga <darteaga>
Submitted:  Fri 11 Mar 2011 02:46:25 PM UTC
   
 
Category:  None Severity:  1 - Wish
Priority:  3 - Low Item Group:  None
Status:  Wont Fix Assigned to:  None
Originator Name:  Open/Closed:  * Closed
Release:  * 3.4.0 Operating System:  * GNU/Linux
Fixed Release:  None Planned Release:  None
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Sat 22 Jun 2013 03:12:08 PM UTC, comment #7: 

No objections.  Closing report.

Rik <rik5>
Group administrator
Sat 22 Jun 2013 11:47:51 AM UTC, comment #6: 

Does a bug that is "left in place" have to be "open" ? It seems to me that you can google closed bug reports as well. So it makes sense to close this bug.

Anyone object ?

D.

David Bateman <dbateman>
Group Member
Fri 18 Mar 2011 03:22:10 PM UTC, comment #5: 

It may also simply be impossible to generate a file that can be loaded in previous versions of Octave.

Given our limited resources, I'd rather not complicate things by adding -vN version flags for the Octave save formats.

John W. Eaton <jwe>
Group administrator
Wed 16 Mar 2011 05:16:16 PM UTC, comment #4: 

Thank you very much for your detailed reply.

I understand that it is sometimes desirable to break the save format, but in this case it would be useful to introduce a new option to the save command like "--octave-legacy: Save in octave  format version <= 3.2". After all, this option already exists for the different Matlab save formats.

Daniel Arteaga <darteaga>
Wed 16 Mar 2011 04:41:02 PM UTC, comment #3: 

I understand that this would be a nice feature to have, but it would also limit future additions to Octave load/save functionality.

By example, Microsoft Word can save in either .doc or .docx format.  The old .doc files can be read by any version of Word, but only later versions of Word can use the extra features in the .docx format.  This is the same situation that Octave has, although we didn't rename the file extension.

I checked your file and when saved in Octave text format under 3.2 it correctly loads under 3.4.  Thus, 3.4 is backwards compatible with older versions of Octave which is critically important for maintaining access to legacy data.  However, to be able to take advantage of some new features (such as range compression) you will need a recent version of Octave.

Incidentally, Matlab got into the same issue which is why there are -v4, -v6, and -v7 flags for loading Matlab data files.

This bug won't be fixed, but the report will be left in place for users who may stumble upon this issue.

Suggested workarounds
1) Upgrade all collaborating users to the same version of Octave.
2) Use a specified file format, such as -v7 or -hdf5, for sharing files between different versions of Octave.

Rik <rik5>
Group administrator
Mon 14 Mar 2011 11:08:31 AM UTC, comment #2: 

I understand that this might be rather a feature request than a bug, but anyway it is still very inconvenient issue for people using octave for scientific collaboration, each one using slightly different versions.

In the same way as save format tries to be backwards compatible with different Matlab save formats, it would be nice if it was backwards compatible with its own native format.





Daniel Arteaga <darteaga>
Sat 12 Mar 2011 06:37:35 PM UTC, comment #1: 

We don't promise backward compatibility for save formats, so I don't see that this is a bug.

John W. Eaton <jwe>
Group administrator
Fri 11 Mar 2011 02:46:25 PM UTC, original submission:  

See example file saved in octave 3.4.0, when loading from octave 3.2.2, using native text octave format (no options for save)

As a workaround one can use matlab v7 format.

Daniel Arteaga <darteaga>

 

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file #22900:  meta added by darteaga (13KiB - application/octet-stream)

 

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    Follow 5 latest changes.

    Date Changed by Updated Field Previous Value => Replaced by
    2013-06-22 rik5 Open/ClosedOpen Closed
    2011-03-16 rik5 Severity3 - Normal 1 - Wish
        Priority5 - Normal 3 - Low
        StatusNone Wont Fix
    2011-03-11 darteaga Attached File- Added meta, #22900

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