bugGNU Octave - Bugs: bug #45911, allow installation in a directory...

 
 

bug #45911: allow installation in a directory containing spaces

Submitter:  Lloyd Wood <lloydwood>
Submitted:  Thu 10 Sep 2015 04:12:20 AM UTC
   
 
Category:  Configuration and Build System Severity:  1 - Wish
Priority:  3 - Low Item Group:  Feature Request
Status:  Works For Me Assigned to:  None
Originator Name:  Lloyd Wood Open/Closed:  * Closed
Release:  * dev Operating System:  * Any
Fixed Release:  None Planned Release:  None
* Mandatory Fields

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Fri 17 Jun 2016 06:33:47 PM UTC, comment #5: 

No further information has been provided, so I'm closing this bug as working pending further details. Please feel free to provide more information about exactly what commands fail when Octave is installed in a directory with spaces, or open a new bug report if you like.

Mike Miller <mtmiller>
Group Member
Fri 29 Apr 2016 10:07:54 PM UTC, comment #4: 

I am able to copy Octave to an installation directory containing spaces, and the test suite executes fully without any errors.

Can someone give an example of a command that does not work when Octave is installed in a directory containing spaces? Maybe a system command, or installing a pkg?

Mike Miller <mtmiller>
Group Member
Tue 15 Sep 2015 01:45:22 PM UTC, comment #3: 

Updating summary as I've proposed. Other issues should either be filed as individual bug reports or collected on the wiki, perhaps the "Projects" page? http://wiki.octave.org/Projects

Mike Miller <mtmiller>
Group Member
Thu 10 Sep 2015 06:04:55 PM UTC, comment #2: 

Yes, thanks for documenting a laundry list of feature requests for the Windows installer.

Might I humbly suggest that something like this might be better handled on the wiki? The bug tracker is really not ideal for a collection of issues like this (what happens when one is fixed but 10 are still unfixed? which are wishlist and which are bugs? etc).

I know it was my suggestion to report another bug, but I was speaking strictly about the issue "installing Octave in a directory with spaces in it" which can be dealt with as a unit on its own.

Lloyd and/or Philip, can you please move the list of issues to the wiki so they can be described and discussed there?

If you're ok with that plan I would like to retitle this bug to simply "allow installation of Octave in a path with spaces", which is a non-Windows-specific feature request that anyone interested can look at and work on.

Mike Miller <mtmiller>
Group Member
Thu 10 Sep 2015 05:44:54 PM UTC, comment #1: 

In addition to your wishes, here's some more:
- Being able to select the Start Menu subdir would be nice too. Presently  the Octave shortcuts are dumped into the "main" Start Menu folder.  I had a go at this some weeks back but it isn't quite as easy as I hoped it would be.
- Another Windows-specific issue that should be solved is bug #40444. It is the same category as your "Program Files" wish and I do not consider it a bug; Octave doesn't conform to Windows conventions but otherwise works fine.


Anyway you've presented a long list here. Good that you finally registered these long-known issues for reference.

The main problem to get them solved is that there aren't so many Octave-on-Windows developers - just three or four "part time" ones and maybe/probably I'm much too optimistic here.
Priority lies with maintaining Octave's core functionality on Windows; bells and whistles like nice installers have less appeal for most devs. Most of us here use an OS (Linux) that has all these issues solved (or avoided) in the distros by good and streamlined package managers.


As to some of your items:

installing to %Program Files% directory
"C:\Octave" isn't a fixed unmutable setting but rather a suggestion, one can easily adapt the installation directory during installation. AFAIK spaces in the installation directory path names are catched for good reason.

32bit/64bit:
When trying to building an unstripped (of debug symbols)  installer lately I hit the NSIS 2 GB limit. That will surely happen as well when a combined 32/64 bit installer is built. FYI, a recent 64b development build for Windows incl. OF packages (stripped and all) already takes 1.86 GB disk space when installed.
I'm afraid this wish will lead to a much more complicated build-up of the installer. Maybe something like a stub that downloads the rest from the Internet could be a solution.

Spaces (and other characters) in path names:
I suppose large parts of Octave's I/O internals depend on the underlying system libs supplied by the MinGW project. If so, Octave can do only so much until this is fixed upstream.
Note that it is mostly when invoking binary modules that spaces in path names are an issue. I/O from/to files with spaces in the (path) names works perfectly AFAIK.

check boxes for packages
That was once implemented in the ancient 3.2.4 binary installer - shouldn't be hard to re-implement.

remove, repair, adjust
Isn't that supported only for .msi type installers? If so that's not going to make it with Octave as it is a proprietary system.


Changing Item group to "Feature request" as most of the mentioned issues do not obstruct Octave's functionality and one issue (spaces) looks to be an upstream issue;
Priority just a little lower;
Status => "Confirmed"
Title adapted

Philip Nienhuis <philipnienhuis>
Group Member
Thu 10 Sep 2015 04:12:20 AM UTC, original submission:  

As suggested by Mike in bug 45899, opening a bug for Windows installation issues. These are likely long-term and low-priority, since anyone really wanting to run Octave can live within these, but just noting for future reference.

A Windows installer needs to:
- default to "Program\\ Files" or "Program\\ Files\ \(x86\)" directory, as appropriate for 32 or 64-bit binaries, but also offer the choice to install elsewhere if required (other drive, shared mount, etc.) The current fixed location of C:\Octave does not match that. Supporting this may require improving handling Octave's handling of pathnames with spaces to e.g. escape spaces and brackets; haven't checked. (That work may also be useful for odd Mac OS X locations...)

Not supporting the above can be considered a bug from a Windows perspective; the others can be considered wishlist.

- offer the choice of 32-bit or 64-bit installs on a 64-bit system. There are good debugging reasons to occasionally want both...

- Offer the ability to remove, repair, or adjust the installation. Right now, run the installer again after installing, and you'll be told to remove the package yourself first, but not how. (Yes, Programs and Features removal is supported, despite the unusual location.)

- Offer the ability to build-packages directly as a default checkbox (that defaults to on?) in the installer, rather than issuing commands after the installation has nominally completed.

- Checkbox (defaulting to on) to launch Octave on completion and throw up a quick graphical demo of sombrero graph or similar. Helpful in showing off capabilities to new users.

Lloyd Wood <lloydwood>

 

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    Follow 12 latest changes.

    Date Changed by Updated Field Previous Value => Replaced by
    2016-06-17 mtmiller StatusNeed Info Works For Me
        Open/ClosedOpen Closed
    2016-04-29 mtmiller StatusConfirmed Need Info
    2015-09-15 mtmiller Severity3 - Normal 1 - Wish
        Priority4 3 - Low
        Release4.0.0 dev
        Operating SystemMicrosoft Windows Any
        SummaryImprovements for installation on Windows allow installation in a directory containing spaces
    2015-09-10 philipnienhuis Priority5 - Normal 4
        Item GroupInstallation Failure Feature Request
        StatusNone Confirmed
        SummaryInstallation on Windows Improvements for installation on Windows

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