I'm attaching a minimal patch that undoes the installation of the readline hook function that was added for bug #44095.

With this patch applied, Tab no longer inserts extra quote characters at the front of the file name with repeated Tabs. However, it also breaks what that bug was supposed to fix. All I'm showing is that the function octave::gnu_readline::do_completer_word_break_hook is what needs fixing.

(file #51488)

Any idea where in the codebase these insertions are happening?  I just solved a difference in the display of scalar structs between Matlab and Octave and the change was not the hard part, it was simply finding where in the codebase the relevant lines were.

Currently you can't use the GUI (Octave will refuse to start) or interactive graphics (events won't be processed while Octave is waiting for input) without readline enabled because Octave uses a readline feature to execute callback functions while readline is waiting for input at the command prompt.

This is one of the things that the new terminal widget aims to fix.

If this is a huge problem, try disabling Readline by starting Octave with --no-line-editing.

To truly fix this requires someone who understands Readline and how to configure it through inputrc files.  For anyone who comes along later and wants to give this a go, Octave ships an inputrc file located at scripts/startup/inputrc.

This is probably Readline library.  Try typing

y = @<Tab>

For me, Readline inserts one apostrophe (') for each <Tab> that I press.  So,

y = @<Tab><Tab><Tab>

produces

y = '''@

Tab autocomplete for a class folder starting with @ results in a folder name with a ' at the front, producing a syntax error.

>> pwd
ans = c:\temp\test2

>> mkdir('@testclass')

>> cd @test<Press tab for autocomplete>

Produces:

>> cd '@testclass/
error: parse error:

  syntax error

> cd '@testclass/
                  ^
>> cd @testclass/

>> pwd
ans = c:\temp\test2\@testclass