Fri 21 Mar 2014 04:04:40 PM UTC, original submission:
I tried to install Octave 3.8.1 on my Windows 7 machine.
After copying the files I tried to run "build_packages.m" in the src directory.
It failed with a sh syntax error complaining about ')' at line 0 etc.
The install directory was "D:\Program Files (x86)\Octave\octave-3.8.1" and I learned that this problem was already reported and followed back to spaces in the path name.
Ok, so I moved Octave to a path like "D:\Program_Files_(x86)\Octave\octave-3.8.1".
This failed also and after a while I figured it might have to do the the parentheses.
Ok, so I moved Octave to a path like "D:/Programme/Octave/octave-3.8.1/src". No spaces, no parentheses.
The next try failed also with another sh error. I noted that teh sh that was executed, was taken from the installation of another sh which was found earlier in the search path.
So my conclusions are:
- Octave should make sure that it only uses the tools (like sh) from its binary directory and not from what it finds in the search path.
- Octave should be able to handle spaces, parentheses, Umlauts etc. as one would expect today in the 21st centrury where some people are already beyond the ASCII character set. For example the GUI prototype does not show Umlaits and special characters properly. Maybe another font would be needed?
I know all this is difficult, but I would encourage all testers to use path names with special characters and also try to use quotes in path names in scripts whenever possible.
Sorry for bashing a bit around, but in general Octave is great but for many first time useres these things are big hurdles.
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