[octave] packaging bug! (was: Re: man, info fail me in cygwin 1.5.18)

[Gerrit P. Haase]

James R. Phillips wrote:

> --- "Gerrit P. Haase" wrote:
> 
> 
>>About info dir file:
>>fftw3 was not uploaded yet, but the octave package contains:
>>/usr/share/info/dir
>>which is a packaging bug.  If info files are distributed, the
>>dir file needs to be regenerated, postinstall script should handle
>>this (or require _update_info_dir package).
>>
> 
> Octave's primary documentation is in info form.  Are you saying that the info
> should be edited/regenerated to delete any references to unsupported features? 
> This is, I suppose, a reasonable position, but I don't see evidence that octave
> info describes unsupported features.

No, the file /usr/share/info/dir cannot be distributed with packages, it
must be deleted before packing the release tarball.  Instead of
distributing /usr/share/info/dir this files needs to be regenerated
after the info files are installed.  This is usual done via postinstall
scripts, e.g. see /etc/postinstall/gsl.sh.done.

The OP obviously installed octave and got the info dir file from this
package, this overwrites any present info dir file.


> In fact, octave _source_ _includes_ some routines from fftw, which are used to
> provide support for fft operations if there is no installed fftw library on the
> machine it is compiled on.  This is similar to the way octave supports lapack
> and blas.  AFAICT, references to fftw in octave info are appropriate, whether
> or not an external fftw package is installed.

Well, then the reference in the OPs info dir file is about this stuff.


Gerrit
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