CODEWITHSUNDEEP
octaveoctave-gui
Miss E
Miss E

Reputation: 21

How can I get Octave GUI to load/read .m files correctly in editor and console?

I am taking a class on using Octave for machine learning algorithms, and as part of the assignments, they provide a series of .m files to build upon with our own code as well as to run for submission credit through the auto-grader. My problem is that the .m files load perfectly fine in a regular text editor program like Atom or Notepad, but in Octave, the files are best described as nonsense, and thus will not run in the console. If I open the files in a regular editor and copy/paste over the crazy into Octave, it seems to save it and reopen fine. But, I have close to 20 files for the first project alone, and this solution is untenable in the long run. I have a screenshot of how it's loading. Is there some setting I need to change? Uninstall/reinstall Octave? I'm new to Octave and the Octave GUI, and I'm striking out with Google for a solution. I am using version 6.2.0. Thank you for any help/advice!

screenshot of how octave is loading my .m files

Update: I responded to this in a comment below, but I tried loading it another way into Octave GUI and received the following error: ">> error: load: unable to determine file format of 'C:/Users/sophi/documents/octave/assignment_1/computeCost.m" This tracks for me because it makes sense why it would open the files in such a weird way. It's simply not sure what they are. However, I created my own simple functions from scratch to test, saved them as .m files, and was able to run them perfectly fine. I'm including one of the files below. Maybe there's a key in the formatting of the files offered by the class which is impacting Octave's ability to process it correctly?

function plotData(x, y)
%PLOTDATA Plots the data points x and y into a new figure
%   PLOTDATA(x,y) plots the data points and gives the figure axes labels of
%   population and profit.

figure; % open a new figure window
% ====================== YOUR CODE HERE ======================
% Instructions:  .... goes on about assignment
% ============================================================
end

MOST RECENT UPDATE: The plot thickens. Yesterday, I was able to open the files I created and run them in the Octave environment, and I (wrongly) assumed they would still work today. They are doing the same stupid thing as the files included by the course. I checked inside preferences for the editor, and it says it is loading and saving them as IBM273 if that helps. Thank you for everyone has pitched in ideas. I really appreciate it!

Upvotes: 1

Views: 1687

Answers (2)

Miss E
Miss E

Reputation: 21

It was 100% the encoding. I thought it was strange it was saving/loading in IBM273, so I switched it to UTF-8. Almost all the files are working now. The only ones that aren't are the ones I was trying to copy/paste yesterday to see what was going on with the load problems and the basic new problems I wrote. So I deleted everything, redownloaded, and set the default UTF-8 going forward and voila! Solved! Thanks again!

Upvotes: 1

Kiran G
Kiran G

Reputation: 21

If you want to open a .m file in octave, Try this solution

It is necessary to declare a current directory before saving a file, loading a file, or running an M-file. By default, unless you edit the Octave shortcut, the current directory will be .../Octave/work. After you start Octave, change the current directory by either using the toolbar at the left-hand side of the screen, or entering the path in the bar at the top.

To open an .m file, you can use file -> open, or type

open filename

Upvotes: 0

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