SPM/Octave

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GNU Octave [edit]

GNU Octave is a high-level language that is mostly compatible with MATLAB. It is free open source software under the terms of the GNU General Public License.

Octave [edit]

MATLAB/Octave compatibility [edit]

GNU Octave is mostly compatible with MATLAB:

Compatibility status from other neuroimaging MATLAB packages:

Current status for SPM/Octave compatibility [edit]

Please contact fil.spm@ucl.ac.uk if you are interested.

You need to use latest version of SPM8 (r5236) and GNU Octave (3.6).

For compilation of the MEX files for Octave, run the following:

cd /home/login/spm8/src
make distclean PLATFORM=octave
make PLATFORM=octave && make install PLATFORM=octave
make toolbox-distclean PLATFORM=octave
make toolbox PLATFORM=octave && make toolbox-install PLATFORM=octave

How to contribute [edit]

You can contribute to improve the support of SPM on GNU Octave in several ways:

  • Report bugs: using the development version of Octave, report problems you encounter when using SPM to SPM or Octave developers. Make sure to only report a bug in Octave when it's something that should not be fixed in SPM instead. Try to isolate the problem as much as possible.
  • Propose patches in Octave for bugs from the list below that have not been fixed yet.
  • Contribute financially to the Octave community.

Compatibility issues observed so far in SPM with Octave [edit]

Requires changes in SPM [edit]

  • Compilation of MEX files: use "mkoctfile --mex" and the MEX-file extension is ".mex" on all platforms.
  • It is not possible to create a function handle with a function name that does not exist (eg, x = @sdlkjfhg fails, see this).
  • do is a reserved keyword in Octave (for a do-until loop) so cannot be used as variable name.
  • disp should be called instead of display for standard variables (in OO programming).
  • builtin('display',obj) does not work on user-defined objects (MATLAB returns 'classname object: x-by-y', i.e. it calls disp.m).
  • class can only be called from the class constructor (and not in any other method function) (class(obj,'myclass') => myclass(obj)).
  • The short-circuit && and || operators should be used in if statements, instead of binary operators & and |. This is reported by MLINT.
  • MEX files should include "mex.h" but not "matrix.h", see this
  • cd does not return current directory in Octave (unlikely to change, see this thread). Call pwd beforehand instead.
  • Line continuation "..." does not ignore anything that appears after it, unless there is a comment sign % (MATLAB does).

Requires changes in Octave [edit]

  • strrep.m works on strings but not cell arrays fixed
  • isdeployed.m does not exist (function X=isdeployed, X=false;) fixed
  • textscan.m, strread.m and textread.m do not exist (in 3.2.4; available in devel, see this and this). Note that in MATLAB, textscan should be preferred and replace strread and textread. The devel function crashes on textscan('aaa.bbb','%s','delimiter','.') fixed
  • A subfunction of a private class method does not access fields directly (i.e. it's a step further from this) and calls subsref/subsasgn instead. fixed
  • which.m does not support the -ALL option (see this). in progress
  • trailing filesep in addpath/rmpath fixed
  • a='a';b={};c=cellfun(@(x)strcmp(a,x),b); crashes with Octave (devel, not 3.2.4) while MATLAB returns c=[]. fixed
  • Same error with b=get(findobj(0,'Tag','xxx'),'a') which should return [], i.e. problem with functions that return empty output. fixed
  • save.m (and perhaps load.m) have trouble with MATLAB binary MAT-format (when some variables are not double precision (e.g. clear a;a.field1=single(1);save a.mat a -v6;load a.mat crashes on Octave dev ("error: load: invalid element type = 0") fixed). fixed
  • dialog, errordlg, helpdlg, inputdlg, listdlg, msgbox, warndlg do not exist in Octave.
  • gco.m now exists in Octave but creates a figure if none exists. fixed.
  • fcnchk.m does not exist in Octave (can usually be replaced by str2func.m)
  • isequal.m does not work with objects (error: find: wrong type argument `class', __isequal__.m at line 147). fixed
  • logm(eye(3)) crashes, MATLAB returns zeros(3). fixed
  • logm sometimes returns complex numbers. fixed
  • mat2str fails on logical inputs fixed
  • Several problems with hierarchical classes. fixed, fixed, fixed, fixed, fixed, fixed, in progress
  • Assignment error with non-preallocated sparse matrices (clear a; a(1,:)=sparse(1,3,1,1,3); returns A(I,J,...) = X: dimensions mismatch. fixed
  • tic/toc do not handle input/output arguments as in MATLAB (tStart=tic; any_statements; tElapsed=toc(tStart);). fixed
  • str2num(',1,1') returns [1 1] in MATLAB and [] in Octave, won't fix
  • Objects not converted as structure when loaded from a MAT-file if class definition is not in path. fixed
  • Accessing graphics object properties from an empty handle displays obscure warning (get([],'x')). fixed
  • nargchk(1,1,1,'struct') returns a 1x1 struct with no fields in Octave and a 0x1 struct with fields message and identifier in MATLAB. fixed
  • [[];{'a'}] returns {[];'a'} instead of {'a'}, in progress
  • Empty struct struct([]) not preserved when saved in a MAT-file. fixed
  • Problem in regexprep with backslash escape character. fixed
  • Segmentation fault with [B,C]=chol(-speye(3)) fixed
  • mwSignedIndex is not defined => typedef int mwSignedIndex; fixed
  • cell arrays of cell arrays as saved by matlabbatch are not parsed properly with Octave. fixed
  • mkoctfile does not recognize argument -outdir.
  • desktop function does not exist, particularly useful for calls desktop('-inuse'). in progress
  • Compilation with SuiteSparse 3.2 fails. fixed
  • undefined symbol: mexCallMATLAB. fixed
  • W specifier in fopen does not work. fixed
  • io64.h is not defined.

Undecided yet [edit]

  • mkoctfile's option to define output file name is "-o" or "--output" while mex's option is "-output". If used, no file extension ('.mex') is appended.
  • MEX object files "*.o" are not automatically deleted after compilation (they are with MATLAB's mex).
  • computer.m returns different strings than on MATLAB (PCWIN, GLNX86, PCWIN64, GLNXA64, MACI64), e.g. x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu.
  • load.m and save.m automatically add a .mat file extension if not provided with MATLAB (Octave doesn't).
  • Octave buffers output, which can be blocking. fflush(stdout) or page_screen_output has to be used.

Miscellaneous [edit]

  • exist('OCTAVE_VERSION','builtin') can be used to detect if running in Octave or MATLAB.
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