Problem using help in Octave

Question

Hi,

I cannot get any help information from my octave command prompt. Example, when I enter

octave:1>help rand

I get the error message

error: fwrite: invalid stream number = -1

error: called from:

error: /usr/share/octave/3.2.3/m/help/makeinfo.m at line 147, column 5

error: /usr/share/octave/3.2.3/m/help/help.m at line 62, column 25

Any idea what the problem could be?

[I am running Ubuntu 10.04 LTS and have installed Octave 3.2 using the Ubuntu Software Center]

Answer 1

short answer: you don't have write permission in the current directory. At least on my computer the same error is related to a call to mkstemp ("octave_help_XXXXXX", true). Tjis tries to create a temporary file in the current directory and fails. Try to cd to a writeable directory.

Niko