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Installing Octave 3.6.4 on Windows 8Posted on October 12, 2013

Introduction

MATLAB is an incredibly powerful tool for engineers, not just for number crunching solutions to specificproblems, but as an aid to creativity. MATLAB power users sometimes talk about it feeling almost like anextension of their brain. Even for a dyed in the wool C programmer like me, it’s really useful to sketch outalgorithms in MATLAB before implementing them in C. MATLAB’s notation for manipulating arrays iswonderfully concise and the ability to visualise data sets at the drop of a hat using its graphing tools really helpsthe creative process.

The main problem with MATLAB is that its a proprietary platform and even the student version comes with ahefty price tag. This is where Octave comes in – it’s basically an open source implementation of the MATLABlanguage. There are other free alternatives, like Scilab and FreeMat, but Octave seems to be the one that’s mostconsistent with MATLAB. Provided that you steer clear of noncompatible toolboxes, your Octave Mfiles shouldrun fine in MATLAB.

Installing Octave on Windows

Unfortunately, it’s not immediately obvious how to install Octave on Windows. Visitors to the Octave home pageneed to do a bit of detective work to find their way to the correct binary executable installer for Windows.Personally, I think it would be really great if the correct download link was given pride of place on the Octavehome page. I can’t help wondering whether 9 out of every 10 people who go looking for Octave end up abandoningthe idea because they’re not quite sure which version to try.

Fortunately, once you know what to do, installing Octave on Windows is fast and straightforward and really isworth the effort. I don’t have MATLAB installed on my laptop at all anymore – I just use Octave.

The exact file to download is “Octave 3.6.4 for Windows Microsoft Visual Studio” which is one of the versionsprovided on Octave Forge. Here’s the link:

octave3.6.4vs2010setup.exe (68.2 MB)

Run the installer and accept the default installation location (C:\software\Octave3.6.4\) and other defaultoptions, as shown in the following sequence of screen shots:

DT097/1 CAD / Programming ModuleProgramming Notes & Examples

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http://www.gnu.org/software/octave/

https://youneedtoprogram.wordpress.com/2013/10/12/installing-octave-3-6-4-on-windows-8/

http://freemat.sourceforge.net/

http://www.scilab.org/

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http://sourceforge.net/projects/octave/files/Octave%20Windows%20binaries/Octave%203.6.4%20for%20Windows%20Microsoft%20Visual%20Studio/octave-3.6.4-vs2010-setup.exe/download




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Now just wait while the installation takes place…

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Fix for Windows 8

If you’re running Windows 8, you’ll probably run into the same problem I did when I first ran Octave – thecommand prompt was missing from the command window, as shown below:

If so, you just need to do one small fix on the newly installed Octave to get things working. As a workaround for agnulib Windows 8 compatibility bug, you need to add some command line switches to the octave.exe desktopshortcut: Right click the Octave desktop shortcut and click on “Properties”. Add the text "‐i ‐‐line‐editing" to theend of the Target field. Assuming you installed Octave in the default location (“C:\Software\Octave3.6.4\”), thecomplete Target line will be as follows:

https://youneedtoprogram.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/octave_startup_bug.png

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C:\Software\Octave3.6.4\bin\octave3.6.4.exe i lineediting

Here’s how it looked on my laptop:

Using Octave

Now just click OK and you’re ready to start using Octave. Double click on the desktop shortcut to start it up.Here’s how it looks when I open it on my laptop.

As you can see, it looks very different from MATLAB. However, we can type the same commands in Octave that wewould use in MATLAB. In the following example, I’ll create an array of time values, use it to generate a sinusoidalfunction, and then plot the sinusoid in a figure window.

https://youneedtoprogram.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/octave_shortcut_fix.png

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Just like in MATLAB, a sequence of commands can be stored in an Mfile. However, you’ll need to use an externaltext editor. The one I strongly recommend is Notepad++ which is free to download from http://notepadplusplus.org/. Notepad++ is an incredibly useful text editor which can be used for all kinds of programming tasks(editing Mfiles is just one thing it’s good at).

Here’s an example of writing an Mfile in Notepad++:

https://youneedtoprogram.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/octave_figure.png

https://youneedtoprogram.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/octave_commands.png

http://notepad-plus-plus.org/

http://notepad-plus-plus.org/



Once I saved my Mfile, I ran it in the Octave command window as shown below:

Useful Octave commands

In the final screen shot above, you can see some useful commands for moving between different folders.

The pwd command displays the “present working directory” – i.e. the full path of the folder you’re currentlyin. If you’re trying to run an Mfile, pwd should display the name of the folder that contains your Mfile.The cd command is used to “change directory” – i.e. move to a different folder inside the one you’re in.The command “cd ..” leaves the current folder and returns you to the one that contains it.The clc command clears the command window.

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120 Responses to Installing Octave 3.6.4 on Windows 8

bonin eseenam amevi says:January 25, 2014 at 10:32 pm

So ùany thanks for this ! rgds

Reply

batchloaf says:January 26, 2014 at 1:26 pm

You’re very welcome.

Reply

Alon says:February 3, 2014 at 10:04 pm

Thank a lot!!!I was that closed ending up as one of the 9…

Reply

happygerard63 says:February 4, 2014 at 9:12 am

Hi Good Day!Following your above steps and writing commands in Mfile I get… ‘No such file or Directory’..when I type … ‘cd %home%’ and the commands mentioned in your example on the ‘Octave’ screen.FYI pls note I have saved Octave in my ‘F:’ folder andNotepad++ in ‘C:’ folder.Subsequently pls help me to proceed further and have the ‘demoCode_investmentPortfolio’ and other codes obtained on the‘Octave’. Also pls note I have ‘Windows7′ only.

Reply

batchloaf says:February 4, 2014 at 11:19 am

Hi Gerard,

Maybe this is somthing that’s different between Windows 7 and Windows 8?

Instead of “cd %home%”, try doing this:

cd %homepath%

Let me know if that makes any difference.

Ted

Reply


Hi Ted,Thanks for yr mail.Sorry! it still says …’ No such file or Directory’ …Perhaps may be if its possible for you to be online from 0400 hrs to 2300hrs IST (Indian Time) pls let meknow your convenient time and I shall be there and go step by step.

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ThanksGerard


Hi Gerard,

Can you supply more details? A screenshot (or more than one) would really help me to work out what’sgoing wrong for you. I don’t know what directory you’re in, or where the Mfile you want to run is stored(in which directory). If you can provide more details, I’ll try to advise.

Ted


Hi Ted,Sorry, I was out yesterday. Thanks for your mail. Pls note the following:

Below the screenshot of Octave screen when opened:

GNU Octave, version 3.6.4Copyright (C) 2013 John W. Eaton and others.This is free software; see the source code for copying conditions.There is ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY; not even for MERCHANTABILITY orFITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. For details, type `warranty’.

Octave was configured for “i686pcmingw32″.

Additional information about Octave is available at http://www.octave.org.

Please contribute if you find this software useful.For more information, visit http://www.octave.org/getinvolved.html

Read http://www.octave.org/bugs.html to learn how to submit bug reports.

For information about changes from previous versions, type `news’.

warning: load_path: .: No such file or directory– Use `pkg list’ to see a list of installed packages.– MSYS shell available (F:\Octave3.6.4\msys).– Graphics backend: gnuplot.

octave3.6.4.exe:1>

————————–Below is the screenshot of ‘Notepad++’……C:\Documents and Settings\Prakash pc\Local Settings\Temp\nppLocalization \new 1 – Notepad++————————–Ted,Pls note, I have both in different folders (F:\ & C:\). When working on the above graph example in Fig 1, itworks and I get a separate screen with graph.But on entering commands as to creation of Mfile to create initial commands as mentioned above it says,…”No such file or directory available’.Subsequently want to go to the‘demoCode Investment Portfolio’ to see the Time series of the Portfolio Values……then to normalizing ofvalues and to plot the normalized prices of the assets of the Portfolio.Pls advise!

ThanksGerard

happygerard63 says:

http://www.octave.org/bugs.html

http://www.octave.org/

http://www.octave.org/get-involved.html








February 7, 2014 at 12:24 pm

Hi Ted,

Sorry. Pls note my system is Windows XP and not & as stated earlier after verifying with my staff which isdifferent from my laptop. Thanks

Gerard

batchloaf says:February 11, 2014 at 11:51 pm

Hi Gerard,

It sounds like your installation may be working ok, but you just don’t have the working directory correctlyset to the actual location of your Mfile. I suggest that you start Octave and then type the “pwd” comandwhich displays the current working directory (pwd is short for “present working directory”). Then moveyour Mfile to that folder and try running it again.

I couldn’t see your screenshots properly by the way. WordPress won’t let you post them here, but you canjust put them in your google drive or whatever, share them publicly, them post the links in your comment.

Ted


Hi Ted,

Thanks! Pls help me create a M.file and I will proceed accordingly and revert.

Gerard


Hi Gerard,

An Mfile is just a plain text file containing a number of ordinary MATLAB commands. For example, pastethe following into a plain text file (e.g. using Notepad) and save it as “example.m”:

x = [12 5 3 19 13 17 4 8 3 8 13];plot(x)

To find out the current working directory in Octvave, use the “pwd” command. Once you know whichdirectory Octave is looking in (the current working directory), you can just save your Mfile in that folderand then run it by typing “example” in Octave.

Ted


Hi Ted,Thanks! I hv started working with Matlab and the above example works fine where there was a plot. Howeverproceeding further on to ‘priceEuropeanOptions’, ‘investmentPortfolio’, etc., trying to plot the normalizedprices of asset portfolio…………… following is the screen shot of the Matlab editor. (1) Pls identify the mistakesI am committing for the error messages and revert back (2) Pls let me know the procedure to get the prices ofIBM, GOOGLE & SI for computing Time Series Values and for Log Returns. Sorry for troubling you Ted!Thanks.









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>> function demoCode_investmentPortfoliofunction demoCode_investmentPortfolio|Error: Function definitions are not permitted in this context.

>> %% demo_investmentPortfolio: Time series of portfolio values from the series of asset prices (code).>> format short>> %% load the data>> S = load(‘closingPrices_IBM_GOOG_SI_2007_07_01_2013_06_30.txt’);Error using loadUnable to read file‘closingPrices_IBM_GOOG_SI_2007_07_01_2013_06_30.txt': no suchfile or directory.

>> S = S(1:7,:); % Look at a short series of prices for all assetsUndefined variable S.

>> %% Each row corresponds to the time series of prices of an asset>> % Time increases with the index of the colums>> S = S’Undefined function or variable ‘S’.

>> %% D: Number of assets, N: length of the time series>> [D,N] = size(S);Undefined function or variable ‘S’.

>> % start counting at 0>> N = N1;Undefined function or variable ‘N’.

>> %% Plot the time series>> %% normalize the prices so that the initial values are equal>> initialValue = 100.0;>> for d = 1:DnormalizedS(d,:) = initialValue*S(d,:)/S(d,1);endUndefined function or variable ‘D’.

>> normalizedS;Undefined function or variable ‘normalizedS’.

>> %% plot the normalized prices of the assets in the portfolio>> figure(1); clf;>> figure(1); clf;>> plot(0:N,normalizedS);Undefined function or variable ‘N’.

>> axis(‘tight’)>> xlabel(‘time (in days)’);>> legend(‘IBM’,’GOOG’,’SI’,0);Warning: Plot empty.> In legend at 286>> title(‘Time series of prices’);>>………………………………………Gerard

mama says:February 24, 2014 at 4:02 pm

THannks m8 ..appreciate this tutorial

Reply






Thanks Mama, I’m glad you found it useful.

Reply

David Koenig says:March 1, 2014 at 7:42 pm

Thanks for the tutorial. Following it allowed me to break the ice. I am an experienced Matlab’er and a Matlab author. I aminterested in Octave so I can show others how to use some of my scripts without having to buy Matlab.

Dave

Reply

batchloaf says:March 2, 2014 at 11:42 am

Hi David,

Yes, I feel much the same. I used to think that Octave was a threat to MATLAB, but having given it a bit morethought I see things quite differently now. Octave won’t ever replace MATLAB, but it does complement it nicely. Ilove MATLAB, but I would be reluctant to teach it to our undergrads if learning it shackled them to a proprietaryplatform. The existence of a free alternative reassures me that people learning to program in MATLAB will be ableto practice and deploy for free if they choose.

In class, I therefore try to stick to using features that work the same in MATLAB and Octave, so that students canwork with whichever they prefer.

Ted

Reply


Hi Ted,Interesting comments. Since I am a newbie to Octave I only know a little about the differences but I like whatI have seen. I am retired from a company where in 1989 I was the first to purchase Matlab (on a 5.25 inchflexible disc!). By the time I retired in 2001 every engineer had to have his own Matlab suite (whether he/sheused it or not). Now I think it is on the network so anyone can have access. I suppose that many universitiesalso have it available to their students via a network. But, as you point out, what happens when the studentsleave school? Perhaps their company will have Matlab, too, but it is nice to have Octave in their hip pocket.

Regards,

Dave


Hello, I am working on converting a Matlab script into Octavesuitable format. Is there a builtin routine similar toaudiorecorder that can gather sound waves from the laptop microphone?

Thanks,

Dave

Reply

















Hi David,

Audio capture has been a bit of a problem for me in Octave since I started using it. A number of useful functionsare supplied:

http://www.gnu.org/software/octave/doc/interpreter/AudioProcessing.html

However, some of them never seem to work for me “out of the box”. For example, the “record” function is probablythe one closest to what you’re looking for, but that doesn’t work for me. I’m running Octave on Linux here andwhen I try to use the record function, I get something like the following:

octave:10> x = record(2, 22050);Please hit ENTER and speak afterwards!

dd: opening `/dev/dsp': No such file or directoryerror: fread: invalid stream number = 1error: called from:error: /usr/share/octave/3.6.2/m/audio/record.m at line 53, column 13

What that should have done is record 2 seconds of audio at a sampling rate of 22050Hz. Presumably, the errorrelates to the way the audio hardware is set up on my computer. (using ALSA rather than OSS drivers? Somethinglike that.)

Anyway, you can try “record” but if that doesn’t work for you, perhaps you can do what I do and use the “system”function in Octave to run a command line audio recorder (I’m using arecord) which records from the microphoneinto a wav file and then use the wavread function to load the data into an array. It’s a bit of a hack, but works finefor me. For example,

system('arecord d 2 t wav blah.wav');Recording WAVE 'test.wav' : Unsigned 8 bit, Rate 8000 Hz, Monox = wavread('test.wav');

By the way, arecord is a little command line audio recording utility which is part of ALSA so you’ll probably needto use a different audio recorder in Windows. According to this tutorial I just came across, you can use Windows’builtin sound recording utility from the command line as follows:

SoundRecorder /FILE test.wma /DURATION 0000:00:30

Hope that helps!

Ted

Reply


Thanks, Ted. Actually, I have decided to run Octave in parallel with Audacity and generate a beep sound tocoordinate the data collection. Then after the collection is over I can go into the Audacitygenerated wav fileand pick out the sounds I want to analyze.

Dave


Ok cool. Best of luck getting it working!


http://www.gnu.org/software/octave/doc/interpreter/Audio-Processing.html



http://www.7tutorials.com/record-audio-sound-recorder-windows-7






Hello Ted,I have forgotten how I originally posted a question so I will tag it onto a reply.I am trying to use save and load to exchange data between Octave scripts and Matlab scripts and so far I findthat Matlab does not like to read mat file generated by Octave. Is there an option that I should use when Isave a file from an Octave script that will generate a mat file that Matlab likes?

Thanks,

Dave


Hi Dave,

The short answer is that I don’t know, but my first instinct would be to include an option in the savecommand to explicitly specify that a native MATLAB format is used. For example, to save in the MATLABv6 binary format, do something like this:

M = [1 2 3 ; 4 5 6 ; 7 8 9];save matbinary example.mat M

There are equivalent options for versions 4 and 7 (“mat4binary” and “mat7binary” respecitively), so ifthe above doesn’t work you could try those instead. Check this page for a list of available formats:

https://www.gnu.org/software/octave/doc/interpreter/SimpleFileI_002fO.html

Unfortunately, I don’t have MATLAB to hand to check whether this works or not, but that’s what I wouldtry first myself.

Ted

David Koenig says:March 6, 2014 at 3:49 am

Ted, thanks for your response. After fooling around a bit I stumbled upon the following:In Octave:>z=1:10;>save(‘z’,’ascii’)

In Matlab>clear>load z>whosName Size Bytes Class Attributes

z 1×10 80 double>zz = 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10(where Matlab and Octave are pointed to the same directory). This is the only time I have been able totransfer data from Octave to Matlab.


Glad to hear you got it working!

Ted

JC says:





https://www.gnu.org/software/octave/doc/interpreter/Simple-File-I_002fO.html




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March 3, 2014 at 5:34 pm

Thank you! your Windows 8 tips worked on my win 8 PC instantly! what a life saver

Reply

batchloaf says:March 3, 2014 at 8:23 pm

Glad you found it useful!

Ted

Reply

Rudiger Escobar Wolf says:March 20, 2014 at 12:13 am

This is great, exactly what I needed. It fixed my problem!

Reply


Thanks, glad you found it useful!

Reply

Jonathan Edwin says:March 23, 2014 at 1:42 pm

hey my name is Edwin, why does everytime i close the octave program, it says that Ocatve has stopped working ? thx

Reply

batchloaf says:March 24, 2014 at 12:09 pm

Hi Edwin,

Sorry, I’m not sure why you’re seeing that error. Are you exiting properly – i.e. by typing “exit” – or are you justclosing the console window?

I would definitely recommend exiting by typing “exit”, so if you’re not doing that already then try it and see if itmakes a difference.

Ted

Reply

J. Peterson says:March 27, 2014 at 9:30 am

By the way, a newer version of Octave with the new GUI is found here:

http://mxeoctave.osuv.de/

Reply

Dav says:April 16, 2014 at 10:50 pm

https://www.facebook.com/rudiger.escobarwolf


http://www.saccade.com/










http://mxeoctave.osuv.de/


http://blog.ceegees.in/fixing-gnuplot-on-octave-3-6-4-for-windows-8/










Hi! Thank you very much for these explanations. I also have been working by several years with MATLAB, and I’m interestedin Octave. At this time, my problem is that I would like to use the Octave 3.6.4 packages (signals, communications, etc.) in aWindows 8 environment… so, any help on how to install these packages would be great… Thank you very much in advance…

Reply

batchloaf says:April 16, 2014 at 11:03 pm

Hi Dav,

I haven’t installed any additional Octave packages myself under Windows 8, so I probably can’t tell you much youdon’t already know. Have you tried just installing them the normal way, using the “pkg” command. For example, ifyou’ve downloaded a package file called “somepackage1.0.0.tar.gz”, you could try the following command at theOctave command line:

pkg install somepackage1.0.0.tar.gz

There’s some more information about it here:

http://www.gnu.org/software/octave/doc/interpreter/InstallingandRemovingPackages.html

Sorry I can’t be more help.

Ted

Reply

Dav says:April 20, 2014 at 6:46 am

Hello Ted. Thanks for your quick response. I really appreciate your answer that was, indeed, helpful. Iinstalled the packages available in this link (http://sourceforge.net/projects/octave/files/Octave%20Windows%20binaries/Octave%203.6.4%20for%20Windows%20MinGW%20installer/) for a Windows7 OS, and I followed the instructions given there (I had some troubles in understanding theinstructions, since I’m a Windows guy not accustomed to commands, except the MATLAB ones). Just somehours ago I repeated the same on a Windows8 OS and it worked good. So, thanks again.


Great, glad to hear you got it working!

Ted

Cyprien Autexier (@sandorfr) says:April 17, 2014 at 10:08 pm

Thanks, fixed my issues

Reply


You’re welcome!

Ted

Reply

pavanyadiki says:









http://sourceforge.net/projects/octave/files/Octave%20Windows%20binaries/Octave%203.6.4%20for%20Windows%20MinGW%20installer/

http://www.gnu.org/software/octave/doc/interpreter/Installing-and-Removing-Packages.html

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May 11, 2014 at 10:18 am

Thank you so much. It would have taken my week’s time to get it installed without the help of this blog. So precise andinformative.

Reply

batchloaf says:May 11, 2014 at 3:28 pm

Thanks Pavanyadiki – glad you found it useful!

Ted

Reply

Bayerwaldler says:June 14, 2014 at 4:27 pm

I tried to install Octave under Windows 8 before but it didn’t work because of the “promptbug”. Thanks for the very clearinstructions! Seems to work fine, the gnuplot took quite a while to invoke at first. The following calls went very fast though.

Reply

batchloaf says:June 15, 2014 at 11:57 pm

I suppose gnuplot takes a while to pop up because it has the overhead of launching a new process. It takes a fewseconds for me too.

Ted

Reply

Alan says:June 15, 2014 at 6:40 am

So here was me trying to get Octave up and running on my new computer, and I googled myself brought to this blog, only tofind that it’s my old friend Ted who walked me through it! Cheers Ted! Hope all is well with you!

Reply

batchloaf says:June 16, 2014 at 12:07 am

Wow, it really is a small world! How are you? Richard and I were only talking about you on Friday. Funny enough,it wasn’t unrelated to MATLAB. I’ve been thinking about doing a bit of LPC implementation on a microcontrollerfor an assistive technology idea, but I thought I’d begin by doing it in MATLAB / Octave first, just to get my headaround it properly. I was mentioning to Richard that the conversation you and I had about it a couple of yearsback in Anseo really helped to clarify my understanding.

Ted

Reply

Nosleepbynightperson says:June 16, 2014 at 7:48 am

Thank you so much for your blog page. Very clear and concise. Best Regards.

Reply























Thanks, you’re welcome!

Reply

bardonthewire says:June 18, 2014 at 4:49 am

Thanks much! I was wondering what to do when the command prompt didn’t show up, and was so glad I found your article.

Reply


You’re welcome! Glad you found it useful.

Ted

Reply

lastdreambender says:July 24, 2014 at 9:15 pm

Thank you for your post! I have a question to ask. I have a makefile to run, in command prompt ‘make’ command results inerror saying, ‘octave: command not found’. Then I follow the instructions you declare, but still I get the same error. Do youhave any idea what the reason might be? Thanks already!

Reply

batchloaf says:July 25, 2014 at 7:59 am

I’m not sure why a make file would be calling octave. What is the makefile you’re running? If it really is trying torun Octave for some reason (maybe you’re building a plugin for Octave or something?) then you probably need toensure that the Octave installation folder (the one where the actual Octave binary executable – the exe file) is inyour system path.

Ted

Reply

John Chadwick says:August 16, 2014 at 9:24 pm

Fantastic explanation – just what I needed to get Octave working. Thanks Ted.

P.S> To change to a directory with spaces in it then enclose in quotes, e.g. cd “My Octave Files”

Reply

batchloaf says:August 16, 2014 at 11:38 pm

Thanks John!

Ted

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Paul Days says:August 17, 2014 at 10:04 pm

Thanks! It works on Win 8.1 with Octave 3.2.4

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batchloaf says:August 18, 2014 at 9:06 am

Thanks Paul – that’s good to know.

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Hugo Cabrera says:August 29, 2014 at 8:53 am

Thank you very much. You saved my day… at least.Hugo CabreraGreetings from Zürich

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batchloaf says:August 29, 2014 at 11:14 am

You’re welcome!

Ted

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Jack says:August 30, 2014 at 11:36 pm

In Using Octave. what language are you using?

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batchloaf says:August 31, 2014 at 12:25 pm

It’s basically the same language as MATLAB. There are probably some minor syntax differences, but I’m not awareof them. The big difference you’ll encounter is that many of MATLAB’s applicationspecific toolboxes are notavailable in Octave, which means that if you’re an experienced MATLAB user you may find that some familiarcommands are missing in Octave. For example, one thing that I miss in Octave is MATLAB’s “uicontrol”, which Iuse for creating small GUI applications.

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Jack says:September 1, 2014 at 12:20 am

Thank you very much!

SACHU says:September 2, 2014 at 9:42 am

Thank you all for the useful info, is octave only for MATLAB? or can I use it with visual studio c++. If so how to plot from.cpp coding. It would be a great help for my project.

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batchloaf says:September 2, 2014 at 11:06 am

Hi SACHU,

It is certainly possible to integrate Octave code into C++ using the supplied C++ library. For example, see this








http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_Octave#C.2B.2B_integration















example on the Octave page on Wikipedia. However, if you just need to plot a graph of some numbers that youhave in a C/C++ array, using Octave probably isn’t the simplest option. On the other hand, if you need to use otherfeatures that Octave is good at, such as a lot of matrix calculation, then it could well be worth considering.

Can you explain a little more about exactly what you’re trying to do? If so, I can try to work out whether Octave isan appropriate solution.

Ted

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Oh, and I forgot to answer your question: You asked whether Octave is “only for MATLAB”. Well, in a wayyes, and in another way no. In simple terms, Octave is a free alternative to MATLAB – it’s something youuse instead of MATLAB to run MATLAB code.

Personally, I still use MATLAB in my classroom teaching, since it’s really useful for our students to befamiliar with it when they go out into industry. However, when I’m writing MATLAB code (i.e. M files) onmy own laptop, I use Octave because it’s free. Also, I encourage my students to install Octave on their owncomputers so that they can practice writing MATLAB code at home. Also, Octave makes an absolutelybrilliant desktop calculator, so I use it all the time for that.

One thing that’s really really useful about Octave is: If you have some code (say an algorithm) that you’vewritten in MATLAB, but you want to deploy it in a program that needs to run on computers that don’thave MATLAB installed, Octave provides a way of doing that, either as a standalone program, or byembedding your MATLAB code into another languauge (e.g. C++, Python). Mathworks (who supplyMATLAB) do supply a commercial product for deploying MATLAB code as a standalone application, andit’s really good, but (at least the last time I looked) it’s very expensive.

All things considered, I think Octave complements MATLAB very well. MATLAB is the original and stillthe best – in fact, I think it’s one of the most profoundly empowering software tools for engineeringcreativity that has ever been created. However, if I’m experimenting with an algorithm of some kind, I’mmuch happier to write it in MATLAB code now, because I know I’ll have the option of deploying it withoutlicense restrictions if the need arises.

SACHU says:September 3, 2014 at 4:05 am

Thank you sir for your kind reply,Actually I am an avionics student and I have my algorithm code in c++, to view the animated output of how the unmannedaerial system finds its path in an obstacle environment, avoiding the obstacles is what my project is.. how octave is useful forthis? and what are the commands that i need to use to interface with it?

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Math Student says:September 4, 2014 at 3:46 am

Thanks a bunch for this, you just saved me a lot of trouble with figuring out how to setup Octave for Win8. I was almost readyto run it in a virtual linux box.

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You’re welcome. Glad to hear you got it working!

Ted

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_Octave#C.2B.2B_integration









Kyle says:September 6, 2014 at 2:16 am

I spent a long time trying (and failing) to install this on my laptop on my own, this made it so much easier! Installed &everything seems to be working perfectly, thank you!

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Thanks Kyle, I’m glad to hear you found it useful!

Ted

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SACHU says:September 6, 2014 at 4:09 pm

Thank you sir for your kind reply,Actually I am an avionics student and I have my algorithm code in c++, to view the animated output of how the unmannedaerial system finds its path in an obstacle environment, avoiding the obstacles is what my project is.. how octave is useful forthis? and what are the commands that i need to use to interface with it?

Reply

Ed Song says:September 8, 2014 at 6:06 am

I’m trying to test a simple program on notepad++ and see if it runs on Octave. The notebook.m file is saved inC:\software\Octave3.6.4\bin\name.m.txt – Notepad++

I type pwd and the response in C:\software\Octave=3.6.4

sometimes I type

bin/

and the response is syntax error

However bin\ seems to work,

Then I typename

and I get syntax error. My procedure follows the procedure described above. How come my procedure is not working?

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Hi Ed,

I think there might be a few things wrong there.

Firstly, I wouldn’t suggest storing your own Octave programs in C:\software\Octave3.6.4\bin\. Thatdirectory is for files that are part of Octave itself, rather than the code you write yourself. I suggest you create adirectory somewhere else (such as on your Desktop) to store your code. For the sake of argument, let’s assumethat you create a folder called C:\Users\Ed\Desktop\MyOctaveFiles\Now, when you write your Octave program in Notepad++, it’s absolutely essential that you save the file withthe .m extension (and only that extension). There must not be any further file extension after that, so forexample your filename "name.m.txt" won’t work. Let’s assume that you save your file asC:\Users\Ed\Desktop\MyOctaveFiles\name.m







http://gravatar.com/esong98








If for some reason your text editor is automatically adding the .txt file extension, try using the “Save As” optionand from the file type drop down list, select "All Files *.*" (I might not have that exactly right letter forletter, but hopefully it will be clear what to select from the drop down list). Then type in the filename as"name.m"

There are two ways you can run your program. The first way is to run Octave so that you have its interactivecommand window in front of you, then move to the directory where your name.m file is stored (using the “cd”command) and type “name” to run your program. For example, once you have the Octave command window infront of you…

cd C:\Userscd Edcd Desktopcd MyOctaveFilesname

The second way you can run the same .m file is to launch Octave directly from the Windows command linewith the name of your .m file included as a command line argument. You would just type in something like thefollowing (I’m including the full path for octave.exe in case it’s not in your default Windows path) into aregular command window (i.e. not in Octave):

C:\software\Octave3.6.4\bin\octave.exe C:\Users\Ed\Desktop\MyOctaveFiles\name.m

Ted

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Ed Song says:September 8, 2014 at 5:28 pm

Thanks. I’ll give your suggestions a try. However, I always save my file in the form of name.m. However, thecomputer automatically adds the .txt to the name of the file.


Hi Ed,

Your program won’t run correctly in Octave if the file is saved with the .txt extension so you need toeliminate that. If you are writing your program in Notepad++, it’s easy – just follow these steps exactly:

1. Click “File>Save As…”2. In the “Save As” dialog box, navigate to the directory where you want to save the file, e.g.

"C:\Users\Ed\Desktop\MyOctaveFiles\"

3. In the “Save as type:” dropdown box, select “All Files (*.*)”4. In the “File name:” field, type in “name.m”5. Click the “Save” button.

If you follow the steps above, the .txt extension will not be added to your file.

Ted


Thanks. This should be helpful. In fact, I’m going to get a printout of your instructions.


Best of luck and please let me know how you get on.

Ted













Unfortunately, I get a new error message: ‘name’ undefined near line 5 column 1.

My procedure was to create a new folder on my desktop call MyOctaveFiles and I saved name.com in thefolder as a All Files (*.*). That did eliminate the .text labeling problem.

Then I saved inside the folder the file name.m. I do see the pathway listed asC:\Users\Ed\Desk\MyOctaveFiles\name.m

I then on the Octave command window typedcd C\:Userscd Edcd Desktopcd MyOctaveFiles

most of the time the above sequence worked, but once in awhile I got a error message.

Finally I typed name, and always get the error message above.


Do not save your file as “name.com”! That will not work.Your file name must end in the .m extensions. For example, “name.m”

I need to double check that you are typing these commands in the Octave command window:

cd C:\Userscd Edcd Desktopcd MyOctaveFilesname

In other words, you need to run Octave and then type the commands into the Octave window. Typingthem into a normal Windows command window definitely will not work. The cd commands could work,but the “name.m” program definitely will not run.

If it still doesn’t work, then in Octave before you run your program by typing “name”, run the “pwd”command to check that you are definitely in the correct directory. If you are in a directory other than theone where “name.m” is stored, it definitely will not work.

The “cd” command changes the directory you are in, so if any of those commands produced an error, thenyou’re probably in the wrong directory.

You can also type the “ls” command to list the files in the current directory (Note that that command is twoletters: ‘l’ for lemon and ‘s’ for simon). If you type “ls” and the file “name.m” is not shown in the list of files,then typing “name” definitely will not run your program.

Ted


Once again, thanks for your time. I’ve done what you suggested, and when I type ls while in the C:\Users\Ed directory,MyOctaveFiles never shows up on the lis, but Programs did show up. Then I put MyOctaveFiles into Programs. I then typedcd Programs. That worked, then I typed ls again, and some of my folders and files was listed, but not MyOctaveFiles. So thereis a problem of Octave in getting it to recognize MyOctaveFiles as a directory.









FYI, the program I’ve typed is 3+4, and when I type name, I want 7 to show up on the screen.

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I should clarify and say that while I was in the C:\Users\Ed\Desktop directory (and MyOctaveFiles was stored on theDesktop) MyOctaveFiles never showed up on the list, but Programs did.

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batchloaf says:September 9, 2014 at 5:20 pm

Hi Ed,

Ok, I’ve done the basic process on my PC and captured screenshots of each stage, which you can hopefully use toidentify where you’re going wrong.

First, I opened Notepad++ and typed in your very short program:

Then I selected “Save As…” from the File menu. I navigated to the folder"C:\Users\admin\Desktop\MyOctaveFiles", set the “Save as type:” drop down box to “All types (*.*)”, and set thefile name to "name.m". Finally, I clicked the “Save” button.

Here, you can see the file sitting in the folder "C:\Users\admin\Desktop\MyOctaveFiles":









Then I ran Octave and typed in the commands shown below:

The four cd commands are used to move into the folder “C:\Users\admin\Desktop\MyOctaveFiles”. As you cansee, once I’m in the correct folder, the name program runs without any difficulty.

Finally, just to show you what you should see when you run the pwd and ls commands, here’s how it looked on myscreen:



Hopefully that makes it clearer?

Ted

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Hallelujah! and thanks. It finally worked, but I’m still scratching my head. The only thing I changed was thename of the file from PikettyEffect.m to name.m. For some reason that changed fixed everything.


Oh well, now that you have one example working at least you should be able to experiment with Octave abit to learn your way around. Best of luck using it!

Ted


Thanks. I’m now able to create files in notebook++ and run them properly in gnu octave. However, I’munable to save plots as jpeg or latex formatted files. It seems like gnu octave automatically saves the files aspost script files, which I’m unable to open. I’ve experimented for many hours, trying to figure out the coupleof manuals I have. The manuals suggest that I type print (h, filename, fmt). To get it in jpeg format, I eithertype for fmt. jpg or jpeg; however, that doesn’t work.










I’ve created a new file (test.m) that creates a plot of a sine function. The code is

x = linspace ( 0, 9, 21);y = sin( x );plot ( x, y )

If I typeprint h filename, jpg

Octave saves the program as jpg.ps. I’ve tried about a thousand different combinations, and the result is (ifthere is no error message) a ps file saved in MyOctaveFiles.

Note, I get an error message if I typePrint (h,filename, jpg)

Seems like the parentheses is not the right syntax even though the manual tells you to use the parentheses.

Trinh Tran says:September 15, 2014 at 7:11 pm

Hi, I have followed your very helpful instructions for Window 8. it works, however it crashes whenever I close it and a smallwindow said octave3.6.4.exe has stopped working.

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Hi Trinh,

Is it possible that you’re closing Octave by clicking the “X” button on the top corner of the window? If so, I wouldrecommend typing “exit” instead, which probably allows Octave to close more gracefully. That’s what I do anywayand I haven’t experienced the problem you described.

Ted

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esong98 says:September 16, 2014 at 7:13 am

My Gnu Octave program now crashes. When testing the program out, it seems like the only problem is that the programdoesn’t have enough memory to make the calculations. But I can’t believe that’s the problem. My excel program was able torun the program at this stage in the development. I can’t believe that Gnu Octave would be less powerful than excel. Theproblem began when I wrote in a while statement. When I try to run the program nothing happens. I remove the whilestatement, and it still doesn’t work. This is perplexing, because the program without the while statement worked before. Infact, it worked with the while procedure a couple of times before crashing. Now my program only works when I remove mostof the program such that only simple calculations are left.

Do you have any suggestions? I’m only about 1/1000 done with the programming. If gnu octave can’t handle what little Ihave, what are my options?

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esong98 says:September 16, 2014 at 7:27 am

Oh, I discovered the problem. I made a typo error, which caused an infinite loop.

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Ok, glad to hear you solved the problem. I was going to say that it sounded like an infinite loop problem.

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Best of luck getting the remaining 99.9% of your program written!

Ted

esong98 says:September 16, 2014 at 3:37 pm

Thanks!

Giulia says:September 26, 2014 at 8:13 am

Thank you! I had the same problems you described and since I’m a student who has NEVER seen matlab or similar I wasnearly lost before I found your guide!Have a nice day.

Reply


Hi Giulia,

I’m glad you found it useful!

MATLAB / Octave can be a little intimidating at first if you haven’t used anything similar before, but stick with it –it’s definitely worth the effort. In DIT, we use it to teach programming to firstyear engineers on some of ourprogrammes and for those that successfully navigate the initial learning curve, it’s incredibly empowering.

Best of luck with it and thanks again for your comment.

Ted

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Steve Duncan says:October 9, 2014 at 11:12 am

Thank you so much, probably saved me half a day!

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batchloaf says:October 9, 2014 at 2:02 pm

You’re welcome! Thanks for letting me know.

Ted

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Martin I says:October 18, 2014 at 5:02 pm

Thanks for this. Really helped.

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batchloaf says:October 19, 2014 at 7:58 pm

You’re very welcome!

Ted



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hoiakoni says:October 21, 2014 at 7:44 am

Sir, thanks for this one.I would also like to how to go about when trying to install a package, say io. After downloading the .tar file, in what directorywould you place the file before calling the install package command? Thanks you!

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batchloaf says:October 21, 2014 at 8:13 am

Sorry Hoiakoni, I haven’t done this myself so I can’t really advise. Once Octave is installed, I think you should beable to just follow the normal installation instructions for the package though.

Ted

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Guillermo Álvarez says:October 26, 2014 at 9:02 pm

THANK YOU SOOOOOO MUCH!

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batchloaf says:October 27, 2014 at 6:54 am


Ted

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Alex says:November 2, 2014 at 12:46 pm

Thank you, i probably would have abandoned the idea of installing octave without your help

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batchloaf says:November 2, 2014 at 5:04 pm


Ted

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Adam Feldman says:November 6, 2014 at 2:13 pm

Thanks – this got me going after some frustration. Using the –persist option in the batch file was key. Without it, I couldn’tunderstand why the Octave window didn’t stay up.

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batchloaf says:November 6, 2014 at 2:42 pm















https://plus.google.com/106111341916265772586









You’re welcome!

Ted

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SKS says:November 16, 2014 at 8:19 am

Thanks! That helped…

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batchloaf says:November 17, 2014 at 9:21 am

you’re welcome!

Ted

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asymptotics says:December 11, 2014 at 4:50 pm

Thank you Ted.I just copy pasted the whole thing given in the Target box. It worked. Copy pasting just the extra thing showed someproblems. Now I am in 8th heaven

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batchloaf says:December 15, 2014 at 11:52 am

Glad to hear it worked for you!

Ted

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Ballo says:December 17, 2014 at 3:40 pm

Thx. really happy about this info. now I can practice easily

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batchloaf says:December 17, 2014 at 4:04 pm

Thanks Ballo!

Ted

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TEJ says:December 31, 2014 at 9:16 am

Hi Ted !!!I am currently working on a application which requires linux native c (MEX) files to be compiled in matlab, windows. Theonly solution that i know of is by installing CYGWIN. But that did not solve my problem. I am still facing an issue withpthread related files. Will Octave solve my problem. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks in advance.

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sblades says:January 6, 2015 at 8:23 pm

Reblogged this on Simple programming for scientific data analysis and commented:I ran into the same problem and for this link very useful.

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Felipe N. Martins says:January 12, 2015 at 11:18 am

I had the same problem on Windows 8.1 (prompt was missing). Thanks for the helpful post!

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Thanks Felipe!

Ted

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Prabh says:January 25, 2015 at 6:19 am

Thanks this was really very helpful

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Thanks Prabh, I’m glad you found it useful.

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shyju wilson says:January 27, 2015 at 9:37 am

Thank you very much for your valuable information

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batchloaf says:January 28, 2015 at 12:09 am

You’re welcome!

Ted

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Rahul Singh says:February 1, 2015 at 7:54 am

thanks a lot for the detailed info u provided for the installation,it helped a lot

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You’re welcome Rahul.

Ted

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