Re: ob-octave: improve MATLAB support

[Ihor Radchenko <yantar92@posteo.net>]

John C <john.ciolfi.32@gmail.com> writes:

> Thanks for the feedback. I incorporated some of your suggestions for
> org-mode. I'll add the examples to https://git.sr.ht/~bzg/worg once
> the changes become part of org-mode.

Thanks for the update!

> Regarding (defvar org-babel-default-header-args:matlab '((:session .
> "*MATLAB*")), this was done on purpose. We've been using this setting
> for a while. Without it, org matlab evaluation is not good. I added a
> comment as to why it's there.

I can see the usefulness of using session by default for matlab, but it
is still going to be a breaking change. As a minimum, we should announce
it in the NEWS.

You may (1) split your news entry into "fix" part and ":results
handling" ; (2) add notice that matlab blocks will use session by default

> I looked into the use of REMOVE-ECHO which ob-octave.el already sets
> to t and don't believe this will help us. I think low-level comit
> requires the input which is captured by org.

May you please elaborate what exactly is not working when using
REMOVE-ECHO? Note that you normally need to pass the body alongside with
REMOVE-ECHO argument and `org-babel-comint-with-output' should remove
everything up to FULL-BODY before returning the output.

The problem you are trying to solve _should_ be solved by
`org-babel-comit-with-output'. If it is not, it is a bug that we should
fix.

> Any guidance on adding a test? To test properly we'll need MATLAB and
> https://github.com/mathworks/Emacs-MATLAB-Mode. Note, in
> https://github.com/mathworks/Emacs-MATLAB-Mode, I have a test for all
> this. Currently Emacs-MATLAB-Mode is advising org to get things
> working. When org is updated, Emacs-MATLAB-Mode will automatically not
> advise org.

For tests, you can refer to testing/lisp/test-ob-R.el tests. They also
rely upon external package (ESS) and on external R executable.

Ideally, we want to reuse tests from testing/lisp/test-ob-octave.el

-- 
Ihor Radchenko // yantar92,
Org mode contributor,
Learn more about Org mode at <https://orgmode.org/>.
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