Re: Simultaneous "compact", "short e" and "output_precision(2)"

[Paul]

Mike Miller <mtmiller <at> ieee.org> writes:
>On Tue, Aug 20, 2013 at 14:14:51 +0000, Paul wrote:
>> Which leads me to the question...why is the order in your code
>> effective in achieving all 3 features while my 2nd example did not?
>> The only difference is that the format statements are interchanged.
>> So I'm wondering if the format statement has certain undocumented
>> behaviours, such as "short e" resetting (meaning unsetting)
>> "compact".
>
> Yes, I think that's exactly what's happening. I haven't looked into
> it yet, but I suspect that "compact" is a toggle that is off by
> default, and is also reset by any other format command.
>
> Also, based on your first example, I don't think format can handle
> doing two things at once, where I'm taking "short e" to be a single
> option.
> 
> Can you suggest wording, or even better a patch, to improve the
> documentation of these commands in Octave?

The difficulty with suggesting wording is that I'm surmising what the 
explanation is.  I don't really know.  Also, my hypothesis doesn't really 
explain the interaction between the format statement and the 
output_precision invocation, basically preventing all features from being 
in effect at the same time.