strange error with octave 4.0 but not in matlab 2013b

[RT]

I was trying to circshift using index values.  The original question I had was posted at
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/37575728/circshift-using-index-values/37575834?noredirect=1#comment62641575_37575834

The code that was suggested was.

a = [1,2,30,4,5,60,7,8,90,999]
b((1:numel(a)) + mod(1:numel(a), 3) - 1) = a;

b is equal to 1    30     2     4    60     5     7    90     8   999

but if I try it with octave 4.0 on ubuntu 16.04 64bit
I get an error
"error: Invalid resizing operation or ambiguous assignment to an out-of-bounds array element"