GNU Octave Save entire workspace - octave

I can save individual variables fine in Octave, but i'm stuck when it comes to saving the entire workspace (ie, the whole screen with everything I've written on it)
eg
save file1
load file1
Doesn't seem to do anything
Any help greatly appreciated
David B

I do not think what you describe is a feature within Octave. You can save variables and the command history, see the description linked below, but I don't think its possible to save "the whole screen with everything I've written on it". Maybe if you better describe what elements you'd like to recover, specific instructions could be given.
Note that you aren't creating a "math document" like in Mathematica or GNU Maxima. This is a command interpreter, and recording commands entered and variables used is the usual extent of things to save.
https://phoxis.org/2013/04/06/save-work-environment-in-octave/

Related

Using write access in Open command in TCL

How can i use write ('w') and read ('r') access while using command pipeline in open command in TCL.
when i do something like :
set f1 [open "| ls -l" w]
it returns a file descriptor to write to , say file1.
Now I am confused how can I put this file descriptor to my use.
PS : My example might be wrong, and in that case it'd be ideal if answer includes a programming example so that it'll be more clear.
Thanks
In general, the key things you can do with a channel are write to it (using puts), read from it (using gets and read), and close it. Obviously, you can only write to it if it is writable, and only read from it if it is readable.
When you write to a channel that is implemented as a pipeline, you send data to the program on the other end of the pipe; that's usually consuming it as its standard input. Not all programs do that; ls is one of the ones that completely ignores its standard input.
But the other thing you can do, as I said above, is close the channel. When you close a pipeline, Tcl waits for all the subprocesses to terminate (if they haven't already) and collects their standard error output, which becomes an error message from close if there is anything. (The errors are just like those you can get from calling exec; the underlying machinery is shared.)
There's no real point in running ls in a pure writable pipeline, at least not unless you redirect its output. Its whole purpose is to produce output (the sorted list of files, together with extra details with the -l option). If you want to get the output, you'll need a readable channel (readable from the perspective of Tcl): open "| ls -l" r. Then you'll be able to use gets $f1 to read a line from the subprocess.
But since ls is entirely non-interactive and almost always has a very quick running time (unless your directories are huge or you pass the options to enable recursion), you might as well just use exec. This does not apply to other programs. Not necessarily anyway; you need to understand what's going on.
If you want to experiment with pipelines, try using sort -u as the subprocess. That takes input and produces output, and exhibits all sorts of annoying behaviour along the way! Understanding how to work with it will teach you a lot about how program automation can be tricky despite it really being very simple.

.tbc to .tcl file

this is a strange question and i searched but couldn't find any satisfactory answer.
I have a compiled tcl file i.e. a .tbc file. So is there a way to convert this .tbc file back to .tcl file.
I read here and someone mentioned about ::tcl_traceCompile and said this could be used to disassemble the .tbc file. But being a novice tcl user i am not sure if this is possible, or to say more, how exactly to use it.
Though i know that tcl compiler doesn't compile all the statements and so these statements can be easily seen in .tbc file but can we get the whole tcl back from .tbc file.
Any comment would be great.
No, or at least not without a lot of work; you're doing something that quite a bit of effort was put in to prevent (the TBC format is intended for protecting commercial code from prying eyes).
The TBC file format is an encoding of Tcl's bytecode, which is not normally saved at all; the TBC stands for Tcl ByteCode. The TBC format data is only produced by one tool, the commercial “Tcl Compiler” (originally written by either Sun or Scriptics; the tool dates from about the time of the transition), which really is a leveraging of the built-in compiler that every Tcl system has together with some serialization code. It also strips as much of the original source code away as possible. The encoding used is unpleasant; you want to avoid writing your own loader of it if you can, and instead use the tbcload extension to do the work.
You'll then need to use it with a custom build of Tcl that disables a few defensive checks so that you can disassemble the loaded code with the tcl::unsupported::disassemble command (which normally refuses to take apart anything coming from tbcload); that command exists from Tcl 8.5 onwards. After that, you'll have to piece together what the code is doing from the bytecodes; I'm not aware of any tools for doing that at all, but the bytecodes are mostly fairly high level so it's not too difficult for small pieces of code.
There's no manual page for disassemble; it's formally unsupported after all! However, that wiki page I linked to should cover most of the things you need to get started.
I can say partially "yes" and conditionaly too. That condition is if original tcl code is written in namespace and procs are defined within namespace curly braces. Then you source tbc file in tkcon/wish and see code using info procs and namespace command. Offcourse you need to know namespace name. However that also can be found.

How to know what arguments to pass to a script

Putting aside the security implications of running a script someone gives me, how can I tell, in advance, that the script requires a certain number of arguments? Without reading the code.
If someone just gives me a script, is there a way to know that it takes 4 arguments or whatever the case may be?
I guess I am looking for a best practices answer. I am obviously not a developer and just curious as to how some things are done.
What kind of script you want to know ? Shell or Windows Batch or Ruby or Python ?
For scripts in Python, It's impossible to know the number of arguments without reading the code. In Python, we can pass any arguments into Python script. The script determines whether to use them.
It's expected etiquette that the script's author(s) provide documentation describing some or all of: the script's purpose, expected arguments and operational modes.
Some scripts generate an abbreviated usage message (listing accepted arguments) when run with an appropriate help switch, eg theScript -h, theScript --help or theScript /?.
Scripts that form part of an installable tool, package or application may have an associated "manpage" (man theScript) or published documentation, eg hypertext pages, text files, printed manuals or pages on the Internet. Such documentation might be found by browsing the filesystem / Start menu (Windows) / provided materials and original installation media or by searching the Web.
Of course, this applies only by convention; generally there is no contract that is enforced on the script by a computer system. If someone is "giving you a script" (of questionable origin) then none of the above is guaranteed.
If you expressly receive a script (containing text readable in an editor and not binary gibberish) then the contents might include a section of prose containing useful information without your resorting to reading and understanding the "code".

Modifying and Saving in IDA

Is it possible to add code to a current binary in IDA and then save then to recompile the binary? I've looked over Google, but no suggestions as to whether IDA can do this. If not, whats the best to add some pretty heavy modifications to obsolete firmware?
Would I have to load in additional classes/functions from a file?
You can't recompile your source data file with IDA (the program's 'Create an EXE file' tool found in its main main doesn't do anything - It's basically stubbed with a message box telling the used that the selected output file type is not supported).
Your only option might be to compile your code with the source file's compiler, add a new segment to the source file's image where you dump your custom (compiled)code and patch the appropriate locations in the original code (.text) segment to call into your code. Have no clue if IDA supports the kind of static patching required for steps #2 and #3, but you'll probably find other tools to help you with that (you could start with OllyDbg).
I haven't ever tried to do anything of that sort before, so take my suggestion with a pinch of salt. I have however seen various binaries that have arbitrary segments attached to them.
EDIT: Take a look at this question while you are at it - IDA pro asm instructions change
when i have to do small updates on my binary, i like hexedit, kinda nice & options are easy. (small updates ;) )

how to create applications with Clozure Common Lisp (on Microsoft Windows)

I am a new one to Common Lisp (using Clozure Common Lisp under Microsoft Windows), who is familiar with c and python before. So maybe the questions are stupid here, but be patient to give me some help.
1) What's is the usual way to run a common lisp script?
Now, I wrote a bat file under windows to call ccl exe(wx86cl.exe) and evaluate (progn (load "my_script_full_path") (ccl:quit)) every time when I want to "run" my script. Is this a standard way to "run" a script for common lisp?
Any other suggestion about this?
2) What's the difference between (require 'cxml) and (asdf:operate 'asdf:load-op :cxml)?
They are seems to be the same for my script, which one should I use?
3) ignore it, not a clear question
4) When I want to load some library (such as require 'cxml), it always takes time(3s or even 5s) to load cxml every time when I "run" my script, there is also much log to standard output I show below, it seems like checking something internal. Does it means I have to spent 3-5s to load cxml every time when I want to run a simple test? It seems like a little inefficient and the output is noisy. Any suggestion?
My Script
(require 'cxml) (some-code-using-cxml)
And the output
; Loading system definition from D:/_play_/lispbox-0.7/quicklisp/dists/quicklisp/software/cxml-20101107-git/cxml.asd into #<Package "ASDF0">
;;; Checking for wide character support... yes, using code points.
; Registering #<SYSTEM "cxml-xml">
......
some my script output
---EDIT TO ADD MORE----
5) I must say that I almost forget the way of dumping image to accelerate the loading speed of lisp library. So, what is the normal process for us to develop a (maybe very simple) lisp script?
Base on the answer of what I got now, I guess maybe
a) edit your script
b) test it via a REPL environment, SLIME is a really good choice, and there should be many loop between a <==> b
c) dump the image to distribute it?( I am no sure about this)
6) Furthermore, what is the common way/form for us to release/distribute the final program?
For a lisp library, we just release our source code, and let someone else can "load/require" them.
For a lisp program, we dump a image to distribute it when we confirm that all functions go well.
Am I right?
What form do we use in a real product? Do we always dump all the thing into a image at final to speed up the loading speed?
1) Yes, the normal way to run a whole programme is to use a launcher script. However, windows has much, much better scripting support these days than just the bat interpreter. Windows Scripting Host and PowerShell ship as standard.
1a) During development, it is usual to simply type things in a the REPL (Read-Eval-Print-Loop, i.e. the lisp command line), or to use something like SLIME (for emacs or xemacs) as a development environment. If you don't know what they are, look them up. You may wish to use Cygwin to install xemacs, which will give you access to a range of linux-ish tools.
2) Require is, IIRC, a part of the standard. ASDF is technically not, it is a library that operates to make libraries work more conveniently. ASDF has a bunch of features that you will eventually want if you really get into writing large Lisp programmes.
3) Question unclear, pass.
4) See 1a) - do your tests and modifications in a running instance, thus avoiding the need to load the library more than once (just as you would in Python - you found the python repl, right?). In addition, when your programme is complete, you can probably dump an image which has all of your libraries pre-loaded.
Edit: additional answers:
5) Yes
6) Once you have dumped the image, you will still need to distribute the lisp binary to load the memory image. To make this transparent to the user, you will also have to have a loader script (or binary) to run the lisp binary with the image.
You don't have to start the lisp from scratch and load everything over again each time you want to run a simple test. For more efficient development, interactively evaluate code in the listener (REPL) of a running lisp environment.
For distribution, I use Zachary Beane's Buildapp tool. Very easy to install and use.
Regarding distribution -
I wrote a routine (it's at home and unavailable at the moment) that will write out the current image as a standard executable and quit. It works for both CLISP and SBCL.
I can rummage it up if you like.