Short projects
- This is a collection of small projects to start contributing to Octave. Projects of long duration are listed in the Projects page.
If you never contributed to Octave before, we suggest to start with our Developer FAQ.
Review and fix existing bugs
- Review bugs that catch your interest on the Octave bug tracker on GNU Savannah.
- A modern interface to the Octave bug tracker is given by SavannahAPI.
- Discuss with the developers there how to fix that bug or upload a patch there.
- Some bugs have already patches attached.
- Help testing those patches.
- Help updating outdated patches to the latest development version (this requires some Mercurial knowledge).
Implement missing Matlab functions
Use the Savannah patch tracker for submissions unrelated to an existing bug.
Write Built-In Self Tests (BISTs)
Writing BISTs improves Octave's regression testing and ensures that we don't break anything when we add new features.
- BIST for C++ functions
- BIST for m-files. See also Projects#Tests.
Work on Octave packages
- Take a look at https://gnu-octave.github.io/packages/ if you would like to work on some package there.
Easy Closes
Below is a non exhaustive list of bugs which should be looked at and appear to be easy Status (working from oldest stopped at 51317 aka items 1001-1050) Notes:
- From this range ~5% could be closed
- The last full scrub came from hardy for v4.2
- Suspect many of the plotting and java bugs could be closed.
| bug | bug title | status |
|---|---|---|
| #36954 | datenum / datevec convert date-time string incorrectly during hour lost to DST | siko1056 suggests closing as won't fix |
| #39243 | patch {x,y,z,c}data properties are not independent | hardy states original issue seems to be FIXED now |
| #39249 | imread and 32 bit (float) TIFF images | rik5 suggested closing |
| #40357 | OOM when converting from sparse double to sparse logical | hardy thinks this might be a DUPLICATE |
| #40739 | Attempt to allocate (size_t)-1 bytes when trying to length-INT_MAX create sparse vector | hardy states it might well be FIXED already. |
| #41661 | [octave forge] (generate_html) generate_package_html page header contains wrong links | cdf (OP) asks this item still relevant |
| #42118 | COW memory issues when extracting small slices from large arrays | rik5 isn't worth the maintenance burden |
| #42282 | overloaded vertcat fails if some rows contain only built-in types | cmb suggests this is a DUPLICATE |
| #42421 | "find" function overflows for large sparse matrices | appears issue is resolved |
| #43327 | dir function is too slow | siko1056 suggests to close as won't fix. |
| #43717 | rats LEN Matlab incompatibility | riks states wouldn't bother to fix this as Octave's solution seems better. |
| #44130 | [octave forge] (statistics) mvncdf outputs different results for same input parameters | mangosauce35 states not a bug but a matter of precision |
| #44971 | [octave forge] (generate_html) fails to generate "See also" hyperlinks | jbect questions if it is a DUPLICATE |
| #45166 | [octave forge] (communications) typos in function docstrings | appears can be closed |
| #45390 | [octave forge] (communications) finddelay function | appears can be closed |
| #45404 | Breakpoints cannot be set in classdef methods or +package function files | jwe suggest closing this |
| #45650 | [octave forge] (communications) 'fmmod.m' help does not mention its last parameter (freqdev) | appears can be closed |
| #45944 | eig(X,'nobalance') does not exist in Octave vs. Matlab | nir_krakauer shows this has been implemented |
| #46601 | Command window problems on secondary portrait monitor | rik5 suggest
likely to have been fixed. |
| #46640 | [octave forge] (statistics) Can't install if io is not loaded | lostbard asks if anyone still has this issue |
| #47496 | Values in Workspace view are limited by 10 numbers | mtmiller states let's just call this won't fix |
| #47553 | textscan Whitespace characters different from Matlab | lachlan states You're welcome to close it |
| #48088 | document that issquare, iscolumn, isempty, etc operate on cell arrays | pot states this is probably good enough |
| #48740 | fieldnames(obj,'-full') | OP states now this bug is fixed. |
| #49072 | assigning double arrays to cell arrays: matlab incompatibility? | mtmiller states may also be closed later as won't fix if no one reports any interest in working on this |
| #49091 | MinGW std::acosh less accurate than Linux versions | rik5 states
This and #48312 were supposed to be closed at the same time. |
| #49135 | gnuplot: Default font must be set for "windows" terminal | rik5 states was implemented on stable branch prior to 4.2 and the default after |
| #49275 | history_append: new boolean option to mimic bash "histappend" option | hardy states I think I will let it rest in peace. |
| #49360 | odeset lacks documentation for solver options | siko1056 on 28.09.2018 So maybe leave it open for another two years. |
| #50369 | FLTK uimenu position inconsistent | rik5 questions the bugs merit |
| #50502 | [octave forge] (optim) nonlin_curvefit crash in 1.5.2 | OP explicitly asks to close this bug |
| #60515 | trace documentation | jwe asks if there is anything to fix |
| #60652 | Console becomes unusable after a few minutes of use | OP never reported back |
| #60763 | use of function 'properties' within a classdef appears to confuse parser | jwe asks to close report |
The equivalent suggestions for patches.
| patch | patch title | status |
|---|---|---|
| #7537 | Handle matlab way to store cell arrays in hdf5 files. | nrjank states otherwise close bug as a 'won't fix' |
| #7825 | built-in versions of base2dec and dec2base | sebald states The fix is simple |
| #8046 | [octave forge] (nan): ranks function - add support for multi-D arrays | nrjank states patch likely can be closed. |
| #8369 | [octave forge] (image): imresize - Change to imresize to reduce memory footprint | fgnievinski suggests this is a duplicate of a bug and requests someone please close the present one. |
| #8666 | doc: adjusting octave examples test to exactly match output | siko1056 asks if anyone want to work on this otherwise we should close this item. |
| #8870 | [octave forge] (odepkg) add metainfo.xml file for Gnome Software | nrjank asks if this patch be closed |
| #9066 | [octave forge] (communications) rcosfir: new function (deprecated but still present in Matlab) | nir_krakauer states yes, it can be closed. |
| #9631 | [octave forge] (benchmark) overhaul | mtmiller considers dropping this patch |
| #9693 | [octave forge] (signal) sos2ss: new function | mtmiller states on 2018.09.26 feel free to ping or push if it gets to be the end of October |