Draft: chebfun package

[cbm755]

This needs a few things, such as a tarball.

TODO list

• tarball hosted somewhere
• is ok to use id: "dev" before there is an actual release?
• check the URLs

Many thanks to @kolmanthomas, who worked on this during GSoC 2025.

---

Worth emphasizing that this requires Octave 11.

[mmuetzel]

There are package files that contain a section for development versions. E.g., the tablicious package:

packages/packages/tablicious.yaml

Lines 107 to 113 in 0a0430a

	- id: "dev"
	date:
	sha256:
	url: "https://github.com/apjanke/octave-tablicious/archive/main.tar.gz"
	depends:
	- "octave (>= 7.0.0)"
	- "pkg"

If I understand correctly, they set the .yaml file up to use the tarball that is dynamically generated by git (or GitHub?) for the head of a given branch. They left the date and the sha256 fields empty. That is probably a good idea for a "rolling version" that can change at any time.
I'd guess it would be ok to have that as the first section of versions - at least for some time. That first section is used as the default source when a user installs the package with pkg install -forge chebfun.
Once a first release is made, a new section describing that release could be added before the id: "dev" section.

[cbm755]

Thanks @mmuetzel

Our source code isn't a valid Octave package (no inst/ structure) so we can't quite use the github dynamically-generated tarball (we need to run a little script: https://github.com/gnu-octave/chebfun/blob/octave_dev/octave_pkg/make_oct_pkg.sh)

The issue tracking all this is gnu-octave/chebfun#1

Good tip about leaving sha256 blank for rolling "dev".

[cbm755]

It seems CI is unhappy with the lack of sha256:

[mmuetzel]

Hmm. That might be an issue with the CI rules...
Maybe, we could demote that into a warning if the "expected" checksum is empty...

[mmuetzel]

I opened #616 (untested) that should demote the error to a warning in the CI check if the sha256 checksum is empty.

[cbm755]

CI:

ERROR: pkg install -verbose chebfun@dev
  mkdir (/tmp/oct-JOZNat)
  untar (/tmp/oct-Eebx32/chebfun-5.7.0+.tar.gz, /tmp/oct-JOZNat)
  error: the following dependencies were unsatisfied:
     chebfun needs octave >= 11.0

This is exactly what should happen as we require Octave 11. ;-)

[cbm755]

Probably this is a bit premature; folks can test with a direct URL.

If its ok, I suggest we just leave it open as Draft: ... (but I can easily file again later too)

[pr0m1th3as]

Octave 11 is out. It's time we fix this. @cbm755

[siko1056]

@cbm755 Are you ready to merge? 🚀

[kolmanthomas]

@siko1056, Colin and I talked about a potential release, we mutually agreed that it would be better to delay it until most of the fixes needed in core Octave are in. Probably, that means after the 2026 GSoC period.

[siko1056]

Thank you @kolmanthomas , please merge whenever you think Chebfun support is ready.