warnings when running octave from python

Question

I am using oct2py python library to run octave script but I get the following error that I don't understand:

warning: function C:\Program Files\GNU Octave\Octave-7.3.0\mingw64\share\octave\packages\statistics-1.5.0\shadow\mean.m shadows a core library function
warning: called from
    C:\Program Files\GNU Octave\Octave-7.3.0\mingw64\share\octave\packages\statistics-1.5.0\PKG_ADD at line 11 column 3
    load_packages_and_dependencies at line 56 column 5
    load_packages at line 53 column 3**

How can I solve this please?

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

This is not an error but a warning, which should not prevent the execution. It warns you that a function defined in the statistics package of Octave (in the file C:\Program Files\GNU Octave\Octave-7.3.0\mingw64\share\octave\packages\statistics-1.5.0\shadow\mean.m) has the same name than the mean() function that is built-in in Octave (i.e. available without any additional package).

I do not have this file in my Octave 5.2 installation, but it looks intentional in your installation, as the new definition is inside a shadow subfolder, meaning that the developers explicitely want to overload the mean() function. I guess (but can't be sure without seeing the file) that they wanted to add some argument(s)/option(s) to the original function.