[bug #68213] No documentation shown in octave 11 built from source

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URL:
  <https://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?68213>

                 Summary: No documentation shown in octave 11 built from
source
                   Group: GNU Octave
               Submitter: gapost
               Submitted: Sun 05 Apr 2026 08:32:15 PM UTC
                Category: Documentation
                Severity: 3 - Normal
                Priority: 5 - Normal
              Item Group: Installation Failure
                  Status: None
             Assigned to: None
         Originator Name:
        Originator Email:
             Open/Closed: Open
         Discussion Lock: Unlocked
                 Release: 11.1.0
        Operating System: GNU/Linux
           Fixed Release: None
         Planned Release: None


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Follow-up Comments:


-------------------------------------------------------
Date: Sun 05 Apr 2026 08:32:15 PM UTC By: George Apostolopoulos <gapost>
I built octave 11 from source on my TUXEDO OS (Ubuntu 24.04 clone).

Building the documentation is enabled by default and I confirmed that the
"configure" summary said "Build docs: yes". 

However, after build & install the GUI documentation window was empty; nothing
was shown in "Contents", "Function Index"  and all other tabs.

Searching for a solution to the problem, I noticed that in the octave install
location, in folder 

  share/octave/11.1.0/doc/ 

there were 2 files: octave_interpreter.qch (size 5MB) and
octave_interpreter.qhc (size 0 bytes).

The empty file was causing the problem. I was able to recreate the .qhc file
following the procedure described in Qt Help docs.

First I created a file "octave_interpreter.qhcp" with contents:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<QHelpCollectionProject version="1.0">
    <docFiles>
        <register>
            <file>octave_interpreter.qch</file>
        </register>
    </docFiles>
</QHelpCollectionProject>

and then I run the following command

qhelpgenerator octave_interpreter.qhcp -o octave_interpreter.qhc


This created a .qhc file with a size of around 500kB and afterwards the
documentation was correctly shown in the GUI.

However, the build/install procedure failed to create the .qhc file.











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