GNU Octave Manual A high-level interactive language for numerical computations Edition 3 for Octave version 2.0.13 John W. Eaton

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This manual documents how to run, install and port GNU Octave, as well as its new features and incompatibilities, and how to report bugs. It corresponds to GNU Octave version 2.0.13.

• Author's Preface
  • Acknowledgements
  • How You Can Contribute to Octave
  • Distribution
• 1 A Brief Introduction to Octave
  • 1.1 Running Octave
  • 1.2 Simple Examples
    • Creating a Matrix
    • Matrix Arithmetic
    • Solving Linear Equations
    • Integrating Differential Equations
    • Producing Graphical Output
    • Editing What You Have Typed
    • Getting Help
  • 1.3 Conventions
    • 1.3.1 Fonts
    • 1.3.2 Evaluation Notation
    • 1.3.3 Printing Notation
    • 1.3.4 Error Messages
    • 1.3.5 Format of Descriptions
      • 1.3.5.1 A Sample Function Description
      • 1.3.5.2 A Sample Command Description
      • 1.3.5.3 A Sample Variable Description
• 2 Getting Started
  • 2.1 Invoking Octave
    • 2.1.1 Command Line Options
    • 2.1.2 Startup Files
  • 2.2 Quitting Octave
  • 2.3 Commands for Getting Help
  • 2.4 Command Line Editing
    • 2.4.1 Cursor Motion
    • 2.4.2 Killing and Yanking
    • 2.4.3 Commands For Changing Text
    • 2.4.4 Letting Readline Type For You
    • 2.4.5 Commands For Manipulating The History
    • 2.4.6 Customizing the Prompt
    • 2.4.7 Diary and Echo Commands
  • 2.5 How Octave Reports Errors
  • 2.6 Executable Octave Programs
  • 2.7 Comments in Octave Programs
• 3 Data Types
  • 3.1 Built-in Data Types
    • 3.1.1 Numeric Objects
    • 3.1.2 String Objects
    • 3.1.3 Data Structure Objects
  • 3.2 User-defined Data Types
  • 3.3 Object Sizes
• 4 Numeric Data Types
  • 4.1 Matrices
    • 4.1.1 Empty Matrices
  • 4.2 Ranges
  • 4.3 Predicates for Numeric Objects
• 5 Strings
  • 5.1 Creating Strings
  • 5.2 Searching and Replacing
  • 5.3 String Conversions
  • 5.4 Character Class Functions
• 6 Data Structures
• 7 Variables
  • 7.1 Global Variables
  • 7.2 Status of Variables
  • 7.3 Summary of Built-in Variables
  • 7.4 Defaults from the Environment
• 8 Expressions
  • 8.1 Index Expressions
  • 8.2 Calling Functions
    • 8.2.1 Call by Value
    • 8.2.2 Recursion
  • 8.3 Arithmetic Operators
  • 8.4 Comparison Operators
  • 8.5 Boolean Expressions
    • 8.5.1 Element-by-element Boolean Operators
    • 8.5.2 Short-circuit Boolean Operators
  • 8.6 Assignment Expressions
  • 8.7 Increment Operators
  • 8.8 Operator Precedence
• 9 Evaluation
• 10 Statements
  • 10.1 The if Statement
  • 10.2 The switch Statement
  • 10.3 The while Statement
  • 10.4 The for Statement
    • 10.4.1 Looping Over Structure Elements
  • 10.5 The break Statement
  • 10.6 The continue Statement
  • 10.7 The unwind_protect Statement
  • 10.8 The try Statement
  • 10.9 Continuation Lines
• 11 Functions and Script Files
  • 11.1 Defining Functions
  • 11.2 Multiple Return Values
  • 11.3 Variable-length Argument Lists
  • 11.4 Variable-length Return Lists
  • 11.5 Returning From a Function
  • 11.6 Function Files
  • 11.7 Script Files
  • 11.8 Dynamically Linked Functions
  • 11.9 Organization of Functions Distributed with Octave
• 12 Error Handling
• 13 Input and Output
  • 13.1 Basic Input and Output
    • 13.1.1 Terminal Output
    • 13.1.2 Terminal Input
    • 13.1.3 Simple File I/O
  • 13.2 C-Style I/O Functions
    • 13.2.1 Opening and Closing Files
    • 13.2.2 Simple Output
    • 13.2.3 Line-Oriented Input
    • 13.2.4 Formatted Output
    • 13.2.5 Output Conversion for Matrices
    • 13.2.6 Output Conversion Syntax
    • 13.2.7 Table of Output Conversions
    • 13.2.8 Integer Conversions
    • 13.2.9 Floating-Point Conversions
    • 13.2.10 Other Output Conversions
    • 13.2.11 Formatted Input
    • 13.2.12 Input Conversion Syntax
    • 13.2.13 Table of Input Conversions
    • 13.2.14 Numeric Input Conversions
    • 13.2.15 String Input Conversions
    • 13.2.16 Binary I/O
    • 13.2.17 Temporary Files
    • 13.2.18 End of File and Errors
    • 13.2.19 File Positioning
• 14 Plotting
  • 14.1 Two-Dimensional Plotting
  • 14.2 Specialized Two-Dimensional Plots
  • 14.3 Three-Dimensional Plotting
  • 14.4 Plot Annotations
  • 14.5 Multiple Plots on One Page
• 15 Matrix Manipulation
  • 15.1 Finding Elements and Checking Conditions
  • 15.2 Rearranging Matrices
  • 15.3 Special Utility Matrices
  • 15.4 Famous Matrices
• 16 Arithmetic
  • 16.1 Utility Functions
  • 16.2 Complex Arithmetic
  • 16.3 Trigonometry
  • 16.4 Sums and Products
  • 16.5 Special Functions
  • 16.6 Mathematical Constants
• 17 Linear Algebra
  • 17.1 Basic Matrix Functions
  • 17.2 Matrix Factorizations
  • 17.3 Functions of a Matrix
• 18 Nonlinear Equations
• 19 Quadrature
  • 19.1 Functions of One Variable
  • 19.2 Orthogonal Collocation
• 20 Differential Equations
  • 20.1 Ordinary Differential Equations
  • 20.2 Differential-Algebraic Equations
• 21 Optimization
  • 21.1 Quadratic Programming
  • 21.2 Nonlinear Programming
  • 21.3 Linear Least Squares
• 22 Statistics
• 23 Sets
• 24 Polynomial Manipulations
• 25 Control Theory
• 26 Signal Processing
• 27 Image Processing
• 28 Audio Processing
• 29 System Utilities
  • 29.1 Timing Utilities
  • 29.2 Filesystem Utilities
  • 29.3 Controlling Subprocesses
  • 29.4 Process, Group, and User IDs
  • 29.5 Environment Variables
  • 29.6 Current Working Directory
  • 29.7 Password Database Functions
  • 29.8 Group Database Functions
  • 29.9 System Information
• A Tips and Standards
  • 29.10 Writing Clean Octave Programs
  • 29.11 Tips for Making Code Run Faster.
  • 29.12 Tips for Documentation Strings
  • 29.13 Tips on Writing Comments
  • 29.14 Conventional Headers for Octave Functions
• B Known Causes of Trouble
  • B.1 Actual Bugs We Haven't Fixed Yet
  • B.2 Reporting Bugs
  • B.3 Have You Found a Bug?
  • B.4 Where to Report Bugs
  • B.5 How to Report Bugs
  • B.6 Sending Patches for Octave
  • B.7 How To Get Help with Octave
• C Installing Octave
  • C.1 Notes
  • C.2 Installation Problems
  • C.3 Binary Distributions
    • C.3.1 Installing Octave from a Binary Distribution
    • C.3.2 Creating a Binary Distribution
• D Emacs Octave Support
  • D.1 Installing EOS
  • D.2 Using Octave Mode
  • D.3 Running Octave From Within Emacs
  • D.4 Using the Emacs Info Reader for Octave
• 30 Grammar
  • 30.1 Keywords
• E GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE
  • E.1 Preamble
  • E.2 Appendix: How to Apply These Terms to Your New Programs
• Other Scientific Packages for the GNU System
  • GNU R
  • GNU Plotutils
  • GNU Scientific Library
  • GNU Emacs Calc
• Variable Index
• Operator Index
• Function Index
• Concept Index