Octave Manual

• Preface
  • Acknowledgements
  • Citing Octave in Publications
  • How You Can Contribute to Octave
  • Distribution
• A Brief Introduction to Octave
  • Running Octave
  • Simple Examples
    • Elementary Calculations
    • Creating a Matrix
    • Matrix Arithmetic
    • Solving Systems of Linear Equations
    • Integrating Differential Equations
    • Producing Graphical Output
    • Help and Documentation
    • Editing What You Have Typed
  • Conventions
    • Fonts
    • Evaluation Notation
    • Printing Notation
    • Error Messages
    • Format of Descriptions
      • A Sample Function Description
      • A Sample Command Description
• Getting Started
  • Invoking Octave from the Command Line
    • Command Line Options
    • Startup Files
  • Quitting Octave
  • Commands for Getting Help
  • Command Line Editing
    • Cursor Motion
    • Killing and Yanking
    • Commands for Changing Text
    • Letting Readline Type for You
    • Commands for Manipulating the History
    • Customizing readline
    • Customizing the Prompt
    • Diary and Echo Commands
  • How Octave Reports Errors
  • Executable Octave Programs
  • Comments in Octave Programs
    • Single Line Comments
    • Block Comments
    • Comments and the Help System
• Data Types
  • Built-in Data Types
    • Numeric Objects
    • Missing Data
    • String Objects
    • Data Structure Objects
    • Cell Array Objects
  • User-defined Data Types
  • Object Sizes
• Numeric Data Types
  • Matrices
    • Empty Matrices
  • Ranges
  • Single Precision Data Types
  • Integer Data Types
    • Integer Arithmetic
  • Bit Manipulations
  • Logical Values
  • Promotion and Demotion of Data Types
  • Predicates for Numeric Objects
• Strings
  • Escape Sequences in String Constants
  • Character Arrays
  • Creating Strings
    • Concatenating Strings
    • Converting Numerical Data to Strings
  • Comparing Strings
  • Manipulating Strings
  • String Conversions
  • Character Class Functions
• Data Containers
  • Structures
    • Basic Usage and Examples
    • Structure Arrays
    • Creating Structures
    • Manipulating Structures
    • Processing Data in Structures
  • Cell Arrays
    • Basic Usage of Cell Arrays
    • Creating Cell Arrays
    • Indexing Cell Arrays
    • Cell Arrays of Strings
    • Processing Data in Cell Arrays
  • Comma Separated Lists
    • Comma Separated Lists Generated from Cell Arrays
    • Comma Separated Lists Generated from Structure Arrays
• Variables
  • Global Variables
  • Persistent Variables
  • Status of Variables
• Expressions
  • Index Expressions
    • Advanced Indexing
  • Calling Functions
    • Call by Value
    • Recursion
  • Arithmetic Operators
  • Comparison Operators
  • Boolean Expressions
    • Element-by-element Boolean Operators
    • Short-circuit Boolean Operators
  • Assignment Expressions
  • Increment Operators
  • Operator Precedence
• Evaluation
  • Calling a Function by its Name
  • Evaluation in a Different Context
• Statements
  • The if Statement
  • The switch Statement
    • Notes for the C Programmer
  • The while Statement
  • The do-until Statement
  • The for Statement
    • Looping Over Structure Elements
  • The break Statement
  • The continue Statement
  • The unwind_protect Statement
  • The try Statement
  • Continuation Lines
• Functions and Scripts
  • Introduction to Function and Script Files
  • Defining Functions
  • Multiple Return Values
  • Variable-length Argument Lists
  • Ignoring Arguments
  • Variable-length Return Lists
  • Returning from a Function
  • Default Arguments
  • Function Files
    • Manipulating the Load Path
    • Subfunctions
    • Private Functions
    • Nested Functions
    • Overloading and Autoloading
    • Function Locking
    • Function Precedence
  • Script Files
    • Publish Octave Script Files
    • Publishing Markup
      • Using Publishing Markup in Script Files
      • Text Formatting
      • Sections
      • Preformatted Code
      • Preformatted Text
      • Bulleted Lists
      • Numbered Lists
      • Including File Content
      • Including Graphics
      • Including URLs
      • Mathematical Equations
      • HTML Markup
      • LaTeX Markup
  • Function Handles, Anonymous Functions, Inline Functions
    • Function Handles
    • Anonymous Functions
    • Inline Functions
  • Commands
  • Organization of Functions Distributed with Octave
• Errors and Warnings
  • Handling Errors
    • Raising Errors
    • Catching Errors
    • Recovering From Errors
  • Handling Warnings
    • Issuing Warnings
    • Enabling and Disabling Warnings
• Debugging
  • Entering Debug Mode
  • Leaving Debug Mode
  • Breakpoints
  • Debug Mode
  • Call Stack
  • Profiling
  • Profiler Example
• Input and Output
  • Basic Input and Output
    • Terminal Output
      • Paging Screen Output
    • Terminal Input
    • Simple File I/O
      • Saving Data on Unexpected Exits
  • C-Style I/O Functions
    • Opening and Closing Files
    • Simple Output
    • Line-Oriented Input
    • Formatted Output
    • Output Conversion for Matrices
    • Output Conversion Syntax
    • Table of Output Conversions
    • Integer Conversions
    • Floating-Point Conversions
    • Other Output Conversions
    • Formatted Input
    • Input Conversion Syntax
    • Table of Input Conversions
    • Numeric Input Conversions
    • String Input Conversions
    • Binary I/O
    • Temporary Files
    • End of File and Errors
    • File Positioning
• Plotting
  • Introduction to Plotting
  • High-Level Plotting
    • Two-Dimensional Plots
      • Axis Configuration
      • Two-dimensional Function Plotting
      • Two-dimensional Geometric Shapes
    • Three-Dimensional Plots
      • Aspect Ratio
      • Three-dimensional Function Plotting
      • Three-dimensional Geometric Shapes
    • Plot Annotations
    • Multiple Plots on One Page
    • Multiple Plot Windows
    • Manipulation of Plot Objects
    • Manipulation of Plot Windows
    • Use of the interpreter Property
    • Printing and Saving Plots
    • Interacting with Plots
    • Test Plotting Functions
  • Graphics Data Structures
    • Introduction to Graphics Structures
    • Graphics Objects
      • Creating Graphics Objects
      • Handle Functions
    • Graphics Object Properties
      • Root Figure Properties
      • Figure Properties
      • Axes Properties
      • Line Properties
      • Text Properties
      • Image Properties
      • Patch Properties
      • Surface Properties
      • Light Properties
      • Uimenu Properties
      • Uibuttongroup Properties
      • Uicontextmenu Properties
      • Uipanel Properties
      • Uicontrol Properties
      • Uitoolbar Properties
      • Uipushtool Properties
      • Uitoggletool Properties
    • Searching Properties
    • Managing Default Properties
  • Advanced Plotting
    • Colors
    • Line Styles
    • Marker Styles
    • Callbacks
    • Application-defined Data
    • Object Groups
      • Data Sources in Object Groups
      • Area Series
      • Bar Series
      • Contour Groups
      • Error Bar Series
      • Line Series
      • Quiver Group
      • Scatter Group
      • Stair Group
      • Stem Series
      • Surface Group
    • Graphics Toolkits
      • Customizing Toolkit Behavior
• Matrix Manipulation
  • Finding Elements and Checking Conditions
  • Rearranging Matrices
  • Special Utility Matrices
  • Famous Matrices
• Arithmetic
  • Exponents and Logarithms
  • Complex Arithmetic
  • Trigonometry
  • Sums and Products
  • Utility Functions
  • Special Functions
  • Rational Approximations
  • Coordinate Transformations
  • Mathematical Constants
• Linear Algebra
  • Techniques Used for Linear Algebra
  • Basic Matrix Functions
  • Matrix Factorizations
  • Functions of a Matrix
  • Specialized Solvers
• Vectorization and Faster Code Execution
  • Basic Vectorization
  • Broadcasting
    • Broadcasting and Legacy Code
  • Function Application
  • Accumulation
  • JIT Compiler
  • Miscellaneous Techniques
  • Examples
• Nonlinear Equations
  • Solvers
  • Minimizers
• Diagonal and Permutation Matrices
  • Creating and Manipulating Diagonal/Permutation Matrices
    • Creating Diagonal Matrices
    • Creating Permutation Matrices
    • Explicit and Implicit Conversions
  • Linear Algebra with Diagonal/Permutation Matrices
    • Expressions Involving Diagonal Matrices
    • Expressions Involving Permutation Matrices
  • Functions That Are Aware of These Matrices
    • Diagonal Matrix Functions
    • Permutation Matrix Functions
  • Examples of Usage
  • Differences in Treatment of Zero Elements
• Sparse Matrices
  • Creation and Manipulation of Sparse Matrices
    • Storage of Sparse Matrices
    • Creating Sparse Matrices
    • Finding Information about Sparse Matrices
    • Basic Operators and Functions on Sparse Matrices
      • Sparse Functions
      • Return Types of Operators and Functions
      • Mathematical Considerations
  • Linear Algebra on Sparse Matrices
  • Iterative Techniques Applied to Sparse Matrices
  • Real Life Example using Sparse Matrices
• Numerical Integration
  • Functions of One Variable
  • Orthogonal Collocation
  • Functions of Multiple Variables
• Differential Equations
  • Ordinary Differential Equations
    • Matlab-compatible solvers
  • Differential-Algebraic Equations
• Optimization
  • Linear Programming
  • Quadratic Programming
  • Nonlinear Programming
  • Linear Least Squares
• Statistics
  • Descriptive Statistics
  • Basic Statistical Functions
  • Statistical Plots
  • Correlation and Regression Analysis
  • Distributions
  • Tests
  • Random Number Generation
• Sets
  • Set Operations
• Polynomial Manipulations
  • Evaluating Polynomials
  • Finding Roots
  • Products of Polynomials
  • Derivatives / Integrals / Transforms
  • Polynomial Interpolation
  • Miscellaneous Functions
• Interpolation
  • One-dimensional Interpolation
  • Multi-dimensional Interpolation
• Geometry
  • Delaunay Triangulation
    • Plotting the Triangulation
    • Identifying Points in Triangulation
  • Voronoi Diagrams
  • Convex Hull
  • Interpolation on Scattered Data
• Signal Processing
• Image Processing
  • Loading and Saving Images
  • Displaying Images
  • Representing Images
  • Plotting on top of Images
  • Color Conversion
• Audio Processing
  • Audio File Utilities
  • Audio Device Information
  • Audio Player
    • Playback
    • Properties
  • Audio Recorder
    • Recording
    • Data Retrieval
    • Properties
  • Audio Data Processing
• Object Oriented Programming
  • Creating a Class
  • Class Methods
  • Indexing Objects
    • Defining Indexing And Indexed Assignment
    • Indexed Assignment Optimization
  • Overloading Objects
    • Function Overloading
    • Operator Overloading
    • Precedence of Objects
  • Inheritance and Aggregation
• GUI Development
  • I/O Dialogs
  • Progress Bar
  • UI Elements
  • GUI Utility Functions
  • User-Defined Preferences
• System Utilities
  • Timing Utilities
  • Filesystem Utilities
  • File Archiving Utilities
  • Networking Utilities
    • FTP Objects
    • URL Manipulation
    • Base64 and Binary Data Transmission
  • Controlling Subprocesses
  • Process, Group, and User IDs
  • Environment Variables
  • Current Working Directory
  • Password Database Functions
  • Group Database Functions
  • System Information
  • Hashing Functions
• Packages
  • Installing and Removing Packages
  • Using Packages
  • Administrating Packages
  • Creating Packages
    • The DESCRIPTION File
    • The INDEX File
    • PKG_ADD and PKG_DEL Directives
    • Missing Components
• External Code Interface
  • Oct-Files
    • Getting Started with Oct-Files
    • Matrices and Arrays in Oct-Files
    • Character Strings in Oct-Files
    • Cell Arrays in Oct-Files
    • Structures in Oct-Files
    • Sparse Matrices in Oct-Files
      • Array and Sparse Class Differences
      • Creating Sparse Matrices in Oct-Files
      • Using Sparse Matrices in Oct-Files
    • Accessing Global Variables in Oct-Files
    • Calling Octave Functions from Oct-Files
    • Calling External Code from Oct-Files
    • Allocating Local Memory in Oct-Files
    • Input Parameter Checking in Oct-Files
    • Exception and Error Handling in Oct-Files
    • Documentation and Testing of Oct-Files
  • Mex-Files
    • Getting Started with Mex-Files
    • Working with Matrices and Arrays in Mex-Files
    • Character Strings in Mex-Files
    • Cell Arrays with Mex-Files
    • Structures with Mex-Files
    • Sparse Matrices with Mex-Files
    • Calling Other Functions in Mex-Files
  • Standalone Programs
  • Java Interface
    • Making Java Classes Available
    • How to use Java from within Octave
    • Passing parameters to the JVM
    • Java Interface Functions
• Test and Demo Functions
  • Test Functions
  • Demonstration Functions
• Obsolete Functions
• Known Causes of Trouble
  • Actual Bugs We Haven't Fixed Yet
  • Reporting Bugs
    • Have You Found a Bug?
    • Where to Report Bugs
    • How to Report Bugs
    • Sending Patches for Octave
  • How To Get Help with Octave
  • How to Distinguish Between Octave and Matlab
• Installing Octave
  • Build Dependencies
    • Obtaining the Dependencies Automatically
    • Build Tools
    • External Packages
  • Running Configure and Make
  • Compiling Octave with 64-bit Indexing
  • Installation Problems
• Grammar and Parser
  • Keywords
  • Parser
• GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE
• Concept Index
• Function Index
• Operator Index