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Up: <a rel="up" accesskey="u" href="Comments.html#Comments">Comments</a>
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<h4 class="subsection">2.7.3 Comments and the Help System</h4>
<p><a name="index-documenting-functions-168"></a><a name="index-documenting-user-scripts-169"></a><a name="index-help_002c-user_002ddefined-functions-170"></a>
The <code>help</code> command (see <a href="Getting-Help.html#Getting-Help">Getting Help</a>) is able to find the first
block of comments in a function and return those as a documentation
string. This means that the same commands used to get help
on built-in functions are available for properly formatted user-defined
functions. For example, after defining the function <code>f</code> below,
<pre class="example"> function xdot = f (x, t)
# usage: f (x, t)
#
# This function defines the right-hand
# side functions for a set of nonlinear
# differential equations.
r = 0.25;
...
endfunction
</pre>
<p>the command <kbd>help f</kbd> produces the output
<pre class="example"> usage: f (x, t)
This function defines the right-hand
side functions for a set of nonlinear
differential equations.
</pre>
<p>Although it is possible to put comment lines into keyboard-composed,
throw-away Octave programs, it usually isn't very useful because the
purpose of a comment is to help you or another person understand the
program at a later time.
<p>The <code>help</code> parser currently only recognizes single line comments
(see <a href="Single-Line-Comments.html#Single-Line-Comments">Single Line Comments</a>) and not block comments for the initial
help text.
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