Development Environment

Getting Help in the Command Window--the help Function

To quickly view a brief description and syntax for a function in the Command Window, use the help function. For example, typing

• help bar
  

displays a description and syntax for the bar function in the Command Window. This is called the M-file help. For other arguments you can supply, see the reference page for help.

If you need more information than the help function provides, use the doc function, which displays the reference page in the Help browser. It can include color, images, links, and more extensive examples than the M-file help. For example, typing

• doc bar
  

displays the reference page for the bar function in the Help browser.

Note    M-file help displayed in the Command Window uses all uppercase characters for the function and variable names to make them stand out from the rest of the text. When typing function names, however, use lowercase characters. Some functions for interfacing to Java do use mixed case; the M-file help accurately reflects that, and you should use mixed case when typing them.

Overloaded Functions

When a function name is used in multiple products, it is said to be an overloaded function. The help function displays M-file help for the first function with that name found on the path, and lists the overloaded functions at the end. To get help for an overloaded function, specify the name of the directory containing the function you want help for, followed by the function name. For example, to get help for the set function in the Database Toolbox, type

• help database/set
  

Creating M-File Help for Your Own M-Files

You can create M-file help for your own M-files and access it using the help command. See the help reference page for details.

Viewing Function Reference Pages--the doc Function

Other Forms of Help