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11.10 Commands

Commands are a special class of functions that only accept string input arguments. A command can be called as an ordinary function, but it can also be called without the parentheses like the following example shows

my_command hello world

which is the same as

my_command("hello", "world")

The general form of a command call is

name arg1 arg2 ...

which translates directly to

name ("arg1", "arg2", ...)

A function can be used as a command if it accepts string input arguments. To do this, the function must be marked as a command, which can be done with the mark_as_command command like this

mark_as_command name

where name is the function to be marked as a command.

One difficulty of commands occurs when one of the string input arguments are stored in a variable. Since Octave can't tell the difference between a variable name, and an ordinary string, it is not possible to pass a variable as input to a command. In such a situation a command must be called as a function.

Built-in Function: mark_as_command (name)

Enter name into the list of commands.

See also unmark_command, iscommand

Built-in Function: unmark_command (name)

Remove name from the list of commands.

See also mark_as_command, iscommand

Built-in Function: iscommand (name)

Return true if name is a command style function. If name is omitted, return a list of identifiers which are marked as commands with mark_as_command.

See also mark_as_command, unmark_command

Built-in Function: mark_as_rawcommand (name)

Enter name into the list of raw input commands and to the list of command style functions. Raw input commands are like normal command style functions, but they receive their input unprocessed (i.e. strings still contain the quotes and escapes they had when input). However, comments and continuations are handled as usual, you cannot pass a token starting with a comment character ('#' or '%') to your function, and the last token cannot be a continuation token ('\' or '...').

See also unmark_rawcommand, israwcommand, iscommand, mark_as_command

Built-in Function: unmark_rawcommand (name)

Remove name from the list of raw input commands. Note that this does not remove name from the list of command style functions.

See also mark_as_rawcommand, israwcommand, iscommand, unmark_command

Built-in Function: israwcommand (name)

Return true if name is a raw input command function. If name is omitted, return a list of identifiers which are marked as raw input commands with mark_as_rawcommand.

See also mark_as_rawcommand, unmark_rawcommand