OCTAVE(1) General Commands Manual OCTAVE(1)

octave - A high-level interactive programming language for numerical computations.

octave [options]... [file]

Octave is a high-level interactive scientific programming language. It has a powerful mathematics-oriented syntax for solving problems numerically, as well as built-in 2-D/3-D plotting and visualization tools. Octave provides an integrated development environment in either graphical or command-line form. Programs may also be run in batch mode to process data without interaction.

A list of the most useful command-line options for octave is available by running the following command from the shell.

octave --help

The primary documentation for Octave is written using Texinfo, the GNU documentation system, which allows the same source files to be used to produce online and printed versions of the manual.

You can read the built-in copy of the Octave documentation by issuing the following command from within octave.

    octave:1> doc
The Info files may also be read with a stand-alone program such as info or xinfo. HTML, Postscript, or PDF versions of the documentation are installed on many systems as well. The latest version of the documentation is available at https://docs.octave.org/latest.

The Octave project maintains a bug tracker at https://bugs.octave.org. Before submitting a new item please read the instructions at https://www.octave.org/bugs.html on how to submit a useful report.

Upon startup Octave looks for four initialization files. Each file may contain any number of valid Octave commands.

Site-wide initialization file which changes options for all users. octave-home is the directory where Octave was installed such as /usr/local.
Site-wide initialization file for Octave version version.
~/.octaverc
User's personal initialization file.
.octaverc
Project-specific initialization file located in the current directory.

John W. Eaton and many others. The list of contributors to the Octave project may be shown with info octave Acknowledgements. The list is also available online at https://docs.octave.org/latest/Acknowledgements.html.

3 January 2024 GNU Octave