The help command (see Getting Help) 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 f below,
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
the command help f produces the output
usage: f (x, t) This function defines the right-hand side functions for a set of nonlinear differential equations.
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.
The help parser currently only recognizes single line comments (see Single Line Comments) and not block comments for the initial help text.
© 1996–2018 John W. Eaton
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https://octave.org/doc/interpreter/Comments-and-the-Help-System.html