Programming and Data Types | ![]() ![]() |
Help
This section covers the following topics:
Using the Help Browser
Open the Help Browser from the MATLAB Command Window using one of the following means:
doc
at the command prompt.
Some of the features of the Help Browser are listed below.
For more information: See Finding Information with the Help Browser in the MATLAB "Development Environment" documentation
Help on Functions from the Help Browser
To find help on any function from the Help Browser, do either of the following:
MATLAB
, and find the two subentries shown below. Use one of these to look up the function you want help on.
doc
<functionname>
at the command line
Help on Functions from the Command Window
Several types of help on functions are available from the Command Window:
help
<category>
. For example,
help
<functionname>
. For example,
Topical Help
In addition to the help on individual functions, you can get help on any of the following topics by typing help
<topicname>
at the command line.
Paged Output
Before displaying a lengthy section of help text or code, put MATLAB into its paged output mode by typing more
on
. This breaks up any ensuing display into pages for easier viewing. Turn off paged output with more
off
.
Page through the displayed text using the space bar key. Or step through line by line using Enter or Return. Discontinue the display by pressing the Q key or Ctrl+C.
Writing Your Own Help
Start each program you write with a section of text providing help on how and when to use the function. If formatted properly, the MATLAB help
function displays this text when you enter
MATLAB considers the first group of consecutive lines immediately following the function definition line that begin with %
to be the help section for the function. The first line without %
as the left-most character ends the help.
For more information: See Help Text in the MATLAB "Development Environment" documentation
Help for Subfunctions and Private Functions
You can write help for subfunctions using the same rules that apply to main functions. To display the help for the subfunction mysubfun
in file myfun.m
, type:
To display the help for a private function, precede the function name with private/
. To get help on private function myprivfun
, type:
Help for Methods and Overloaded Functions
You can write help text for object-oriented class methods implemented with M-files. Display help for the method by typing
where the file methodname.m
resides in subdirectory @classname
.
For example, if you write a plot
method for a class named polynom
, (where the plot
method is defined in the file @polynom/plot.m
), you can display this help by typing
You can get help on overloaded MATLAB functions in the same way. To display the help text for the eq
function as implemented in matlab/iofun/@serial
, type
![]() | Command and Function Syntax | Development Environment | ![]() |