(octave.info)Commands

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11.12 Commands
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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.  For example,

     my_command hello world

is equivalent to

     my_command ("hello", "world")

The general form of a command call is

     CMDNAME ARG1 ARG2 ...

which translates directly to

     CMDNAME ("ARG1", "ARG2", ...)

   Any regular function can be used as a command if it accepts string
input arguments.  For example:

     toupper lower_case_arg
        ⇒ ans = LOWER_CASE_ARG

   One difficulty of commands occurs when one of the string input
arguments is stored in a variable.  Because 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.  For example:

     strvar = "hello world";
     toupper strvar
        ⇒ ans = STRVAR
     toupper (strvar)
        ⇒ ans = HELLO WORLD