MATLAB Programming

4 M-File Programming
This is the first line of text that appears when a user types help functionname
at the MATLAB prompt. Further, the lookfor function searches on and
displays only the H1 line. Because this line provides important summary
information about the M-file, it is important to make it as descriptive as
possible.
Help Text
You can create online help for your M-files by entering help text on one or
more consecutive comment lines at the start of your M-file program. MATLAB
considers the first group of consecutive lines immediately following the H1
line that begin with % to be the online help text for the function. The first line
without % as the left-most character ends the help.
The help text for the average function is
% AVERAGE(X), where X is a vector, is the mean of vector
% elements. Nonvector input results in an error.
When you type help functionname at the command prompt, MATLAB
displays the H1 line followed by the online help text for that function. The
help system ignores any comment lines that appear after this help block.
Note Help text in an M-file can be viewed at the MATLAB command prompt
only (using help functionname). You cannot display this text using the
MATLAB Help browser. You can, however, use the Help browser to get help
on MATLAB functions and also to read the documentation on any MathWorks
products.
The Function or Script Body
The function body contains all the MATLAB code that performs computations
and assigns values to output arguments. The statements in the function body
can consist of function calls, programming constructs like flow control and
interactive input/output, calculations, assignments, comments, and blank
lines.
For example, the body of the average function contains a number of simple
programming statements:
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