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octave: Commands

 
 11.12 Commands
 ==============
 
 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
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