### 2.3 Commands for Getting Help

The entire text of this manual is available from the Octave prompt via the command `help -i`. In addition, the documentation for individual user-written functions and variables is also available via the `help` command. This section describes the commands used for reading the manual and the documentation strings for user-supplied functions and variables. See Function Files, for more information about how to document the functions you write.

— Command: help

> Octave's `help` command can be used to print brief usage-style messages, or to display information directly from an on-line version of the printed manual, using the GNU Info browser. If invoked without any arguments, `help` prints a list of all the available operators and functions. If the first argument is `-i`, the `help` command searches the index of the on-line version of this manual for the given topics.

> For example, the command `help help` prints a short message describing the `help` command, and `help -i help` starts the GNU Info browser at this node in the on-line version of the manual.

> Once the GNU Info browser is running, help for using it is available using the command `C-h`.

> See also: doc, which, lookfor.

The help command can give you information about operators, but not the comma and semicolons that are used as command separators. To get help for those, you must type `help comma` or `help semicolon`.

— Built-in Function: val = suppress_verbose_help_message ()
— Built-in Function: old_val = suppress_verbose_help_message (new_val)

> Query or set the internal vaiable that controls whether Octave will add additional help information to the end of the output from the `help` command and usage messages for built-in commands.