Diary and Echo Commands

Octave's diary feature allows you to keep a log of all or part of an interactive session by recording the input you type and the output that Octave produces in a separate file.

— Command: diary options

Create a list of all commands and the output they produce, mixed together just as you see them on your terminal. Valid options are:

on
Start recording your session in a file called diary in your current working directory.
off
Stop recording your session in the diary file.
file
Record your session in the file named file.

Without any arguments, diary toggles the current diary state.

Sometimes it is useful to see the commands in a function or script as they are being evaluated. This can be especially helpful for debugging some kinds of problems.

— Command: echo options

Control whether commands are displayed as they are executed. Valid options are:

on
Enable echoing of commands as they are executed in script files.
off
Disable echoing of commands as they are executed in script files.
on all
Enable echoing of commands as they are executed in script files and functions.
off all
Disable echoing of commands as they are executed in script files and functions.

If invoked without any arguments, echo toggles the current echo state.

— Built-in Variable: echo_executing_commands

This variable may also be used to control the echo state. It may be the sum of the following values:

1
Echo commands read from script files.
2
Echo commands from functions.
4
Echo commands read from command line.

More than one state can be active at once. For example, a value of 3 is equivalent to the command echo on all.
The value of echo_executing_commands is set by the echo command and the command line option --echo-input.

2.4.8 Diary and Echo Commands