The help command (see Getting Help) is able to find the first
block of comments in a function and return those as a documentation
string.  This means that the same commands used to get help
on built-in functions are available for properly formatted user-defined
functions.  For example, after defining the function f below,
     function xdot = f (x, t)
     
     # usage: f (x, t)
     #
     # This function defines the right-hand
     # side functions for a set of nonlinear
     # differential equations.
     
       r = 0.25;
       ...
     endfunction
   the command help f produces the output
      usage: f (x, t)
     
      This function defines the right-hand
      side functions for a set of nonlinear
      differential equations.
   Although it is possible to put comment lines into keyboard-composed, throw-away Octave programs, it usually isn't very useful because the purpose of a comment is to help you or another person understand the program at a later time.
The help parser currently only recognizes single line comments
(see Single Line Comments) and not block comments for the initial
help text.