m(9)

SYNOPSIS

m - GNU Octave / Matlab files

FILES

hkoctave.emf - Octave hook definition
octave.eaf - Octave abbreviation file
octave.etf - Octave template file.

EXTENSIONS

.m - GNU Octave / Matlab file

DESCRIPTION

The Octave file type editing provides simple hilighting of GNU Octave / Matlab files, abbreviations, folding and an item-list.

Abbreviations


The installation comes with a default abbreviation file for Octave file editing which can be used by writing short abbreviations like "if", "el" (else) or "fu" (function) - and then pressing the key-binding for the expand-abbrev-handle(3) command. The list of abbreviations can be used interactively in the GUI version of MicroEmacs using the abbrev-list(3) command.

Folding and Information Hiding


Generic folding is enabled within the Octave file. The folds occur about function declarations as long as these are at the beginning of the line and ending at a line starting with the endfunction keyword. collapse-all(3) (un)folds all regions in the file, collapse-current(3) (un)folds the current region.

Navigation via Item List


The Octave mode offers beside folding as well support for displaying an outline of the functions for easy navigation using the item-list(3) command.

Short Cuts


The short cut keys used within the buffer are:-

C-c C-c - Comment out the current line.
C-c C-d - Uncomment the current line.
C-c C-e - Comment to the end of the line with comment symbols (#).
A-C-i - Restyle the current region.
esc q - Format a comment.
esc o - Format a comment.
f2 - (Un)fold the current region.
C-f2 - (Un)fold all regions.
f6 - List items.
esc f6 - Close item list,

Executing, Formatting and Linting Octave Code


The Octave file hook supports the file-exec(3), the file-format(3) and the file-lint(3) macros. For formatting and linting the octave interpreter itself is used using the "-W" option for running the terminal version. As Octave does not support mentioning the filename in case of errors, currently there is no support to click on the error messages for and jump to the problematic code file-exec. For linting a trick is used catching the error message for the current Octave file. For formatting the code the Python tool "matlab-formatter" can be used. This tool can be installed on an Unix system like this:

## Download the script into ~/.local/bin 
curl -fsSL -o ~/.local/bin/matlab-formatter \ 
  https://raw.githubusercontent.com/mittelmark/matlab-formatter-vscode/refs/heads/master/formatter/matlab_formatter.py 

### Make the script executable 
chmod +x ~/.local/bin/matlab-formatter 

#### Verify the installation 
matlab-formatter 

NOTES

The hilighting is typically extended using a file mym.emf.

BUGS

Currenlty the next-line feature for interactive browsing of errors and warning for file-lint and file-exec does not work due to Octave limits on mentioning the filename for errors.

SEE ALSO

abbrev-list(3), collapse-all(3), collapse-current(3), expand-abbrev-handle(3), file-exec(3), file-format(3), file-lint(3), item-list(3), restyle-buffer(3), restyle-region(3), time(2m).

Supported File Types

(c) Copyright JASSPA 2025
Last Modified: 2025/08/28
Generated On: 2025/09/29