[Octave-bug-tracker] [bug #49526] "help slash": an easy way to discouver what backslash does

[Colin Macdonald]

URL:
  <http://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?49526>

                 Summary: "help slash": an easy way to discouver what
backslash does
                 Project: GNU Octave
            Submitted by: cbm
            Submitted on: Thu 03 Nov 2016 05:38:44 PM GMT
                Category: Documentation
                Severity: 3 - Normal
                Priority: 5 - Normal
              Item Group: Matlab Compatibility
                  Status: None
             Assigned to: None
         Originator Name: 
        Originator Email: 
             Open/Closed: Open
         Discussion Lock: Any
                 Release: dev
        Operating System: Any

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Details:

Matlab has "help slash" which summarizes what "\", "/", ".\", and "./" do. 
Most important is backslash which briefly describes the algorithms used (e.g.,
Gaussian Elimination).

I often point people to "help slash" in my lecture notes or in a comment in a
demo code.  I don't know a similarly accessible bit of text in Octave.  In
particular, "help mldivide" doesn't say much.

We could just have "help slash" refer to "help mldivide" for details.

I did eventually find some useful text, copied below.  But it wasn't obvious
how to get to it from the command line (in particular, I found it by typing
"doc mldivide" then scrolling up several screens.



8.3 Arithmetic Operators
========================

----8<----

X \ Y
     Left division.  This is conceptually equivalent to the expression

          inverse (x) * y

     but it is computed without forming the inverse of X.

     If the system is not square, or if the coefficient matrix is
     singular, a minimum norm solution is computed.





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