MATLAB Programming/Differences between Octave and MATLAB

Octave has been mainly built with MATLAB compatibility in mind. It has a lot of features in common with MATLAB:


 * 1) Matrices as fundamental data type.
 * 2) Built-in support for complex numbers.
 * 3) Powerful built-in math functions and extensive function libraries.
 * 4) Extensibility in the form of user-defined functions.

Some of the differences that do exist between Octave and MATLAB can be worked around using "user preference variables."

GNU Octave is mostly compatible with MATLAB. However, Octave's parser allows some (often very useful) syntax that MATLAB's does not, so programs written for Octave might not run in MATLAB. For example, Octave supports the use of both single and double quotes, whereas older versions of MATLAB only supported single quotes, which meant parsing errors occurred if you tried to use double quotes (e.g. in an Octave script when run on MATLAB). More recent versions of MATLAB introduced double quotes, but with different functionality to single quotes (albeit with some overlap in functionality). Octave and MATLAB users who must collaborate with each other need to take note of these issues and program accordingly.


 * Note: Octave can be run in "traditional mode" (by including the --traditional flag when starting Octave) which makes it give an error when certain Octave-only syntax is used.

This chapter documents instances where MATLAB's parser will fail to run code that will run in Octave, and instances where Octave's parser will fail to run code that will run in MATLAB. This page also contains notes on differences between things that are different between Octave (in traditional mode) and MATLAB.

C-Style Autoincrement and Assignment operators
Octave supports C-style autoincrement and assignment operators: MatLab does not.

Product of booleans
MATLAB (R2011b) and Octave (3.6.4) respond differently when computing the product of boolean values:

X = ones(2,2) ; prod(size(X)==1) MATLAB: PROD is only supported for floating point input. Octave: ans = 0

They both produce the same result (ans=0) in MATLAB (R2015a) and above

nargin
Nargin returns the number of input arguments of a function. MATLAB (R2011b) will not allow the following; Octave will.

startup.m
MATLAB will execute a file named 'startup.m' in the directory it was called from on the command line. Old versions of Octave do not. Starting with Octave 4.2.0 it behaves the same as Matlab. For older versions of Octave, it will execute a file named '.octaverc' which can be edited to execute existing startup files. This means that '.octaverc' can be edited to look for and execute a 'startup.m' file.

Character Strings and Arrays
MATLAB differentiates between character strings and character arrays, while Octave does not. In Octave:

>> ["foo" "bar"] ans = foobar >> ['foo' 'bar'] ans = foobar

In MATLAB:

>> ["foo" "bar"] ans = 1×2 string array "foo"   "bar"

>> ['foo' 'bar'] ans = 'foobar'

Solution: Use strcat for character string concatenation.

['abc ';'abc']
['abc ';'abc'] is now allowed in both Octave and MATLAB; (MATLAB previously would return: ?? Error using ==> vertcat)

In Octave and MATLAB the result will be a 2 by 3 matrix.

Calling Shells
the "! STRING" syntax calls a shell with command STRING in MATLAB. Octave does not recognize ! as system call, since it is used in logical operations. Always use 'system (STRING)' for compatibility.

If you really miss the one-character shortcut, for convenience on the command line you can create a similar shortcut by defining the following in your '.octaverc' file:

function S(a), system(a); end

Now "S STRING" will evaluate the string in the shell.

Attempting to load empty files
MATLAB lets you load empty files, OCTAVE does not.

system('touch emptyfile'); A = load('emptyfile')

MATLAB R2011b : A=[] Octave 4.2.0 : error: load: unable to determine file format of 'emptyfile'

fprintf and printf
Octave supports both  and   as a command for printing to the screen. MATLAB requires :

foo = 5; printf ('My result is: %d\n', foo) % Prints to STDOUT. Octave only

covers writing both to the screen and to a file by omitting the optional file-handle argument:

foo = 5; fprintf('My result is: %d\n', foo) % Prints to STDOUT. Octave and MATLAB

Whitespace
MATLAB does not allow whitespace before the transpose operator but Octave does (it is just an operator like others).

[0 1]'  % works in MATLAB and Octave [0 1] ' % works only in Octave

Line continuation
MATLAB always requires  for line continuation.

rand (1, ...         2)

while Octave also supports

rand (1,         2)

For both programs, a line break without '...' within an array shifts to the next row

>> R=[1 2 3 7 8 9]

R = 1    2     3     7     8     9

Assignment
Octave supports

z = y = x + 3

MATLAB requires

y = x + 3 z = y

Octave allows

global isOctave = (exist('OCTAVE_VERSION') > 0);

while MATLAB requires

global isOctave; isOctave = (exist('OCTAVE_VERSION') > 0);

This example also shows how to detect the interpreter at runtime.

Logical operator NOT
Octave allows users to use both ~ and ! with boolean values. The first is for MATLAB compatibility, while ! will be more familiar to C/Java/etc programmers. If you use the latter, however, you'll be writing code that MATLAB will not accept:


 * For not-equal comparison, Octave can use both '~=' or '!='. MATLAB requires '~='.

GNU Octave Control Package
Both MATLAB and Octave have toolboxes intended to control system design. In Octave, the toolbox is called the Octave Control Package. The package can be downloaded, compiled and installed with the command  from the Octave prompt. Users of Debian and its derivatives can install it by installing the package "octave-control", if it is not installed by default.

For more information about functions' syntax, type help . For more information about the Control Package, view the PDF manual in the package's "doc" folder.

Small differences exist - an example is c2d. Here are the two formats for the bilinear transformation with an analog model C:

Some other differences

 * MATLAB uses the percent sign '%' to begin a comment. Octave uses both the hash symbol   and the percent sign   interchangeably.
 * For exponentiation, Octave can use  or  ; MATLAB requires.
 * To end blocks, Octave can use  or specify the block with  ; MATLAB requires.
 * Octave supports C-style hexadecimal notation (e.g. "0xF0"); MATLAB requires the  function (e.g. "hex2dec('F0')").
 * If something (like Netlab) needs a function named fcnchk, create a file named fcnchk.m with the contents shown below and put it where Octave can find it:


 * The main difference used to be the lack of GUI for Octave. With version 4.0 Octave has a GUI as its default interface.

Notes about specific functions

 * For "dbstep, in" use "dbstep"; for "dbstep", use "dbnext"
 * For "eig(A,B)" use "qz(A,B)"
 * The fputs function is not available in MATLAB. Use fprintf instead.
 * The strftime function is not available in MATLAB. Use datestr instead.
 * The time function is not available in MATLAB. Use now instead.
 * As of 4.2.1, Octave does not print outputs to the console until it has completed all waiting commands, unlike MATLAB. This behavior is controlled by the boolean variable   (default:  ), and it is not ameliorated in.
 * The functions strread and textscan in Octave 3.4.0 are not fully compatible with their implementations in MATLAB 2009b (and probably later versions as well). For instance, the N=-1 option (repeat reading format until end of string) is not implemented in Octave 3.4.0 . Using a value of N=a positive integer (read format N times) does work the same as in MATLAB.
 * The textscan function is not included in Octave versions prior to 3.4.0. Use fscanf instead.
 * For the linprog function, MATLAB is more permissive by allowing the "a" and "b" inputs to be either row or column vectors. Octave requires that they be column vectors.
 * In Octave, one can specify data labels (or legends) with the plot function, while in MATLAB one can only use the legend function.

Octave:       plot(x, y, ';label;') MATLAB/Octave: plot(x, y); legend('label')


 * The error(msg) function in MATLAB is a no-op if the message is empty. In Octave, it results in an error.
 * The contains function is not available in Octave. Use ~isempty(strfind) instead.