2.1.2 Startup Files

When Octave starts, it looks for commands to execute from the following files:

octave-home/share/octave/site/m/startup/octaverc

Where octave-home is the directory in which all of Octave is installed (the default is /usr/local). This file is provided so that changes to the default Octave environment can be made globally for all users at your site for all versions of Octave you have installed. Some care should be taken when making changes to this file, since all users of Octave at your site will be affected.

octave-home/share/octave/version/m/startup/octaverc

Where octave-home is the directory in which all of Octave is installed (the default is /usr/local), and version is the version number of Octave. This file is provided so that changes to the default Octave environment can be made globally for all users for a particular version of Octave. Some care should be taken when making changes to this file, since all users of Octave at your site will be affected.

~/.octaverc

This file is normally used to make personal changes to the default Octave environment.

.octaverc

This file can be used to make changes to the default Octave environment for a particular project. Octave searches for this file in the current directory after it reads ~/.octaverc. Any use of the cd command in the ~/.octaverc file will affect the directory that Octave searches for the file .octaverc.

If you start Octave in your home directory, commands from from the file ~/.octaverc will only be executed once.

A message will be displayed as each of the startup files is read if you invoke Octave with the --verbose option but without the --silent option.

Startup files may contain any valid Octave commands, including function definitions.