Navigation

Operators and Keywords

Function List:

C++ API

: clear [options] pattern …

Delete the names matching the given patterns from the symbol table.

The pattern may contain the following special characters:

?

Match any single character.

*

Match zero or more characters.

[ list ]

Match the list of characters specified by list. If the first character is ! or ^, match all characters except those specified by list. For example, the pattern ‘[a-zA-Z]’ will match all lowercase and uppercase alphabetic characters.

For example, the command

clear foo b*r

clears the name foo and all names that begin with the letter b and end with the letter r.

If clear is called without any arguments, all user-defined variables (local and global) are cleared from the symbol table.

If clear is called with at least one argument, only the visible names matching the arguments are cleared. For example, suppose you have defined a function foo, and then hidden it by performing the assignment foo = 2. Executing the command clear foo once will clear the variable definition and restore the definition of foo as a function. Executing clear foo a second time will clear the function definition.

The following options are available in both long and short form

-all, -a

Clear all local and global user-defined variables and all functions from the symbol table.

-exclusive, -x

Clear the variables that don’t match the following pattern.

-functions, -f

Clear the function names and the built-in symbols names.

-global, -g

Clear global symbol names.

-variables, -v

Clear local variable names.

-classes, -c

Clears the class structure table and clears all objects.

-regexp, -r

The arguments are treated as regular expressions as any variables that match will be cleared.

With the exception of exclusive, all long options can be used without the dash as well.

See also: who, whos, exist.

Package: octave