subroutines

[James A. Tzitzouris]

This is a 2 part question.  The first part may be a dumb question (i.e.,
one answered in the man pages, though I can't find it).  

Is there support in octave 2.0.13 for subroutines?  I know MATLAB 5.x has
support for such things.  By subroutine I mean something like the
following (in MATLAB syntax, i.e., no need for "endfunction"):

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%     MATLAB 5.x Code norm.m    %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

function val=norm(x)

        val = sqrt(sum(sq(x)));

% now here is the definition of the subroutine sq()
% which is only defined in the scope of norm()

function y=sq(x)

        y = x.*x;

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%



Part 2:  I am planning to write the qp() and nlp() functions for octave 
(they're on the wish list).  The nlp() function will call the qp()
function as a subroutine.  Is it computationally faster to have a copy of
the qp() function embedded in the nlp() code as a "subroutine" (assuming
the answer to part 1 is "yes") or should I not waste my time with
subroutines and just make an external call to qp() from nlp()? 

Any input would be greatly appreciated.  I am a newcomer to octave, but I
have used MATLAB profusely throughout my academic career.  

Thanks in advance,

James Tzitzouris

Doctoral Candidate, Optimization and Operations Research
Department of Mathematical Sciences
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

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