save/load problem

[Carolina Gama]

Hi!
I'm not used to work with gnu octave, and i have to do a school work. My teacher didn't give much help and i'm having some trouble.
In the work, we have a function that saves a matrix with a different name as a text document. The function, the tecaher gave in the class was something like this:

function guarda_estado(nome_file)
    global estado_actual
    save ("-ascii",nome_file,"estado_actual");
endfunction

I have a matrix called estado_actual and in the beginning i want to save it as estado_inicial.txt and the go read it. For that, i also have a function but it's not working either!

function le_estado(nome-file)
    global estado_actual
    estado_actual=[];
    load ("-force",nome_file,"estado_actual");
endfuction

Could you help me with this problem?
Thanks,

    Carolina Gama
    address@hidden