Octave's rand function -- discrepancy between online documentation and function

[Paul Laub]

Dear all, 

At the Octave command line when I invoke the rand function with
"state" as the first argument, I get an "unrecognized string argument"
error message. Yet, when I type "help rand", the documentation
displayed states that "state" is a valid first argument. The same
applies to the randn function as well. What is going on?

I am using Octave 2.1.42 on Windows 2000 Pentium machine. Recently, I
downloaded the precompiled, no-atlas installation package from
sourceforge.net. That file is octave-2.1.42-p6.exe.

A web search on this matter turned up this a similar question -- 

http://www.octave.org/octave-lists/archive/help-octave.2003/msg01336.html

As you can read, the answer offered to that question was "get
Octave-Forge". Well, didn't I do  that? I must admit being confused
about the differences, if any, among Octave, Octave-Forge, Atlas, etc.
The FAQs I have found and read have not been much help in this matter.
I'd like to be sure I have the best program version installed for my
purposes and my hardware.

Can any one clear up these questions? 

Thanks.

Sincerely,
Paul Laub



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