title: How can I suppress the output of a command in octave?
body: <p>In Octave I can suppress or hide the output of an instruction adding a semicolon to the end of a line:</p>
  
  <pre><code>octave:1&gt; exp([0 1])
  ans = [ 1.0000   2.7183 ]
  octave:2&gt; exp([0 1]);
  octave:3&gt; 
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Now, how can I suppress the output if the function displays text (e.g. using <code>disp()</code> or <code>print()</code>) before returning its value? In other words, I want to be able to do this:</p>
  
  <pre><code>disp("Starting...");
  % hide text the may get displayed after this point
  % ...
  % show all text again after this point
  disp("Done!");
  </code></pre>