Question

How can you send an argument to the help function?

I wish to have something like this:

function intro(funcname)
  disp('This is an introduction to the function you chose. See the help below:')
  help funcname
end

where I can show the help text for a function, which name comes as an argument in the function. The above does not work though, when MatLab just searches for funcname as a function name and not the variable value.

Answer 1

In short: Yes, you can do it, by using the function form of help:

  x = 'mean';
  help(x);

In your example:

function intro(funcname)
  disp('This is an introduction to the function you chose. See the help below:')
  help(funcname);
end

Explanation:
The form that you are using

help xxx

is merely a shortcut to:

 help('xxx');

If you have multiple arguments separated by space (Thanks to @Amro on this one), it is the same like sending multiple arguments:
For example:

mcc -m fileNames

is equal to

mcc('-m','fileNames');

As a side note that represents my opinion, I would like to add that in general, the second form is preferred, except when you write a quick-and-dirty code.