In Mathematica one can get the names of all built-in functions starting with, for instance, List by executing the command
Names["List`*"]
In addition
Names["context`*"]
lists all symbols in the specified context. E.g.
Names["Global`*"]
gives the names of all the built-in symbols (as well those defined by the user in Global context if any).
Are there similar structures in Matlab/Octave?
In Octave you can use the following functions:
__operators__ : Undocumented
__keywords__ : Undocumented
__builtins__ : Undocumented
__list_functions__ : Return a list of all functions (.m and .oct functions) in the load path or in the specified directory.
localfunctions : Return a list of all local functions, i.e., subfunctions, within the current file.
And undocumented function __dump_symtab_info__ that dumps symbol table that contains function and variable names in different scopes:
__dump_symtab_info__ (scope) : Dump symbol table of the given scope
__dump_symtab_info__ (__current_scope__) : Dump symbol table of the current scope
__dump_symtab_info__ ("functions") : Dump globally visible functions from symbol table
__dump_symtab_info__ ("scopes") : List available scopes
__dump_symtab_info__ () : Everything