What is MATLAB?

• MATrix LABoratory
• Developed by The Mathworks, Inc (http://www.mathworks.com)
• Interactive, integrated, environment
– for numerical computations
– for symbolic computations
– for scientific visualizations
• It is a high-level programming language
 Characteristics of MATLAB

• Programming language based (principally) on matrices .

– Slow - an interpreted language ,i.e .not pre-compiled.
Avoid for loops; instead use vector form whenever
possible .
– Automatic memory management, i.e., you don't have
to declare arrays in advance .
– Intuitive, easy to use .
– Shorter program development time than traditional
programming languages such as Fortran and C .
– Can be converted into C code via MATLAB compiler
for better efficiency .
• Many application-specific toolboxes available .
Start menu Matlab MATLAB

“>>” – ‫שורת הפקודה‬

>> date
 Getting Help
>> help date

>> helpwin date

helpwin gives you the same information as help, but in a different window.
 Getting Help
>> doc date

>> lookfor date % search for keywords that best describe the function
>> Ctrl+C % stop Matlab from running
>> clc % clear screen
 Special characters

• >> % default command prompt

• % % comment - MATLAB simply ignores anything to the
right of this sign (till the end of the line).
>> % my comment
• ; % semicolon at the end of the line will prevent MATLAB
from echoing the information you type on the screen.
>> a=20
>> B=20;
 Creating Variables
• Matlab as a calculator:
• >>2+5
• >>7*10+8
• >>5^2
• ‘ans’ - "answer", used in MATLAB as the default variable.
 Defining Your Own Variables
• When Matlab comes across a new variable name - it
automatically creates it.
• Begins with a LETTER, e.g., A2z.
• Can be a mix of letters, digits, and underscores (e.g.,
vector_A, but not vector-A)
• Not longer than 31 characters.
• No spaces
• Different mixes of capital and small letters = different
variables.
For example: "A_VaRIAbLe", "a_variable",
"A_VARIABLE", and "A_variablE
• >> String=‘this is a string’
 Listing & Clearing Variables
>> a=10
>> b = 20
>> the_average = (a + b ) / 2
>> whos

>> clear, clear all %clear variables from memory

 Creating vectors

Coulmn separator:
Row separator: Semicolon (;)
space/coma (,)

Creating sequences:
• From : jump: till
• linespec(X1, X2, N)
generates N points between
X1 and X2.
 Creating Matrices

• Matrices must be rectangular.

• Creating random matrices:
2-by-4 random matrix
(2 rows and 4 columns).
 Creating Matrices
• You can combine existing vectors as matrix elements:

• You can combine existing matrices as matrix elements:

 Indexing Into a Matrix

>> B=A(3,1);
>> A(:,end)=[1;7;3;8;4];
• The row number is first, followed by the column number.
Linear Algebra Operations
 Matrix Multiplication

• Inner dimensions must be equal

• Dimension of resulting matrix = outermost
dimensions of multiplied matrices
• Resulting elements = dot product of the rows of
the 1st matrix with the columns of the 2nd matrix
 Vector Multiplication

Type the following:

>>a=[2 3]
>>b=[3 2]
>>a*b

>>a.*b

>>a.*b’

>>a*b’
 String Arrays

• Created using single quote delimiter (')

• Indexing is the same as for numeric arrays

String Array Concatenation
Working with String Arrays
 Example: Solving Equations

• Solve this set of simultaneous equations: Ax=B, x=?

 Creating Scripts with MATLAB
Editor/Debugger
• Automatically saves files as ASCII text files for you.
• Scripts in MATLAB has the ".m" suffix.
• They are also called "M-files".

Open Matlab Editor:

• File New M-file OR:
Run
• >> edit
 Add path

• >> addpath C:\EMEM899\Somedirectory

• Set path
 Script M-files
• Standard ASCII text files
• Contain a series of MATLAB expressions
• A script does not define a new workspace
% Comments start with "%" character
pause % Suspend execution - hit any key to continue.
keyboard % Pause & return control to command line.
% Type "return" to continue.
break % Terminate execution of current loop/file.
return % Exit current function
% Return to invoking function/command line.
Continue % go to next iteration
Input % Prompt for user input
 A Simple Script
Write a program which receives a number from the user,
calculates it’s square root (use ‘sqrt’ command) and displays
the result.
save the script as "square_root_script.m" in your own folder

% a simple MATLAB m-file to calculate the

% square root of an input numbers.

my_num=input('insert a number');
% now calculate the square root of the number and print
it out:

square_root = sqrt(my_num)
 Running Scripts

• >> square_root_script
• The header - comments you place at the beginning of your scripts will be
returned to users when they get help for your script.
• >> help square_root_script

• Note: The variables defined in the script remain in the workspace even
after the script finishes running.
• Creating comments: ctrl+r, or right click on the mouse, or
%{
coment
coment
%}
 Running Scripts (2)
• Find and Replace – ctrl+F

• Key words

• Wrong use of key words

• Indenting: Ctrl+I
 Flow Control Constructs

• Logic Control:
– IF / ELSEIF / ELSE
– SWITCH / CASE / OTHERWISE
• Iterative Loops:
– FOR
– WHILE
 The if, elseif and else statements
• Works on Conditional statements
• Logic condition is ‘true’ if its different then 0.

if I == J if I == J
A(I,J) = 2; A(I,J) = 2;
else if abs(I-J) == 1 elseif abs(I-J) == 1
A(I,J) = -1; A(I,J) = -1;
else
else
A(I,J) = 0;
A(I,J) = 0;
end
end %else if
end %if

• ELSEIF does not need a matching END, while ELSE IF

does.
Boolean Operators & Indexing
 Switch, Case, and Otherwise

• More efficient than elseif statements

• Only the first matching case is executed
switch input_num
case -1
input_str = 'minus one';
case 0
input_str = 'zero';
case 1
input_str = 'plus one';
case {-10,10}
input_str = '+/- ten';
otherwise
input_str = 'other value';
end
 Problem

• Build a program which receives a variable x and its units

(mm, cm, inch, meter) and calculates Y- it’s value in
centimeters units.
• Use switch case.
• 1 Inch = 2.54 cm
• Write a comment for error case.
• Save the file under units.m
 Solution
x = 3.0;
units = 'mm';
switch units
case {'in','inch'}
y = 2.54*x % converts to centimeters
case {'m','meter'}
y = x*100 % converts to centimeters
case { 'millimeter','mm'}
y = x/10;
disp ([num2str(x) ' in ' units ' converted
to cm is :' num2str(y)])
case {'cm','centimeter'}
y = x
otherwise
disp (['unknown units:' units])
y = nan;
end
 The for loop

• Similar to other programming languages

• Repeats loop a set number of times (based on index)
• Can be nested
• Each loop is closed with end.

N=10;
for I = 1:2:N
for J = 1:N
A(I,J) = 1/(I+J-1);
end
end
 The while loop

• Similar to other programming languages

• Repeats loop until logical condition returns FALSE.
• Can be nested.
• Stopping infinity loop:
Ctrl+C I=1; N=10;
while I<=N
Ctrl+break J=1;
while J<=N
A(I,J)=1/(I+J-1);
J=J+1;
end
I=I+1;
end
Array Operations
 Line Plots in Two Dimensions
• Plot (x,y)
• makes a two-dimensional line plot for each point in X and its
corresponding point in Y: (X(1),Y(1)), (X(2),Y(2)), (X(3),Y(3)), etc.,
and then connect all these points together with line.
• Example:
• >> x=1:1:5;
• >>Y=[2 7 0 -8 6];
• >> plot (x,y);
• >> xlabel (‘label for x-axis’)
• >> ylabel (‘label for y-axis’)
• >> title (‘title’)
 Multiple Plots
• Check the following:
• x_points = [-10 : .05 : 10];
• plot(x_points, exp(x_points)); % plot in Blue (default)
• grid on
• hold on
• plot(x_points, exp(.95 .* x_points), 'm'); % plot in Magenta
• plot(x_points, exp(.85 .* x_points), 'g'); % plot in Green
• plot(x_points, exp(.75 .* x_points), 'p'); % plot a star
• hold off 2.5
x 10
4
Comparing Exponential Functions

• xlabel('x-axis'); ylabel('y-axis'); 1
2
3
• title('Comparing Exponential Functions'); 2 4

• legend ('1', '2', '3', '4') 1.5

y-axis
1

0.5

0
-10 -5 0 5 10
 Subplots

• multiple plots in the same window, each with their own

axes.
• Subplot (M,N,P)
• M – rows
• N - columns
• P – number of subplot
in the figure

Subplot (2,2,1)
 More about figures

• Figure % Open a new figure without closing old figures

• Figure (i) % Open the i-th figure
• Close all % close all open figures
• axis ([xmin xmax ymin ymax]) % sets scaling for the x-
and y-axes on the current plot.
Special Graph Annotations (TeX)
Plot Editor Toolbar
 Exercise

Create the following: Merav's graph

2
sin(x)
log(x)
1.5

0.5
y

-0.5

-1
1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5

• x = (1, 1.05, 1.1, 1.15… 5) x

• Y=sin(x)
• Z=log(x)
• Put your name in the title
• Hint: check the doc on function “LineSpec”.
 Solution

• x=1:0.05:5;
• y=sin(x);
• z=log(x);
• hold on
• plot (x,y,'-.r*')
• plot (x,z,'-.go')
• hold off
• title ('Merav''s graph');
• xlabel ('x')
• ylabel ('y')
• legend ('sin(x)', 'log(x)');
 More exercise
• Make a 3 three-dimensional graph of (x,y,z) – use Matlab help.
• Make two separate 2-D graphs, with separate axis, in the same
window: y vs. x, and z vs. x.
• Use the same x,y,z as defined in the previous exercise

3D graph
sin(x) log(x)
1 1.8

0.8 1.6
2
0.6
1.4
0.4 1.5
1.2
0.2
1
1
z
y=sin(x)

0
z

0.8 0.5
-0.2
0.6
-0.4 0
0.4 1
-0.6
0.5 5
0.2 0 4
-0.8
3
-0.5 2
-1 0
1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 y -1 1
x
x x
 Solution

• 3-D graph: • Subplots

• >> plot3(x,y,z) >> subplot (1,2,1);
• >> grid >> plot(x,y);
>> title ('sin(x)');
• >> xlabel ('x') >> xlabel('x');
• >> ylabel('y') >> ylabel('y=sin(x)');
• >> zlabel('z') >> grid;
• >> title ('3D graph') >> subplot (1,2,2);
>> plot(x,z);
>> xlabel('x');
>> title ('log(x)');
>> grid;
>> ylabel ('z');