Introduction to MATLAB

AASTU

AASTU, Adem G.
Matrices and Matrix Computations
 MATLAB treats all variables as matrices
 Matrices are assigned to expressions with an ’=’ sign

 Names are case sensitive

Example: To create:  1 2 3 
A   4 5 6 
 7 8 9
Enter the following:
>> A= [1 -2 3;-4 5 6; 7 8 -9]

February 2021 AASTU, Adem G.

 Cont’d
A=
1 -2 3
-4 5 6
7 8 -9
 New rows are indicated by a new line or a semicolon.

 Elements of a matrix can be expressions:

>> C= [1 1+1 9/3 2^3 2\8]

C=
1 2 3 8 4

February 2021 AASTU, Adem G.

Definition of an array

x=a: step: b
Examples:
>> x=0:2:10
x=
0 2 4 6 8 10
>> y=10:-2:1
y=
10 8 6 4 2
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Some special matrices generated by
built-in functions

>> w=ones (2) % a 2x2 matrix of 1s

w=
1 1
1 1
>> x=zeros(2,4)%a 2x4 matrix of 0s
x=
0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0
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Cont’d

>> z=eye(2)%a 2x2 identity matrix

z=
1 0
0 1

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The ‘diag’ Function

1. Creates a matrix with specified values on the

(main) diagonal
>> d=[1 2 3];
>> D=diag(d)
D=
1 0 0
0 2 0
0 0 3
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Cont’d

Note: the’;’ in “d=[1 2 3];” is used to suppress

the echoing of the input (intermediate results)
2. Extracts the diagonal entries
>> C=[1 -2 3;-4 5 6;7 8 -9];
>> c=diag(C)
c=
1
5
-9
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The “linspace” Function

linspace (first value, last value, num values)

first value = Starting
last value = Ending
num values= No. of elements to be considered
>> odds=linspace(1,9,5)
odds =
1 3 5 7 9

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Some Useful Matrix Functions

 det(A) - determinant
 eig(A) - eigenvalues & eigenvectors
 inv(A) - inverse
 rank - rank
 lu - LU decomposition
 qr - QR factorization

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Matrix Operations

1. Transpose
2. Scalar Multiplication
3. Addition (Component by component)
4. Multiplication
5. Division
6. Power
7. Component by component Multiplication,
Division and Power
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Polynomials

 Polynomials are specified by a vector whose

entries are the coefficients of the polynomial
Example: The polynomial f ( x) = x3+2x 2− 10 x+ 1
is specified by [1 2 -10 1].
>> f=[1 2 -10 1] ;

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Cont’d

>> polyval(f,-2)%evaluates the polynomial at x=-2

ans =
21
>> roots(f)%finds the roots of a polynomial
ans =
-4.3511
2.2489
0.1022
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The ‘disp’ and ‘fprintf’ Functions

1. disp
disp(A) displays the array, without printing the
name
If A is a string, the text is displayed
Example:
>> disp('Newton Interpolation Formula')
Newton Interpolation Formula

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Cont’d

 disp also allows us to print numerical

values placed in text strings
Example:
>> itr=15;
>> disp(['Newtons Method doesnot converge
in',num2str(itr),'iterations']) displays
Newtons Method doesnot converge in 15
iterations

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Cont’d

2. fprintf
(‘filename’,’format’,list)
where file name is optional
format=format control string containing
conversion specifications or any optional text
conversion specifications control the output of
array elements.

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Common conversion specifications

 %P.Qe for exponential

 %P.Qf for fixed point
 %P.Qg to automatically select the shorter of
%P.Qe or %P.Qf
where P and Q are integers that set the field
width and the number of decimal places
respectively.
 list= a list of variable names separated by
commas.
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Cont’d

 ‘\n’ produces a new line

>> x=4/3; y=5/6;
>> fprintf('\n x=%1.3f\n y=%1.5f\n',x,y)
x=1.333
y=0.83333

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2-D Plots

 Two dimensional graphs of functions are

generated by the command plot.
2
Example: Plot y = x + 1 over the interval [-2, 2].
>> x = -2 : 0.25 : 2;
>> y = x.^2+1;
>> plot(x,y)
 The command plot( x, y, 'r+:') results in red

color with + for points and dotted lines.

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Cont’d

 Use help plot for more options.

 Other features can be added with commands
such as grid, xlabel, ylable, title, etc.
 Plots of parametrically defined curves can
also be made. For example:
 >> t = 0 : 0.1 :4*pi;
 >> x = cos(2*t); y = sin(3*t);
 >> plot(x,y)

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 Cont’d

 Multiple plots on a single graph:

>> x=-2:0.1:2;
>> y1=x.^2+1;
>> y2=x.^2-1;
>> plot(x,y1,x,y2)

February 2021 AASTU, Adem G.

3-D Mesh Plots

 3-D mesh surface plots are drawn with the

function mesh.
2 2
Example: Graph of z= e − y over the square
− x

[-4, 4] X [-4, 4].

>> [x y]=meshgrid(-4:0.25:4,-4:0.25:4);
>> z=exp(-x.^2-y.^2);
>> mesh(x,y,z)
 Other commands related to 3-D graphs are

plot3 and surf.

February 2021 AASTU, Adem G.
 Function Files

 Some elementary mathematical MATLAB

functions:
Trigonometric: sin, cos, tan
sind, cosd, tand, …
Exponential: exp (natural exp)
log (natural log)
log10 (common log)
sqrt (square root)
Complex: abs (absolute value)
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Cont’d

 A complete list of elementary functions can

be obtained with the command:
>> help elfun
Note: All function names are in lower case.
 MATLAB functions may have single or

multiple arguments

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Cont’d

For example,
>> [U, D]=eig(A)
generates a matrix U whose columns are
eigenvctors of A & a diagonal matrix D
with the eigenvalues of on its diagonal.

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 Polynomial
(i) derivative:
>>polyder(p)
(ii) the derivative of the product of the
polynomials A and B:
>>polyder(A,B)
Example: A = [3 6 9]; B = [1 2 0];
>>polyder(A, B)
ans =
12 36 42 18
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AASTU, Adem G. 27
c. Integration
A polynomial representing the integral of polynomial p,
>> polyint(p) assumes a constant of integration c=0.

Example: p = [1 3 -4 5]
ans =
0.2500 1.0000 -2.0000 5.0000 0.0000

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Fzero
To find a zero of fun near x0, if x0 is a scalar, we use
fzero((@fun, x0 )

fun is the function whose zero is to be computed.

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Example 1: Calculate π by finding the zero of the sine
function near 3.
>> fzero(@sin,3)
ans = 3.1416
Example 2: To find the zero of cosine between 1 and 2
>> fzero(@cos,[1 2])
ans = 1.5708
Note that cos(1) and cos(2) differ in sign.

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Example 3

To find a zero of the function f(x) = x3 – 2x – 5, write

an anonymous function f: f = @(x)x.^3-2*x-5; Then
find the zero near :
>> fzero(f,1)
ans = 2.0946
Example 4: f=@(x)-11-22*x+17*x^2-2.5*x^3;
>> x = fzero(f,3) x = 2.4269
or >>x = fzero(@(x)-11-22*x+17*x^2-2.5*x^3,3)
or x = fzero(@(x)-11-22*x+17*x^2-2.5*x^3,[2 3])
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 Polynomial Interpolation
Example: Here are two vectors representing the census years
from 1900 to 1990 and the corresponding United States
population in millions of people.
t = 1900:10:1990;
p = [75.995 91.972 105.711 123.203 131.669 150.697
179.323 203.212 226.505 249.633];
>>interp1(t,p,1975)
The expression interpolates within the census data to estimate the
population in 1975. The result is
ans = 214.8585
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Last

Thank you!

February 2021 AASTU, Adem G.