Collections of numbers, vector operations and 2D plots

MATLAB Tips of the day

Tip #1: colon notation
The colon notation is very helpful when generating vectors: start:step:end
(step is optional)
   10:20 ==> [10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20]
   10:5:20 ==> [10 15 20]
   10:6:20 ==> [10 16]
   0:0.2:1 ==> [0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0]

Note that 0:0.2:1 is equivalent to colon(0, 0.2, 1)

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Tip #2: ellipsis
If you happen to find yourself typing in a looooong MATLAB expression,
you can use an ellipsis (...) to indicate line continuation. For example,

Problem: You cannot use ellipsis within a string, for example:

MATLAB often uses color to indicates how it understands your code.
See the red that turns into black and then purple above? That suggests a problem.

Solution? Break your statement up into separate disp commands, like this
(note the code below is part of an m-file, rather than typing it directly in the command window):

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Tip #3: The input MATLAB command
Look it up in the on-line MATLAB documentation. Experiment with it in the command window.

• How can you get a number back?
• How about a string?
• What if the user hits Return without having entered anything at all?
• What happens if you add or omit the semicolon (;) at the end of the command?

Variables and Plotting

1. variable review worksheet
2. simple plotting worksheet
   (Search the on-line MATLAB help with keyword "LineSpec", for more information on Line Specifications.)
3. Assignment 1 contains an exercise called the Golden Ratio.
4. (optional) more plotting practice: Facebook Data
5. Now you're ready for the rest of Assignment 1
   

** Important Note about MATLAB's debug mode **

Sometimes, when there is an error in your program, MATLAB decides to go into Debug mode. You will know this because the MATLAB prompt in the Command Window has a K in front of it like this:

K>>

To get out of Debug mode, you can select Exit Debug Mode from the Debug menu (as shown below).

Debug mode sometimes also puts breakpoints into your code, these will show up as little red filled circles to the left of your line of code.

To get rid of these breakpoints, select Clear Breakpoints from All Files from the Debug menu. (Later on in the semester, we will use Debug mode to help us understand how our programs are working, but for now, we simply want to exit out of Debug mode when MATLAB puts us in it).

Uploading your saved work

• When done uploading, be sure to delete your working folder from the desktop (by putting it in the trash can) and then empty the trash (Finder--> Empty Trash).
• Make sure to Exit out of MATLAB when done