4 LIST OF FIGURES
Command history Log of lines you enter in the Command window,
which allows you to copy/select/re-exe cute lines easily.
Launch pad Provides easy access to other MATLAB tools (eg. Optimisation
toolb ox you will use for your coursework), as well as demos and
documentation.
Help browser This allows you to search and view all documentation on
MATLAB products.
Current directory browser This specifies which directory you are
currently working in. Make sure this is pointing to the directory where
your files are located.
Workspace browser This lists the names and sizes of arrays being used in
your current session. This can be used as a basic visual debugging
environment of your code.
2 Essentials for creating basic programs
You can either create your programs by typing in the commands directly into
the MATLAB command window (one line at a time), or preferably structure
the lines of code in a “.m” file, and then call the file within the Command
window.
You could structure your MATLAB program in a file using MATLAB’s text
editor by clicking on File→New→M-file. For example, try to create the file
helloworld.m containing the code shown below:
x = (-10: 0.1 :10);
y = x.^2;
plot(x,y,’r-’);
title(’My first MATLAB program’);
Then (making sure that the current working directory is pointing to where the
file is located) type helloworld in the command window to run the program.
To add comments to your code type the % character and whatever follows on
that line will be ignored by MATLAB
If you terminate a line statement with the ; character then MATLAB will not
display the results of executing that particular line of MATLAB code. For
example if a line of code specifying a matrix A does not end with a semi colon
then the contents of matrix A will be output in the Command window.
This can be useful for debugging your code, and also cutting down the output
of the program.
To find a formal specification about any of MATLAB’s built in functions type
at the Command window, replacing functionname with the desired
function:
help functionname