Introduction to Matlab

& Data Analysis

Tutorial 2 and 3:

Variables and Matrix Manipulation

Yuval Hart, Weizmann 2010

Goals

Introduce the Notion of Variables & Data Types.

Master Arrays manipulation

Learn Arrays Mathematical Operations

Learn Basic String Manipulations

Learn to Use Array Editor

Solving Linear System of Equations

Variables

Yuval Hart, Weizmann 2010

Variables

A MATLAB variable is an identified

piece of data (= the assigned value)
1 1 0 0 0 1 0 1

The value is kept in the memory

The identifier provides a reference to

the value such that your program can:

Read it
Use it for computation / change its value
and save it back to memory

Variable Assignment
max_grade = 100;
Variable identifier
(name):

Letters

Digits

Underscore

1. Cant start with a

number
2. Case sensitive!!!

Value
Assignment
operator
clear max_grade;
clear;
clear all;
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Variable - Hands On

Exercise 1:

The disp variable overrides

the disp built-in function
following:

Consider the
x=50;
Dont override built-in
functions!!!
disp=100;
disp(x);
builtin(disp,x);
cleardisp;
disp(x);
What happened?

Variable - Hands On (II)

Exercise 2:

Define a variable grade and assign the value

80 to it.
Personal Factor - Now add to the grade its
square root (there are several options to solve
this)
Define a classFactor and assign 10 to it.
Define a finalGrade variable and assign the
value of the factored grade plus the class factor
to it. Lets look at the workspace
What iswindow.
the final grade?
Try to change grade value to
100.

Workspace functions

which(linspace);

clear x;
save(file_name, var1, var2, )

saves the workspace to a .mat file

load(file_name);

locates a function or identifies as variable

loads variables from a .mat file into the workspace

Example:

Create some a,b,c variables

save(tutorial2.mat, a, b,c);
clear;
Load(tutorial2.mat)
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Data Types

Yuval Hart, Weizmann 2010

Data Types (Variable

types)
A scalar is also an
array of size 1x1

Next lectures

Everything in Matlab is an array!

10

Data Types (Variable

Types)
Integer

Default

11

Data types - Numeric

Integer:
a = int16(100);
Be careful of
memory overflow
b = int8(5000);

Real(/Complex):
x = double(235.5);
x = single(235.5);
x = 235;
12

Numeric Data Functions

A summery of numeric functions:

Help -> contents -> MATLAB ->

Functions -> Mathematics -> Array and
Matrices (and also the rest of the
items)

Notice:

isinf, isnan, floor, ceil

Infinite

Is Not A
Number
13

Arrays Manipulation

Yuval Hart, Weizmann 2010

14

Arrays and Matrices

A Matlab variable is an array.

A one dimensional array is named

vector
A two dimensional array is named
Space / comma New element
matrix

Creating arrays

Which are equal?

a = [1 2 3 4];
b = [1, 2, 3, 4];
c = [1; 2; 3; 4];
d =1:1:4;

in same line

New line / Semicolon new line

Colon operator from:step:to.
Default step is one.
operator- transpose (near the
enter key)
15

linspace and logspace

linspace(0,100,51);
Min value

Max
value

Number of
points

Why? Consider 0:0.33:1 or 0:0.08:1

logspace(1,10,11);
Same, but logarithmically spaced
between 10^1 and 10^10
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Drawing the Sine and Cosine

Functions

Reminder:linspac
Use the commands we learned to define
e x as:

[ ,0.9 ,0.8 ,0.7 ,0.6 ,0.5 ,0.4 ,0.3 ,0.2 ,0.1 ,0,0.1 ,0.2 ,0.3 ,0.4 ,0.5 ,0.6 ,0.7 ,0.8 ,0.9 , ]

Compute y and z the sine and cosine function of x

respectively.
Draw a plot of the sine and cosine function of [-, ]
using the following code:

hold off; plot(x,y,'b-'); hold on; plot(x,z,'r-'); legend('Sine',

'Cosine');

x = linspace(-pi,pi, 21);
% another way: x = (-1:0.1:1) * pi;
y = sin(x);
z = cos(x);
17

Multidimensional Array
Indexing

A = [1, 2, 3; 4, 5, 6; 7, 8, 9]

Multi dimensional arrays:

B(:, :, 1) = A;
B(:, :, 2) = A;
B(:, :, 3) = A;

Second
dimension
A=
(Column)

First
dimension
(Row)

size(A) ans = 3

See also: length(A) numel(A)

Subscripts to single index:

sub2ind(size(A), 2,3)
ans = 8

A(2,3) <->A(8)

2
5
8

3
6
9

Third dimension
(Page)

Getting the matrix size:

1
4
7

1
4
7

2
5
8

3
6
9

B=
1
2
4 15 2
7 4 81 5
7 48
7

3
6 3
92 6 3
59 6
8
9

18

Arrays Manipulation
a = [1, 2; 3, 4]

2
4

ans=
1
3
2
4

a % or a.
a(2)
a(:)

a=
1
3

Array flattening
The last
coordinate in the
dimension

a(1,end:-1:1)

ans=
1
2
3
4

ans =
3

ans =
2
1

b = fliplr(a)

ans =
2
1
4
3

c = flipud(a)

ans =
3
4
1
2

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Arrays Manipulation More

d=
1

e=
2

10

1
2

3
4

5
6

7
8

9
10

g = [d(1:3), e]

g=
1

reshape(a,1,4)

ans =
1
3

repmat(e,2,2)

ans =
2 4
2 4

d = 1:2:9
e = 2:2:10
f = [d; e]

Vertical Array
Concatenation
Horizontal Array
Concatenation

f=

6
6

8 10 2
8 10 2

4
4

10

6
6

8
8

10
10

See also: diag()

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Assignment into Array

>> A = [1, 2, 3; 4, 5, 6; 7, 8, 9]
A=
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
>> A(3,4)
??? Index exceeds matrix dimensions.
>> A(4,4) = 10
A=
1
2
3
0
Notice the
4
5
6
0
7
8
9
0
difference
0
0
0 10 !

1 2 3
4 5 6
7 8 9 ?

1
4
7
0

2
5
8
0

3 0
6 0
9 0
0 10
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Assignment into Array

>> A = [1, 2, 3; 4, 5, 6; 7, 8, 9]
A=
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
>> A(:) = 21:30
??? In an assignment A(:) = B, the
number of elements in A and B
must be the same.

1
Notice the 4
difference 7
!
21
24

>> B = [21, 22, 23; 24, 25, 26]

B=
21 22 23
24 25 26
>> A(1:2,1:3) = 10
>> A(1:2,1:3) = B
A=
A=
10 10 10
21 22 23
24 25 26
10 10 10
7
8
9
7
8
9

Subscripted
assignment dimension

Scalar expansion

2
5
8

3
6
9

22 23
25 26

22

Standard Arrays
What is it good for?

zeros(10,10)
ones(10,10)
rand(10,10)
randn(10,10)
eye(10,10)

Allocate memory
in advance!
Create a sample.
Identity matrix
1
0
0

0
1
0

0
0
1
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Find & logical Arrays

>> A = magic(3)
A=
8
1
6
3
5
7
Logical
4
9
2
operator
>> is_larger_than5 = A > 5
is_larger_than5 =
1
0
1 Logical
0
0
1 array
0
1
0
>> class(is_larger_than5)
ans =
Logical
>> A(is_larger_than5)
ans =
8
Array can be
9
indexed with
6
logical array!
7

>> index_larger_than5 = find(A>5)

index_larger_than5 =
1
6
Array of indices
7
8
>> A(index_larger_than5) = 10 % A(find(A>5))= 10
A=
10 1 10Assignment
3
5 10using
>> A(r,c) = 20
4 10
2indices
% wrong!
array
A=
>> [r c] = find(A>5)
20 20 20
r=
20 20 20
1 Matlab functions
20 20 20
3 output depends
1 on the # of
What is wrong?
2 output
c=
parameters!
A([1 3 1 2], [1 2 3 3]) = 20
1
find can return
2
subscripts
3
3

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Short Example

Consider the martix: A=magic(6);

Try to run A(1:3,1:3)=ones(7,7);What did you get?

Replace all element larger than 20 with the value

100
Now, make A be only its last three columns
Then compute the mean of the fourth row.

A=magic(6)
A(:,:)=ones(7,7)
???Subscriptedassignmentdimensionmismatch.
A(find(A>20))=100;

A=A(:,4:6);%orA(:,1:3)=[];

mean(A(4,:))

26

Arrays mathematical
operations

Yuval Hart, Weizmann 2010

27

Array arithmetic

Element by element:

A+B
A-B
-A
A.*B
A./B
A.\B
.^

C = A*B :

Matrices dimensions
must match
+ * /\ by scalar are
element-wise

Search help for : Arithmetic Operators

A #columns == B
#rows

A^p

Try to run the

following:
x=1:3;
y=x';

x.*y'
x*y
y*x

28

Grades Exercise
Revisited
Consider the following:
Grade

80

Participation in
class

1.10 1.0
5

77

70

60

65

1.0
7

0.99 1.1
0

We want to compute the final grade as follows:

Multiply each grade by the class participation score

Then add 10 points to all grades?

Answer:
>> grades = [80 77 70 60 65];
>> participation_in_class
= [1.10,
1.05, 1.07, 0.99, 1.10];
>> final_grades = (grades .* participation_in_class) + 10
final_grades =
98.0000 90.8500 84.9000 69.4000 81.5000

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String Manipulations

Yuval Hart, Weizmann 2010

30

Strings as Char Arrays

Strings are represented

as Char array
Assigning a string:
a=I am a string

Lets try it:

s=I am a string

>> a = 'It is easy ';

>> b = 'to concatenate
strings!';
>> [a, b]
ans =
It is easy to concatenate
Char arrays can be
strings!
concatenated like numerical
arrays
s = I am a string

s(1:4)

ans = I am

[s([1:9,6,10]) '!']

I am a star!

s(end:-1:1)

ans = gnirts a ma I

31

Working with Strings Generating

Output
>> c = num2str(3.14157)
c = 3.1416
>> class(c)
ans = char
>> d = str2num(c)
d = 3.1416
>> class(d)
ans = double
>> ['pie value is: '
num2str(3.14157)]
ans = pie value is: 3.1416

Tip
num2str
str2num
Are very useful
for output
string
generation
32

Working with strings char matrices

>> str_mat = ['one '
'two '
'three']
str_mat =
one
two
three
>> class(str_mat)
ans = char
>> size(str_mat)
ans = 3
5

>> str_mat =
char('one','two','three')
str_mat =
one
two
Three
Concatenate
vertically!
Rows length must be
equal! (a square matrix)
33

Working with Strings String

Comparison
Compare the
strings
>> strcmp('abcd','abc')
ans =
0
>>
strncmp('abcd','abc',3)
ans =
1

Check also: strfind

Compare the first n

characters of the two
strings

34

Array Editor

Yuval Hart, Weizmann 2010

35

Array Editor and Array

Display

Display:

Omitting the ;
disp(hello world);
[Today we added num2str() ]
Example:
three=2;
[Oneplusoneis:'num2str(three)]

Array Editor:

From: work space, open selection

Displays variables
Edit variables value
Copy-paste from Excel (grades example)
36

Solving Linear System of

Equations

Yuval Hart, Weizmann 2010

37

Epilogue - Solving Linear Systems of

Equations

Say we want to solve the following system:

a11 x1 a12 x2 a13 x3 b1

Ax=b
a21 x1 a22 x2 a23 x3 b2
a x a x a x b
32 2
33 3
3
31 1
A=[1
1
1;1
2
3;1
3
6 ];
b = [3; 1; 4];
x = A\b;
Solution: x = 10
-12 5
More: search help solving linear equations
38

Epilogue - Solving Linear Systems of

Equations
Solve the following
problem:
1x+2y+3z = 366
4x+5y+6z= 804
7x+8y = 351
Answer:
A = [1 2 3
456
7 8 0];
b = [366; 804;
351];
x = A\b

Result:
x=
25.0000
22.0000
99.0000
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Summary

Introduce the Notion of Variables & Data Types.

Master Arrays manipulation

Learn Arrays Mathematical Operations

Learn Simple String Manipulations

Learn to Use Array Editor

Solving Linear System of Equations

40