Basic operations in

Matlab

Lecture notes, based on “Introduction to MATLAB

for Engineers”, William Palm, 3rd edition, and other
textbooks & resources

EE 201
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 Input/output commands
Command Description
disp(A) Displays the contents, but not the name of
the array A.
disp(’text’) Displays the text string enclosed within
quotes.
x = input(’text’) Displays the text in quotes, waits for user
input from the keyboard, and stores the
value in x.
x =input(’text’,’s’) Displays the text in quotes, waits for user
input from the keyboard, and stores the
input as a string in x.
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 Example

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 Example

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Example:
 Write a statement to accomplish each of the
following:
a) Print the message ‘This is MATLAB program’ on the
MATLAB command window
b) If the variable number is not equal to 7.Print the
message ‘The variable number is not equal to 7’ on
the MATLAB command window
c) Prompt the user to enter the value from keyboard
and store it in the variable x on the MATLAB
command window
d) Print ‘The product is: ’ followed by the value of the
variable result on the MATLAB command window
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Solution

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Solution

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Solution

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Solution

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 Command Description
mod( a, b) Returns the remainder after
division of a by b

Examples:

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 Script files

 You can perform operations in MATLAB in two

ways:
1. In the interactive mode (similar to using a
calculator), in which all commands are entered
directly in the Command window, or
2. By running a MATLAB program stored in script
file. This type of file contains MATLAB
commands, so running it is equivalent to typing
all the commands - one at a time - at the
Command window prompt.

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 Script files

 A script files contain a sequence of MATLAB

commands, and is useful when you need to use
many commands or arrays with many elements.

 Script files in MATLAB allows you to write your own

programs and save in M-files, which have the
extension .m,

for example, name of file.m (T_out.m)

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 Creating M-file
 From the File menu →select New →Script

 Then will see a new edit window called editor window as show
in figure

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 Keep in mind when using script files:

 The name of a script file MUST begin with a

letter, and may include digits and the
underscore character, up to 31 characters.

 Do not give a script file the same name as a

variable.

 Do not give a script file the same name as a

MATLAB command or function. You can check to
see if a command, function or file name already
exists by using the exist command.
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 COMMENTS

The comment symbol (%) may be put anywhere

in the line. MATLAB ignores everything to the
right of the % symbol. For example :

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 Programming Style

 1.Comments section %
a. The name of the program and any key words in the
first line.
b. The date created, the student‘s names and ID
number in the second line.
c. The definitions of the variable names for every input
and output variable. Include definitions of variables
used in the calculations and units of measurement
for all input and all output variables!
d. The name of every user-defined function
called by the program.

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 Programming Style

 2. Input section :
Include input data and/or the input functions
and comments for documentation.

 3. Calculation section

 4.Output section
This section might contain functions for
displaying the output on the screen.
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Examples of a Script File
 Write a MATALB program that inputs three integers
from the keyboard and prints the sum,average,and
product of these numbers. The screen dialogue
should appear as follows:
The first integer is : 13
The second integer is :27
The third integer is :14
Sum is: 54
Average is:18
Product is :4914
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 Another way to display the output

disp(['sum is:',num2str(sum)])
disp(['Average is:',num2str(average)])
disp(['Product is:',num2str(product)])

OR
String Formatting
fprintf(‘sum is: %d, Average is:%f, Product is:%d apples\n’, sum, average,
product)
Two main functions exist for formatting text:
1. sprintf: Formats the text and returns it to be stored in a variable
2. fprintf: Formats the text and prints it to the user (Can be also used to print
to a file)
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String Formatting

The function takes a format as the first argument to the function, then you add
as many arguments as you included in the format in the same order.

fprintf(‘format’, arg1, arg2…)

Note! Unlike disp, fprintf does not print a new line character after your text.
You have to add it explicitly using the new line character \n .

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String Formatting (Format)

The format used for fprintf or sprintf is very powerful and can be as
complicated or as simple as you want it to be. For the purposes of this course,
we will keep it simple.

- There are 3 format specifiers (or placeholders) that you must know

d: for signed whole numbers (135, -120, 0…etc.)

f: for fixed-point notation or numbers with fractions (0.1, 892.123, -123.0

…etc.)

s: for text as string arrays or character arrays (“Hello”, ‘Khalid’…etc.)

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Format example

name=‘Omar’
balance=41.23
apples=5

fprintf(‘Hello %s, your balance is %f, you can buy %d apples\n’, name, balance,
apples)

This will output:

Hello Omar, your balance is 41.23, you can buy 5 apples

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 You can execute a script file by :

-Go to Debug menu →Run

or

-Press F5

or

-Typing the name of script file without the extension

.m

at the command window

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Example of script file
 Write a MATLAB program that
compute the volume of sphere with a
radius 3 cm.

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Example of script file
 Write a MATLAB program that
prompts the user to enter a radius
(cm) of sphere to compute the
volume of sphere.

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