MATLAB ® 7 Function Referen ce : Volume 1 (A-E) How to Contact The MathWorks www.mathworks.c om Web comp.soft-sys.matlab Newsgroup www.mathworks.com/contact_TS.html Technical Support suggest@mathworks.com Product enhancement suggestions bugs@mathworks.c om Bug reports doc@mathworks.com Documentation error reports service@mathworks.com Order status, license renewals, passcodes info@mathworks.c om Sales, pricing, an d general information 508-647-7000 (Phone) 508-647-7001 (Fax) The MathWorks, Inc. 3 Apple Hill Drive Natick, MA 01760-2098 For contact information about worldwide offices, see the MathWorks Web site. MATLAB Function Reference © COPYRIGHT 1984–2 007 by The MathWorks, Inc. The software described in this document is furnished under a license agreement. The software may be used or copied only under the terms of the license agreement. No pa rt of this manual may be photocopied or reproduced in any form without prior written conse nt from The MathWorks, Inc. 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Revision History December 1996 First printing For MATLAB 5.0 (Release 8) June 1997 Online only Revised for MATLAB 5.1 (Release 9) October 1997 Online only Revised for MATLAB 5.2 (Release 10) January 1999 Online only Revised for MATLAB 5.3 (Release 11) June 1999 S econd printing For MATLAB 5.3 (Release 11) June 2001 O nline only Revised for MATLAB 6.1 (Release 12.1) July 2002 Online only Revised for 6.5 (Release 13) June 2004 Online only Revised for 7.0 (Release 14) September 2006 Online only R evised for 7.3 (Release 2006b) September 2007 Online only R evised for 7.5 (Release 2007b) Contents Functions — By Category 1 Desktop Tools an d Development Environment 1-3 Startup and Shu tdown 1-3 Command Window and History 1-4 Help for Using MATLAB 1-5 Workspace, Se arch Path, and File Operations 1-6 Programming T ools 1-8 System 1-11 Mathematic s 1-13 Arrays and M atrices 1-14 Linear Alge bra 1-19 Elementary Math 1-23 Polynomia ls 1-28 Interpola tion and Computational Geometry 1-28 Cartesian Coordinate System Conversion 1-31 Nonlinea rNumericalMethods 1-31 Speciali zed Math 1-35 Sparse Ma trices 1-36 Math Con stants 1-39 Data Ana lysis 1-41 Basic O perations 1-41 Descri ptive Statistics 1-41 Filter ing and Convolution 1-42 Interp olation and Regression 1-42 Fouri er Transforms 1-43 Deriv atives and Integrals 1-43 Time S eries Objects 1-44 Time Series Collections 1-47 Prog ramming and Data Types 1-49 Data Types 1-49 Dat aTypeConversion 1-5 8 Ope rators and Special Characters 1-6 0 v String Functions 1-63 Bit-wise Functions 1-66 Logical Functions 1-66 Relational Functions 1-67 Set Functions 1-67 Date and Time Functions 1-68 Programming in MATLAB 1-68 File I/O 1-76 File Name Construction 1-76 Opening, Loading, Saving Files 1-77 Memory Mapping 1-77 Low-Level File I/O 1-77 Text Files 1-78 XML Documents 1-79 Spreadsheets 1-79 Scientific Data 1-80 Audio and Audio/Video 1-81 Images 1-83 Internet Exchange 1-84 Graphics 1-86 Basic Plots and Graphs 1-86 Plotting Tools 1-87 Annotating Plots 1-87 Specialized Plotting 1-88 Bit-Mapped Images 1-92 Printing 1-92 Handle Graphics 1-93 3-D Visualization 1-97 Surface and Mesh Plots 1-97 View Control 1-99 Lighting 1-101 Transparency 1-101 Volume Visualization 1-102 Creating Graphical User Interfaces 1-104 Predefined Dialog Boxes 1-104 Deploying User Interfaces 1-105 Developing User Interfaces 1-105 User Interface Objects 1-106 vi Contents Finding Objects from Callbacks 1-107 GUI Utility Functions 1-107 Controlling Program Execution 1-108 External Interfaces 1-109 Dynamic Link Libraries 1-109 Java 1-110 Component Object Model and ActiveX 1-111 Web Services 1-113 Serial Port Devices 1-113 Functions — Alphabetical List 2 Index vii viii Contents 1 Functions — By Category Desktop Tools and Development Environment (p. 1-3) Startup, Command Window, help, editing and debugging, tuning, other general functions Mathematics (p. 1-13) Arrays and matrices, linear algebra, other areas of mathem atics Data Analysis (p. 1-41) Basic data operations, descriptive statistics, covariance and correlation, filtering and convolution, numerical derivatives and inte gra ls, Fourier transforms, time s eries analysis Programming and Data Types (p. 1-4 9) Function/expression evaluation, program control, function handles, object oriented programming, error handling, operators, data types, dates and times, timers File I/O (p. 1-76) General and low-level file I /O, p lus specific file formats, like audio, spreadsheet, HD F, images Graphics (p. 1-86) Line plots, annotating graphs, specialized p lots, images, printing, Handle Graphics 3-D Visualization (p. 1-97) Surface and mesh plots, view control, lighting and transparency, volume visualization 1 Functions — By Category Creating Graphical User Interfaces (p. 1-104) GUIDE, programming g raphical user interfaces External Interfaces (p. 1-109) Interfaces to DLLs, Java, C OM and ActiveX, Web services, and serial port devices, and C and Fortran routines 1-2 [...]... (p 1-1 1) Identify current computer, license, product version, and more Startup and Shutdown exit Terminate MATLAB (same as quit) finish MATLAB termination M-file matlab (UNIX) Start MATLAB (UNIX systems) matlab (Windows) Start MATLAB (Windows systems) matlabrc MATLAB startup M-file for single-user systems or system administrators prefdir Directory containing preferences, history, and layout files preferences... browser or Help browser what List MATLAB files in current directory which Locate functions and files Programming Tools Edit and Debug M-Files (p 1-9 ) Improve Performance and Tune M-Files (p 1-9 ) Improve performance and find potential problems in M-files Source Control (p 1-1 0) Interface MATLAB with source control system Publishing (p 1-1 0) 1-8 Edit and debug M-files Publish M-file code and results Desktop... (p 1-3 ) Startup and shutdown options, preferences Command Window and History (p 1-4 ) Control Command Window and History, enter statements and run functions Help for Using MATLAB (p 1-5 ) Command line help, online documentation in the Help browser, demos Workspace, Search Path, and File Operations (p 1-6 ) Work with files, MATLAB search path, manage variables Programming Tools (p 1-8 ) Edit and debug M-files,... grabcode notebook Open M-book in Microsoft Word (Windows) publish 1-1 0 MATLAB code from M-files published to HTML Publish M-file containing cells, saving output to file of specified type Desktop Tools and Development Environment System Operating System Interface (p 1-1 1) Exchange operating system information and commands with MATLAB MATLAB Version and License (p 1-1 2) Information about MATLAB version and... single-user systems or system administrators prefdir Directory containing preferences, history, and layout files preferences Open Preferences dialog box for MATLAB and related products 1-3 1 Functions — By Category quit Terminate MATLAB startup MATLAB startup M-file for user-defined options Command Window and History clc commandhistory Open Command History window, or select it if already open commandwindow... demos helpwin Provide access to M-file help for all functions info Information about contacting The MathWorks lookfor Search for keyword in all help entries playshow Run M-file demo (deprecated; use echodemo instead) support Open MathWorks Technical Support Web page web Open Web site or file in Web browser or Help browser whatsnew Release Notes for MathWorks products 1-5 1 Functions — By Category Workspace,... operations Math Constants (p 1-3 9) Pi, imaginary unit, infinity, Not-a-Number, largest and smallest positive floating point numbers, floating point relative accuracy 1-1 3 1 Functions — By Category Arrays and Matrices Basic Information (p 1-1 4) Display array contents, get array information, determine array type Operators (p 1-1 5) Arithmetic operators Elementary Matrices and Arrays (p 1-1 6) Create elementary... Operators + Addition + Unary plus - Subtraction - Unary minus * Matrix multiplication ^ Matrix power \ Backslash or left matrix divide / Slash or right matrix divide ’ Transpose ’ Nonconjugated transpose * Array multiplication (element-wise) 1-1 5 1 Functions — By Category ^ Array power (element-wise) \ Left array divide (element-wise) / Right array divide (element-wise) Elementary Matrices and Arrays... Interpolation and Computational Geometry Interpolation (p 1-2 9) Delaunay Triangulation and Tessellation (p 1-3 0) Delaunay triangulation and tessellation, triangular surface and mesh plots Convex Hull (p 1-3 0) Plot convex hull, plotting functions Voronoi Diagrams (p 1-3 0) Plot Voronoi diagram, patch graphics object, plotting functions Domain Generation (p 1-3 1) 1-2 8 Data interpolation, data gridding, polynomial... supported in MATLAB ver Version information for MathWorks products verLessThan Compare toolbox version to specified version string version 1-1 2 Determine whether running Macintosh OS X versions of MATLAB Version number for MATLAB Mathematics Mathematics Arrays and Matrices (p 1-1 4) Basic array operators and operations, creation of elementary and specialized arrays and matrices Linear Algebra (p 1-1 9) Matrix . 1-6 3 Bit-wise Functions 1-6 6 Logical Functions 1-6 6 Relational Functions 1-6 7 Set Functions 1-6 7 Date and Time Functions 1-6 8 Programming in MATLAB 1-6 8 File I/O 1-7 6 File Name Construction 1-7 6 Opening,. 1-7 7 Memory Mapping 1-7 7 Low-Level File I/O 1-7 7 Text Files 1-7 8 XML Documents 1-7 9 Spreadsheets 1-7 9 Scientific Data 1-8 0 Audio and Audio/Video 1-8 1 Images 1-8 3 Internet Exchange 1-8 4 Graphics . 1-8 4 Graphics 1-8 6 Basic Plots and Graphs 1-8 6 Plotting Tools 1-8 7 Annotating Plots 1-8 7 Specialized Plotting 1-8 8 Bit-Mapped Images 1-9 2 Printing 1-9 2 Handle Graphics 1-9 3 3-D Visualization 1-9 7 Surface