Programming Tools for Mathematics
Arrays in MATLAB
Day 2
Array
● Arrays are the fundamental data objects in MATLAB®, acting as the core structure
for storing and manipulating data.
● In MATLAB, all variables are multidimensional arrays (numeric, character, or
logical), regardless of their type.
● A 1D array is a vector, and a 2D array is a matrix.
One-Dimensional Arrays (Vectors)
● In MATLAB, a one-dimensional array is called a vector. Vectors are the basic
building blocks for mathematical computation.
A = [2 4 6 8 10]; %Row vector
B = [1; 3; 5; 7; 9]; %Column vector
C = 1:6;
D = 0:0.25:1;
Two-Dimensional Arrays (Matrices)
● A two-dimensional array is known as a matrix.
M = [1 2 3; 4 5 6; 7 8 9];
size(M) %dimension of matrix(m,n)
length(M)%max{m,n}
Array Addressing (Indexing)
● MATLAB follows 1-based indexing, unlike many other programming languages.
A = [10 20 30 40 50];
A(4) %Indexing vector
M = [1 2 3; 4 5 6; 7 8 9];
M(2,3) %Indexing Matrices
M(1,:) % First row Extraction
M(:,2) % Second column Extraction
M(2:3,1:2)%SubmatrixExtraction a21, a22, a31, a32
Common Array Functions
%Vector based Functions
A = [5 12 7 9 3];
max(A)
min(A)
sum(A)
mean(A)
std(A)
%Matrix based Functions
M = [2 1; 4 3];
det(M) %determinant
trace(M) %trace
rank(M) %ramk
eig(M) %eigenvalue
[U,R]=eig(M] %both eigenvalues & eigenvectors
Sorting Arrays
%Sorting Vectors
A = [9 2 7 1 5];
sort(A)
sort(A,'descend')
%Sorting Matrices Column-wise
M = [3 8 1; 6 2 9];
sort(M)
Cell Arrays
Cell arrays can store heterogeneous data such as numbers, vectors, matrices, and strings.
C = {25, 'MATLAB', [1 3 5 7]};
%Displaying Cell Contents
C{2}
C(2)
%Accessing Elements Inside Cells
C{3}(4) %4th element of cell 3
Arithmetic Operations with Arrays
%Element-wise Operations
A = [2 4 6];
B = [1 3 5];
A + B
A .* B
A .^ 2
%Matrix Operations
M1 = [1 2; 3 4];
M2 = [2 0; 1 2];
M1 * M2 %Matrix Multiplication
Rectangular Character Arrays
A rectangular character array (also called a character matrix) is a 2‑D array of characters
where each row must have the same number of characters.
MATLAB stores characters internally as arrays, just like numbers.
S = ['Math'; 'Code'];
S(2,:)
Explanation:
● 'Math' has 4 characters
● 'Code' has 4 characters
● Hence, a valid rectangular character array
S = ['Cat'; 'Elephant'];
❌ This will cause an error because the number of characters is not equal.
S = ['Cat '; 'Elephant']; %extra spaces in Cat
Rectangular Character Arrays
% Accessing Characters and Rows
S(1,:) % First row
S(:,2) % Second column (characters)
S(2,1:3) % First three characters of second row
size(S)
length(S)
Combining Strings into a Cell Array
Rectangular character arrays are restrictive because all strings must have equal length. To
overcome this limitation, MATLAB uses cell arrays of strings.
Each cell can store a string of any length.
%Creating a Cell Array of Strings
names = {'Ram', 'Sita', 'Lakshman', 'Arjun'}
%Accessing Cell Array Elements
names(2)
Names{2}
( ) returns a cell
{ } returns the string inside the cell
Combining Strings into a Cell Array
%Using Strings from Cell Arrays
length(names{3})
%Cell Arrays with Mixed Data
student = {101, 'Amit', 87.5};
student{2}
String Functions in MATLAB
MATLAB supports two string representations:
Character arrays (single quotes ' ')
String data type (double quotes " ")
%Character Array Functions
str = 'Programming in MATLAB';
length(str)
upper(str) %String in upper case
lower(str) %String in lower case
%String Comparison
strcmp('Math','Math')
strcmp('Math','math')
strcmpi('Math','math')
String Functions in MATLAB
%String Concatenation
s1 = 'Linear';
s2 = 'Algebra';
[s1 ' ' s2]
%String Data Type (Modern MATLAB, i.e., R2016b onwards)
% In the context of strings, it mainly refers to using
the string data type (" ") instead of traditional
character arrays (' ').
s = "MATLAB Programming";
strlength(s)