Introduction

MATLAB provides a powerful interactive computing environment for numeric computation, visualization, and data analysis. Its wide range of commands, functions, and language constructs permit users to solve and analyze difficult computational problems from science and engineering without programming in a general purpose language.

This document is not intended to be a complete manual for MATLAB users. Instead, it provides a brief introduction to MATLAB, outlining features that might be of particular use to CPSC 302 and 303 students. Additional sources of MATLAB documentation and examples to be used in conjunction with this guide include:

On-Line Help:

MATLAB provides access to extensive on-line documentation with the commands help and lookfor. To learn more about these commands enter help help <rtn> and help lookfor <rtn> at the MATLAB prompt. (Section 2 describes how to initiate a MATLAB session.) You will find help an valuable supplement to the information in this guide. Initially, probably the most useful help pages are help lang and help debug, whie explain language constructs and debugging.

The MATLAB Help Desk, which includes a complete set of manuals for MATLAB 5 in PDF format, is available on the web at
file://localhost/cs/local/generic/lib/pkg/matlab-5.2/help/helpdesk.html
Please note that this URL can only be accessed by browsers running on a undergrad server.

MATLAB Manuals:

Two sets of MATLAB 4 manuals are available for reference use in the CICSR/CS reading room (CICSR/CS 262). Please note that these manuals may NOT be taken out of the reading room. In addition, a third set of MATLAB manuals is on course reserve in the Sedgewick library.

MATLAB Demos:

Enter demo <rtn> at the MATLAB prompt and then use your mouse to select and interact with the different demonstration slide shows. Demonstrations are available for most of MATLAB's wide ranging features. To start, I suggest checking out the demonstrations on Matrices, Numerics and Visualization. If you have the opportunity to use color X-terminal many demonstrations are especially interesting.

In addition, you can also enter intro <rtn> at the MATLAB prompt for a basic tour of MATLAB lasting a few minutes.

MATLAB FAQ:

The URL of MATLAB's FAQ (most frequently asked questions) for MATLAB 5 is http://www.mathworks.com/support/faq/. This extensive FAQ contains some interesting notes, but you may have to sift through answers to questions of little interest to you at the moment. More advanced MATLAB users, however, may find some of the information very helpful.

I have also provided an unofficial MATLAB FAQ in the text file /ugrad0/cs303/lib/FAQ.

MATLAB Primer:

The second edition of the MATLAB Primer by Kermit Sigmon (University of Florida) is available in the file /ugrad0/cs303/lib/primer35.ps. You can browse through this document with any postscript previewer, for example ghostview. Sigmon's primer is similar in nature to this guide, but provides a more detailed discussion and additional examples of MATLAB features.

Each 302 assignment will require some use of MATLAB. The extent to which you use MATLAB beyond these requirements is up to you, but you are strongly advised to use it for all programming assignments in the course. One warning, however. You may discover built-in numerical functions that you think implement a portion of one or more of your assignments. You may not use these function unless I approve them. (Of course, you could always verify your solution if you discover an appropriate MATLAB function.) Please check with me well before assignment due dates if you need this rule clarified for special MATLAB functions.

We have approximately 25 or 30 MATLAB licenses available to users in our undergraduate labs. Please respect the needs of other users and exit from MATLAB rather than leaving it idle for extended periods of time. To save the current state of a MATLAB session and initialize a subsequent MATLAB session with the same variables, use the commands save and load.

While reading the remainder of this document you are strongly encouraged to go to an undergraduate lab and experiment with the different features described. Be sure to explore some of the MATLAB demos too!