.. include:: ../replace.txt

.. _matlab:

****************************************
MATLAB Programming
****************************************

Download this MathWorks provided quick reference on |M|: 
:download:`matlab-basic-functions-reference.pdf`

|M| (MATrix LABoratory) is a data analysis, prototyping, and
visualization tool with built-in support for matrices and matrix operations,
excellent graphics capabilities, and a high-level programming language and
development environment.  |M| has become very popular with engineers,
scientists, and researchers in both industry and academia. 
Three features of |M| make it stand out:

#. Matrix and vector support

#. Data visualization tools

#. Huge library of functions covering nearly every area of math, science, and
   engineering.

|M| has extensive built-in documentation. It contains descriptions of
the main functions, sample code, relevant demos, and general help
pages.  |M| documentation can be accessed in a number of different ways --
command-line text-only help, a graphical documentation browser, and
web pages.

|M| code that users write is interpreted, rather than compiled, so it is not
necessary to declare and allocate variables in memory prior to using them.
Although |M| programs are interpreted, |M| has
features that make it still execute fairly fast.

#.  When the code is vectorized (explained later), instead of using loops,
    the performance is better than expected for interpreted programs.  

#. |M| has an extensive library of functions to do most of the 
   work in your program. When |M| functions are run, then the computer
   is executing highly optimized compiled code.

.. note::

    This chapter covers the basics of |M| programming.
    The intent is to start at the very beginning to get students started
    programming some simple programs. However, we do NOT wish to dwell on
    introductory material for very long. We will only cover the basics
    here. More features of |M| will be discussed and demonstrated by examples
    in following material.

.. only:: html

    Beginning with the :ref:`variables` section through the end of the
    chapter, the material here tracks the first five chapters and
    chapter seven of the free
    book, *Physical Modeling in MATLAB*, by Allen B. Downey [DOWNEY11]_.
    Chapter 6 and parts of the remaining chapters are covered under the
    :ref:`numeric` chapter of the study guide.
    Please download the PDF file of the book from the author's web page. Dr.
    Downey was kind enough to share his work under a Creative Commons License,
    which allows us to use the material.

    As is noted in the Preface of the book, his approach is slightly different
    than that taken by most books. Since |M| works so well with vectors and
    matrices, most books start using matrices right from the beginning to show
    off |M|'s capability.  However, that is not the best starting point for
    students with limited prior knowledge of both programming and numerical
    computation.  So *Physical Modeling in MATLAB* only uses scalar variables
    in first few chapters. Vectors are introduced later in the book. We will
    jump into vectors and matrices with both feet when we get to the
    :ref:`linAlg` chapter of the study guide.

.. topic:: Resources For Beginners

   `MathWorks MATLAB product page
   <https://www.mathworks.com/products/matlab.html>`_

   `MATLAB Onramp <https://matlabacademy.mathworks.com/>`_ free
   training from MathWorks.

   `MATLAB for New Users 
   <https://www.mathworks.com/videos/matlab-for-new-users-1487714181074.html>`_
   video is sort of a teaser video of some cool things that users can do fairly
   soon after starting to use |M|. We will get to some of the cool things
   in the video later in the course. Don't worry, we'll start with some
   simpler things first.


.. only:: html

    **Contents:**

.. toctree::
   :maxdepth: 2

   environment
   variables
   scripts
   io
   loops
   constructs
   vectors
   functions
   vectorizing
   import
   strings

.. raw:: latex

    \clearpage