MATLAB Commands

MATLAB is an interactive program for numerical computation and data visualization. You can enter commands by typing them into the MATLAB prompt '>>' in the command window.

In this section, we will provide a list of commonly used general MATLAB commands.

Session management commands

MATLAB provides various commands for managing sessions. The following table provides all such commands-

Command	Purpose
clc	Clear the command window.
clear	Delete variables from memory.
exist	Check for the existence of files or variables.
global	Declare variables as global variables.
help	Search for help topics.
lookfor	Search for keywords in the help entries.
quit	Stop MATLAB.
who	List current variables.
whos	List current variables (long display).

System commands

MATLAB provides various useful commands to handle the system, such as saving the current workspace as a file and loading the file later.

It also provides various commands for other system-related activities, such as displaying the date, listing files in the directory, and displaying the current directory, etc.

The following table displays some commonly used system-related commands-

Command	Purpose
cd	Change the current directory.
date	Display the current date.
delete	Delete files.
diary	Enable/Stop recording diary file.
dir	List all files in the current directory.
load	Load workspace variables from a file.
path	Display the search path.
pwd	Display the current directory.
save	Save workspace variables to a file.
type	Display the content of the file.
what	List all MATLAB files in the current directory.
wklread	Read .wk1Spreadsheet files.

Input and output commands

MATLAB provides the following commands related to input and output-

Command	Purpose
disp	Display the content of an array or string.
fscanf	Read formatted data from a file.
format	Control the display format of the screen.
fprintf	Execute formatted writing to the screen or file.
input	Display a prompt and wait for input.
;	Prohibit screen printing.

fscanfandfprintfThe behavior of the command is like the C scanf and printf functions. They support the following format codes-

Format code	Purpose
%s	Format as a string.
%d	Format as an integer.
%f	Format as a floating-point value.
%e	Format as a floating-point value in scientific notation.
%g	Format in the most compact format: %f or %e.
\n	Insert a new line in the output string.
\t	Insert a tab in the output string.

The format function has the following form for displaying numbers-

Format function	Maximum display
format short	Four decimal places (default).
format long	16Number of decimal places.
format short e	Five digits plus exponent.
format long e	16Number of digits plus exponent.
format bank	Two decimal places. Fixed-point currency format
format +	Positive number, negative number, or zero.
format rat	Rational approximation. Decimal fraction representation
format compact	Prohibit certain line breaks.
format loose	Reset to a less compact display mode.

Vector, matrix, and array commands

The following table shows various commands used for processing arrays, matrices, and vectors-

Command	Purpose
cat	Concatenate arrays.
find	Find the index of non-zero elements.
length	Calculate the number of elements.
linspace	Create a vector with regular spacing.
logspace	Create a vector with logarithmic spacing.
max	Return the largest element.
min	Return the smallest element.
prod	Product of each column.
reshape	Change size.
size	Calculate the size of an array.
sort	Sort each column.
sum	Sum each column.
eye	Create a unit matrix.
ones	Create an array.
zeros	Create a zero array.
cross	Calculate the cross product of a matrix.
dot	Calculate the dot product of a matrix.
det	Calculate the determinant of an array.
inv	Calculate the inverse of a matrix.
pinv	Calculate the pseudoinverse of a matrix.
rank	Calculate the rank of a matrix.
rref	Calculate the reduced row echelon form of a matrix.
num	Create a cell array.
celldisp	Display the cell array.
cellplot	Display the graphical representation of a cell array.
num2num	cell
Convert a numeric array to a cell array.	deal
Match input and output lists.	Identify cell array.

Plotting Commands

MATLAB provides many commands for plotting graphics. The following table shows some commonly used plotting commands-

Command	Purpose
axis	Set axis limits.
fplot	Intelligent plotting of functions.
grid	Show grid lines.
plot	Generate an xy plot.
print	Print the graph or save it to a file.
title	Place text at the top of the graph.
xlabel	Add text labels to the x-axis.
ylabel	Add text labels to the y-axis.
axes	Create an axis object.
close	Close the current graph.
close all	Close all plots.
figure	Open a new graph window.
gtext	Enable label placement with the mouse.
hold	Freeze the current graph.
legend	Place the legend with the mouse.
refresh	Redraw the current graph window.
set	Specify the properties of an object (e.g., axis).
subplot	Create a plot in a subwindow.
text	Place a string in the graph.
bar	Create a bar plot.
loglog	Create a logarithmic plot.-Logarithmic plot.
polar	Create a polar plot.
semilogx	Create a semi-log plot. (Logarithmic X-axis).
semilogy	Create a semi-log plot. (Logarithmic Y-axis).
stairs	Create a staircase plot.
stem	Create a stem plot.

MATLAB M-Files MATLAB Variables