| MATLAB Function Reference | Search Help Desk |
General Purpose Commands
Managing Commands and Functions
addpath doc Display HTML documentation in Web browser
docopt Display location of help file directory for UNIX platforms
help Online help for MATLAB functions and M-files
helpdesk Display Help Desk page in Web browser, giving access to extensive help
helpwin Display Help Window, providing access to help for all commands
lasterr Last error message
lastwarn Last warning message
lookfor Keyword search through all help entries
partialpath Partial pathname
path Control MATLAB's directory search path
pathtool Start Path Browser, a GUI for viewing and modifying MATLAB's path
profile Start the M-file profiler, a utility for debugging and optimizing code
profreport Generate a profile report
rmpath Remove directories from MATLAB's search path
type List file
ver Display version information for MATLAB, Simulink, and toolboxes
version MATLAB version number
web Point Web browser at file or Web site
what Directory listing of M-files, MAT-files, and MEX-files
whatsnew Display README files for MATLAB and toolboxes
which Locate functions and files
Managing Variables and the Workspace
clear Remove items from memory
disp Display text or array
length Length of vector
load Retrieve variables from disk
mlock Prevent M-file clearing
munlock openvar Open workspace variable in Array Editor, for graphical editing
pack Consolidate workspace memory
save Save workspace variables on disk
saveas Save figure or model using specified format
size Array dimensions
who, whos List directory of variables in memory
workspace Display the Workspace Browser, a GUI for managing the workspace
Controlling the Command Window
clc Clear command window
echo Echo M-files during execution
format Control the output display format
home Send the cursor home
more Control paged output for the command window
Working with Files and the Operating Environment
cd Change working directory
copyfile Copy file
delete Delete files and graphics objects
diary Save session in a disk file
dir Directory listing
edit fileparts fullfile Build full filename from parts
inmem Functions in memory
ls List directory on UNIX
matlabroot Root directory of MATLAB installation
mkdir Make directory
open Open files based on extension
pwd Display current directory
tempdir Return the name of the system's temporary directory
tempname Unique name for temporary file
! Execute operating system command
Starting and Quitting MATLAB
matlabrc MATLAB startup M-file
quit Terminate MATLAB
startup MATLAB startup M-file
Operators and Special Characters
+ Plus
- Minus
* Matrix multiplication
.* Array multiplication
^ Matrix power
.^ Array power
kron \ Backslash or left division
/ Slash or right division
./ and .\ Array division, right and left
: Colon
( ) Parentheses
[ ] Brackets
{} Curly braces
. Decimal point
... Continuation
, Comma
; Semicolon
% Comment
! Exclamation point
' Transpose and quote
.' Nonconjugated transpose
= Assignment
== Equality
< > Relational operators
& Logical and
| Logical or
~ Logical not
xor Logical exclusive or
Logical Functions
all any exist find is* Detect state
isa Detect an object of a given class
logical Convert numeric values to logical
mislocked Language Constructs and Debugging
MATLAB as a Programming Language
builtin eval Interpret strings containing MATLAB expressions
evalc Evaluate MATLAB expression with capture
evalin feval Function evaluation
function Function M-files
global Define global variables
nargchk Check number of input arguments
persistent Define persistent variable
script Control Flow
break for loop or while loop
case catch Begin catch block
else elseif end for, while, switch, try, and if statements or indicate last
index
error for Repeat statements a specific number of times
if Conditionally execute statements
otherwise switch statement
return Return to the invoking function
switch try Begin try block
warning Display warning message
while Repeat statements an indefinite number of times
Interactive Input
input keyboard menu pause Halt execution temporarily
Object-Oriented Programming
class Create object or return class of object
double inferiorto Inferior class relationship
inline Construct an inline object
int8, int16,
int32 Convert to signed integer
isa loadobj Extends the load function for user objects
saveobj Save filter for objects
single Convert to single precision
superiorto Superior class relationship
uint8, uint16,
uint32 Convert to unsigned integer
Debugging
dbclear Clear breakpoints
dbcont Resume execution
dbdown Change local workspace context
dbmex Enable MEX-file debugging
dbquit Quit debug mode
dbstack Display function call stack
dbstatus List all breakpoints
dbstep Execute one or more lines from a breakpoint
dbstop Set breakpoints in an M-file function
dbtype List M-file with line numbers
dbup Change local workspace context
Elementary Matrices and Matrix Manipulation
Elementary Matrices and Arrays
blkdiag Construct a block diagonal matrix from input arguments
eye linspace logspace ones Create an array of all ones
rand Uniformly distributed random numbers and arrays
randn Normally distributed random numbers and arrays
zeros Create an array of all zeros
: (colon) Regularly spaced vector
Special Variables and Constants
ans computer eps flops i Inf inputname Input argument name
j NaN nargin,
nargout Number of function arguments
pi Ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter,
realmax realmin varargin,
varargout Pass or return variable numbers of arguments
Time and Dates
calendar clock cputime date Current date string
datenum datestr Date string format
datevec Date components
eomday End of month
etime now Current date and time
tic, toc weekday Day of the week
Matrix Manipulation
cat diag fliplr flipud Flip matrices up-down
repmat Replicate and tile an array
reshape Reshape array
rot90 Rotate matrix 90 degrees
tril Lower triangular part of a matrix
triu Upper triangular part of a matrix
: (colon) Index into array, rearrange array
Specialized Matrices
compan gallery Test matrices
hadamard hankel hilb invhilb magic pascal toeplitz Toeplitz matrix
wilkinson Wilkinson's eigenvalue test matrix
Elementary Math Functions
abs acos, acosh acot, acoth acsc, acsch angle asec, asech asin, asinh atan, atanh atan2 ceil complex Construct complex data from real and imaginary components
conj cos, cosh cot, coth csc, csch exp fix floor gcd imag lcm log log2 Base 2 logarithm and dissect floating-point numbers into exponent and
mantissa
log10 mod Modulus (signed remainder after division)
nchoosek Binomial coefficient or all combinations
real rem round sec, sech sign sin, sinh sqrt tan, tanh Specialized Math Functions
airy Airy functions
besselh Bessel functions of the third kind (Hankel functions)
besseli, besselk
besselj, bessely
beta, betainc, betaln
ellipj ellipke erf, erfc, erfcx, erfinv expint factorial Factorial function
gamma, gammainc, gammaln legendre Associated Legendre functions
pow2 Base 2 power and scale floating-point numbers
rat, rats Rational fraction approximation
Coordinate System Conversion
cart2pol cart2sph Transform Cartesian coordinates to spherical
pol2cart sph2cart Transform spherical coordinates to Cartesian
Matrix Functions - Numerical Linear Algebra
Matrix Analysis
cond condeig Condition number with respect to eigenvalues
det norm null orth rank rcond Matrix reciprocal condition number estimate
rref, rrefmovie
subspace trace Sum of diagonal elements
Linear Equations
chol Cholesky factorization
inv Matrix inverse
lscov Least squares solution in the presence of known covariance
lu LU matrix factorization
nnls Nonnegative least squares
pinv Moore-Penrose pseudoinverse of a matrix
qr Orthogonal-triangular decomposition
Eigenvalues and Singular Values
balance Improve accuracy of computed eigenvalues
cdf2rdf Convert complex diagonal form to real block diagonal form
eig Eigenvalues and eigenvectors
gsvd hess Hessenberg form of a matrix
poly Polynomial with specified roots
qz QZ factorization for generalized eigenvalues
rsf2csf Convert real Schur form to complex Schur form
schur Schur decomposition
svd Singular value decomposition
Matrix Functions
expm Matrix exponential
funm Evaluate functions of a matrix
logm Matrix logarithm7
sqrtm Matrix square root
Low Level Functions
qrdelete Delete column from QR factorization
qrinsert Insert column in QR factorization
Data Analysis and Fourier Transform Functions
Basic Operations
convhull Convex hull
cumprod Cumulative product
cumsum Cumulative sum
cumtrapz Cumulative trapezoidal numerical integration
delaunay Delaunay triangulation
dsearch Search for nearest point
factor inpolygon Detect points inside a polygonal region
max Maximum elements of an array
mean Average or mean value of arrays
median Median value of arrays
min Minimum elements of an array
perms All possible permutations
polyarea Area of polygon
primes prod Product of array elements
sort Sort elements in ascending order
sortrows std Standard deviation
sum Sum of array elements
trapz Trapezoidal numerical integration
tsearch Search for enclosing Delaunay triangle
var Variance
voronoi Voronoi diagram
Finite Differences
del2 Discrete Laplacian
diff Differences and approximate derivatives
gradient Numerical gradient
Correlation
corrcoef Correlation coefficients
cov Covariance matrix
Filtering and Convolution
conv Convolution and polynomial multiplication
conv2 Two-dimensional convolution
deconv Deconvolution and polynomial division
filter Filter data with an infinite impulse response (IIR) or finite impulse response
(FIR) filter
filter2 Two-dimensional digital filtering
Fourier Transforms
abs angle Phase angle
cplxpair fft fft2 fftshift ifft ifft2 Inverse two-dimensional fast Fourier transform
ifftn Inverse multidimensional fast Fourier transform
ifftshift Inverse FFT shift
nextpow2 Next power of two
unwrap Correct phase angles
Vector Functions
cross intersect ismember Detect members of a set
setdiff Return the set difference of two vector
setxor Set exclusive or of two vectors
union Set union of two vectors
unique Unique elements of a vector
Polynomial and Interpolation Functions
Polynomials
conv Convolution and polynomial multiplication
deconv Deconvolution and polynomial division
poly Polynomial with specified roots
polyder Polynomial derivative
polyeig Polynomial eigenvalue problem
polyfit Polynomial curve fitting
polyval Polynomial evaluation
polyvalm Matrix polynomial evaluation
residue Convert between partial fraction expansion and polynomial coefficients
roots Polynomial roots
Data Interpolation
griddata Data gridding
interp1 One-dimensional data interpolation (table lookup)
interp2 Two-dimensional data interpolation (table lookup)
interp3 interpft One-dimensional interpolation using the FFT method
interpn Multidimensional data interpolation (table lookup)
meshgrid Generate X and Y matrices for three-dimensional plots
ndgrid spline Cubic spline interpolation
Function Functions - Nonlinear Numerical Methods
dblquad fmin fmins fzero ode45, ode23,
ode113,
ode15s,
ode23s,
ode23t,
ode23tb Solve differential equations
odefile Define a differential equation problem for ODE solvers
odeget odeset
odeset quad, quad8 vectorize Vectorize expression
Sparse Matrix Functions
Elementary Sparse Matrices
spdiags speye Sparse identity matrix
sprand Sparse uniformly distributed random matrix
sprandn Sparse normally distributed random matrix
sprandsym Sparse symmetric random matrix
Full to Sparse Conversion
find Find indices and values of nonzero elements
full Convert sparse matrix to full matrix
sparse Create sparse matrix
spconvert Import matrix from sparse matrix external format
Working with Nonzero Entries of Sparse Matrices
nnz Number of nonzero matrix elements
nonzeros Nonzero matrix elements
nzmax Amount of storage allocated for nonzero matrix elements
spalloc Allocate space for sparse matrix
spfun Apply function to nonzero sparse matrix elements
spones Replace nonzero sparse matrix elements with ones
Visualizing Sparse Matrices
spy Visualize sparsity pattern
Reordering Algorithms
colmmd Sparse column minimum degree permutation
colperm Sparse column permutation based on nonzero count
dmperm Dulmage-Mendelsohn decomposition
randperm symmmd Sparse symmetric minimum degree ordering
symrcm Sparse reverse Cuthill-McKee ordering
Norm, Condition Number, and Rank
condest 1-norm matrix condition number estimate
normest 2-norm estimate
Sparse Systems of Linear Equations
bicg bicgstab BiConjugate Gradients Stabilized method
cgs Conjugate Gradients Squared method
cholinc Sparse Incomplete Cholesky and Cholesky-Infinity factorizations
cholupdate gmres Generalized Minimum Residual method (with restarts)
luinc Incomplete LU matrix factorizations
pcg Preconditioned Conjugate Gradients method
qmr Quasi-Minimal Residual method
qr Orthogonal-triangular decomposition
qrdelete Delete column from QR factorization
qrinsert Insert column in QR factorization
qrupdate Rank 1 update to QR factorization
Sparse Eigenvalues and Singular Values
eigs Find eigenvalues and eigenvectors
svds Find singular values
Miscellaneous
spparms Set parameters for sparse matrix routines
Sound Processing Functions
General Sound Functions
lin2mu Convert linear audio signal to mu-law
mu2lin Convert mu-law audio signal to linear
sound soundsc Scale data and play as sound
SPARCstation-Specific Sound Functions
auread auwrite .WAV Sound Functions
wavread Read Microsoft WAVE (.wav) sound file
wavwrite Write Microsoft WAVE (.wav) sound file
Character String Functions
General
abs Absolute value and complex magnitude
eval Interpret strings containing MATLAB expressions
real strings MATLAB string handling
String Manipulation
deblank Strip trailing blanks from the end of a string
findstr Find one string within another
lower strcat String concatenation
strcmp strcmpi Compare strings ignoring case
strjust Justify a character array
strmatch Find possible matches for a string
strncmp Compare the first n characters of two strings
strrep String search and replace
strtok First token in string
strvcat Vertical concatenation of strings
symvar Determine symbolic variables in an expression
texlabel Produce the TeX format from a character string
upper String to Number Conversion
char Create character array (string)
int2str mat2str Convert a matrix into a string
num2str sprintf sscanf str2double str2num String to number conversion
Radix Conversion
bin2dec dec2bin dec2hex Decimal to hexadecimal number conversion
hex2dec IEEE hexadecimal to decimal number conversion
hex2num Hexadecimal to double number conversion
Low-Level File I/O Functions
File Opening and Closing
fclose fopen Unformatted I/O
fread fwrite Formatted I/O
fgetl fgets fprintf fscanf File Positioning
feof ferror Query MATLAB about errors in file input or output
frewind fseek ftell String Conversion
sprintf sscanf Specialized File I/O
dlmread Read an ASCII delimited file into a matrix
dlmwrite Write a matrix to an ASCII delimited file
hdf HDF interface
imfinfo Return information about a graphics file
imread Read image from graphics file
imwrite Write an image to a graphics file
textread Read formatted data from text file
wk1read wk1write Bitwise Functions
bitand bitcmp bitor bitmax Maximum floating-point integer
bitset bitshift Bit-wise shift
bitget Get bit
bitxor Bit-wise XOR
Structure Functions
fieldnames getfield rmfield setfield Set field of structure array
struct Create structure array
struct2cell Structure to cell array conversion
Object Functions
class Create object or return class of object
isa Detect an object of a given class
Cell Array Functions
cell cellfun Apply a function to each element in a cell array
cellstr Create cell array of strings from character array
cell2struct Cell array to structure array conversion
celldisp Display cell array contents
cellplot Graphically display the structure of cell arrays
num2cell Convert a numeric array into a cell array
Multidimensional Array Functions
cat flipdim Flip array along a specified dimension
ind2sub Subscripts from linear index
ipermute Inverse permute the dimensions of a multidimensional array
ndgrid
ndims Number of array dimensions
permute Rearrange the dimensions of a multidimensional array
reshape shiftdim squeeze Remove singleton dimensions
sub2ind Single index from subscripts
Graphical Visualization
Basic Plots and Graphs
bar Vertical bar chart
barh Horizontal bar chart
hist Plot histograms
hold Hold current graph
loglog Plot using log-log scales
pie Pie plot
plot Plot vectors or matrices.
polar Polar coordinate plot
semilogx Semi-log scale plot
semilogy Semi-log scale plot
subplot Create axes in tiled positions
Three-Dimensional Plotting
bar3 Vertical 3-D bar chart
bar3h Horizontal 3-D bar chart
comet3 3-D comet plot
cylinder Generate cylinder
fill3 Draw filled 3-D polygons in 3-space
plot3 Plot lines and points in 3-D space
quiver3 3-D quiver (or velocity) plot
slice Volumetric slice plot
sphere Generate sphere
stem3 Plot discrete surface data
waterfall Waterfall plot
Plot Annotation and Grids
clabel Add contour labels to a contour plot
datetick Date formatted tick labels
grid Grid lines for 2-D and 3-D plots
gtext Place text on a 2-D graph using a mouse
legend Graph legend for lines and patches
plotyy Plot graphs with Y tick labels on the left and right
title Titles for 2-D and 3-D plots
xlabel X-axis labels for 2-D and 3-D plots
ylabel Y-axis labels for 2-D and 3-D plots
zlabel Z-axis labels for 3-D plots
Surface, Mesh, and Contour Plots
contour Contour (level curves) plot
contourc Contour computation
contourf Filled contour plot
hidden Mesh hidden line removal mode
meshc Combination mesh/contourplot
mesh 3-D mesh with reference plane
peaks A sample function of two variables
surf 3-D shaded surface graph
surface Create surface low-level objects
surfc Combination surf/contourplot
surfl 3-D shaded surface with lighting
trimesh Triangular mesh plot
trisurf Triangular surface plot
Volume Visualization
coneplot Plot velocity vectors as cones in 3-D vector field
contourslice Draw contours in volume slice plane
isocaps Compute isosurface end-cap geometry
isonormals Compute normals of isosurface vertices
isosurface Extract isosurface data from volume data
reducepatch Reduce the number of patch faces
reducevolume Reduce number of elements in volume data set
shrinkfaces Reduce the size of patch faces
smooth3 Smooth 3-D data
stream2 Compute 2-D stream line data
stream3 Compute 3-D stream line data
streamline Draw stream lines from 2- or 3-D vector data
surf2patch Convert srface data to patch data
subvolume Extract subset of volume data set
Domain Generation
griddata Data gridding and surface fitting
meshgrid Generation of X and Y arrays for 3-D plots
Specialized Plotting
area Area plot
box Axis box for 2-D and 3-D plots
comet Comet plot
compass Compass plot
errorbar Plot graph with error bars
ezcontour Easy to use contour plotter
ezcontourf Easy to use filled contour plotter
ezmesh Easy to use 3-D mesh plotter
ezmeshc Easy to use combination mesh/contour plotter
ezplot Easy to use function plotter
ezplot3 Easy to use 3-D parametric curve plotter
ezpolar Easy to use polar coordinate plotter
ezsurf Easy to use 3-D colored surface plotter
ezsurfc Easy to use combination surface/contour plotter
feather Feather plot
fill Draw filled 2-D polygons
fplot Plot a function
pareto Pareto char
pie3 3-D pie plot
plotmatrix Scatter plot matrix
pcolor Pseudocolor (checkerboard) plot
rose Plot rose or angle histogram
quiver Quiver (or velocity) plot
ribbon Ribbon plot
stairs Stairstep graph
scatter Scatter plot
scatter3 3-D scatter plot
stem Plot discrete sequence data
convhull Convex hull
delaunay Delaunay triangulation
dsearch Search Delaunay triangulation for nearest point
inpolygon True for points inside a polygonal region
polyarea Area of polygon
tsearch Search for enclosing Delaunay triangle
voronoi Voronoi diagram
View Control
camdolly Move camera position and target
camlookat View specific objects
camorbit Orbit about camera target
campan Rotate camera target about camera position
campos Set or get camera position
camproj Set or get projection type
camroll Rotate camera about viewing axis
camtarget Set or get camera target
camup Set or get camera up-vector
camva Set or get camera view angle
camzoom Zoom camera in or out
daspect Set or get data aspect ratio
pbaspect Set or get plot box aspect ratio
view 3-D graph viewpoint specification.
viewmtx Generate view transformation matrices
xlim Set or get the current x-axis limits
ylim Set or get the current y-axis limits
zlim Set or get the current z-axis limits
Lighting
camlight Cerate or position Light
diffuse Diffuse reflectance
lighting Lighting mode
lightingangle Position light in sphereical coordinates
material Material reflectance mode
specular Specular reflectance
Color Operations
brighten Brighten or darken color map
bwcontr Contrasting black and/or color
caxis Pseudocolor axis scaling
colorbar Display color bar (color scale)
colorcube Enhanced color-cube color map
colordef Set up color defaults
colormap Set the color look-up table
graymon Graphics figure defaults set for grayscale monitor
hsv2rgb Hue-saturation-value to red-green-blue conversion
rgb2hsv RGB to HSVconversion
rgbplot Plot color map
shading Color shading mode
spinmap Spin the colormap
surfnorm 3-D surface normals
whitebg Change axes background color for plots
Colormaps
autumn Shades of red and yellow color map
bone Gray-scale with a tinge of blue color map
contrast Gray color map to enhance image contrast
cool Shades of cyan and magenta color map
copper Linear copper-tone color map
flag Alternating red, white, blue, and black color map
gray Linear gray-scale color map
hot Black-red-yellow-white color map
hsv Hue-saturation-value (HSV) color map
jet Variant of HSV
lines Line color colormap
prism Colormap of prism colors
spring Shades of magenta and yellow color map
summer Shades of green and yellow colormap
winter Shades of blue and green color map
Printing
orient Hardcopy paper orientation
print Print graph or save graph to file
printopt Configure local printer defaults
saveas Save figure to graphic file
Handle Graphics, General
copyobj Make a copy of a graphics object and its children
findobj Find objects with specified property values
gcbo Return object whose callback is currently executing
gco Return handle of current object
get Get object properties
rotate Rotate objects about specified origin and direction
ishandle True for graphics objects
set Set object properties
Handle Graphics, Object Creation
axes Create Axes object
figure Create Figure (graph) windows
image Create Image (2-D matrix)
light Create Light object (illuminates Patch and Surface)
line Create Line object (3-D polylines)
patch Create Patch object (polygons)
rectangle Create Rectangle object (2-D rectangle)
Create Surface (quadrilaterals)
text Create Text object (character strings)
uicontext Create context menu (popup associated with object)
Handle Graphics, Figure Windows
capture Screen capture of the current figure
clc Clear figure window
clf Clear figure
clg Clear figure (graph window)
close Close specified window
gcf Get current figure handle
newplot Graphics M-file preamble for NextPlot property
refresh Refresh figure
saveas Save figure or model to desired output format
Handle Graphics, Axes
axis Plot axis scaling and appearance
cla Clear Axes
gca Get current Axes handle
Object Manipulation
propedit Edit all properties of any selected object
reset Reset axis or figure
rotate3d Interactively rotate the view of a 3-D plot
selectmoveresize Interactively select, move, or resize objects
shg Show graph window
Interactive User Input
ginput Graphical input from a mouse or cursor
zoom Zoom in and out on a 2-D plot
Region of Interest
dragrect Drag XOR rectangles with mouse
drawnow Complete any pending drawing
rbbox Rubberband box
Graphical User Interface Creation
Dialog Boxes
dialog Create a dialog box
errordlg Create error dialog box
helpdlg Display help dialog box
inputdlg Create input dialog box
listdlg Create list selection dialog box
msgbox Create message dialog box
pagedlg Display page layout dialog box
printdlg Display print dialog box
questdlg Create question dialog box
uigetfile Display dialog box to retrieve name of file for reading
uiputfile Display dialog box to retrieve name of file for writing
uisetcolor Interactively set a ColorSpec using a dialog box
uisetfont Interactively set a font using a dialog box
warndlg Create warning dialog box
User Interface Objects
menu Generate a menu of choices for user input
menuedit Menu editor
uicontextmenu Create context menu
uicontrol Create user interface control
uimenu Create user interface menu
Other Functions
dragrect Drag rectangles with mouse
findfigs Display off-screen visible figure windows
gcbo Return handle of object whose callback is executing
rbbox Create rubberband box for area selection
selectmoveresize Select, move, resize, or copy Axes and Uicontrol graphics objects
textwrap Return wrapped string matrix for given Uicontrol
uiresume Used with uiwait, controls program execution
uiwait Used with uiresume, controls program execution
waitbar Display wait bar
waitforbuttonpress Wait for key/buttonpress over figure