An interactive introduction to MATLAB

42 scripts and functions

Listings 3.4 presents an example of a simple function that multiplies two

numbers,xandy, together to calculate anarea. Listing 3.5 demonstrates how

to execute this function in the command window.

Listing 3.4: A simple function

1 function area = calculateArea(x, y)

2 % Function to calculate an area given two lengths (x, y)

3 area = x*y;

Listing 3.5: Execution of a simple function

1 >> x = 5; y = 10;

2 >> area = calculateArea(x, y)

3 area =

4 50

The same function could also be executed using variables with different

names, as shown in Listing 3.6.

Listing 3.6: Execution of a simple function

1 >> length1 = 25; length = 100;

2 >> myArea = calculateArea(length1, length2)

3 myArea =

4 2500

Creating a function

(http://www.eng.ed.ac.uk/teaching/courses/matlab/unit03/simple-

function.shtml)