MATLAB Programming Fundamentals - MathWorks

Symbol Symbol Name Role Description Examples

%{ %}

Percent curly

bracket

Block comments

The %{ and %} symbols enclose a block of comments that extend beyond one line.

NoteWith the exception of whitespace characters, the %{ and %} operators must appear alone on

the lines that immediately precede and follow the block of help text. Do not include any other text

on these lines.

• “Add Comments to Programs” on page 18-4

Enclose any multiline comments with percent followed by an opening or closing brace:

%{

The purpose of this routine is to compute

the value of ...

%}

! Exclamation point Operating system command

The exclamation point precedes operating system commands that you want to execute from within

MATLAB.

• “Shell Escape Function Example”

Not available in MATLAB Online™.

The exclamation point initiates a shell escape function. Such a function is to be performed directly by the

operating system:

!rmdir oldtests

? Question mark Metaclass for MATLAB class

The question mark retrieves the meta.class object for a particular class name. The? operator

works only with a class name, not an object.

• metaclass

Retrieve the meta.class object for class inputParser:

?inputParser

'' Single quotes Character array constructor

Use single quotes to create character vectors that have class char.

• “Represent Text with Character and String Arrays” on page 6-2

Create a character vector:

chr = 'Hello, world'

"" Double quotes String constructor

Use double quotes to create string scalars that have class string.

• “Represent Text with Character and String Arrays” on page 6-2

Create a string scalar:

S = "Hello, world"

N/A Space character Separator
Use the space character to separate row elements in an array constructor, or the values returned by
a function. In these contexts, the space character and comma are equivalent.

Separate row elements to create an array:

% These statements are equivalent

A = [12 13; 14 15]

A = [12,13; 14,15]

Separate output arguments in function calls:

% These statements are equivalent

[Y I] = max(A)

[Y,I] = max(A)

MATLAB Operators and Special Characters