MATLAB Programming Fundamentals - MathWorks

Compatible Array Sizes for Basic Operations

Most binary (two-input) operators and functions in MATLAB support numeric arrays that

have compatible sizes. Two inputs have compatible sizes if, for every dimension, the

dimension sizes of the inputs are either the same or one of them is 1. In the simplest

cases, two array sizes are compatible if they are exactly the same or if one is a scalar.

MATLAB implicitly expands arrays with compatible sizes to be the same size during the

execution of the element-wise operation or function.

Inputs with Compatible Sizes

2-D Inputs

These are some combinations of scalars, vectors, and matrices that have compatible sizes:

• Two inputs which are exactly the same size.


• One input is a scalar.


• One input is a matrix, and the other is a column vector with the same number of rows.

Compatible Array Sizes for Basic Operations