Manipulating Character Matrices in Matlab to Operations"

[DmytriE]

Hi everyone,

I am wondering if I can input a matrix into Matlab that contains characters. I then would like to manipulate the matrix using row changing operations. Matlab, however, will not allow me to create a matrix with letters. Is there an equivalent to a matrix for character values that can have operations performed on them?

Thanks.

 

[jhae2.718]

You may want to look into using a cell: http://www.mathworks.com/help/techdoc/ref/cell.html

 

[DmytriE]

Maybe I'm using cells incorrectly, but to test I am multiplying a 4x4 matrix / array with the 4x4 identity. It should return the original matrix / array. However, I get an error message that won't allow me to perform the operation.

"? Undefined function or method 'mtimes' for input arguments of type 'cell'.

This is irritating. I wanted to use this as a check for my homework but I can't. Is there anyway around this error?

Thanks!

 

[jhae2.718]

Are you just trying to do symbolic math with matrices? You can use sym or the shortcut syms to create symbolic variables and then create a matrix using them. E.g. for something like
$$\begin{vmatrix}<br /> a & b \\<br /> c & d <br /> \end{vmatrix} = ad - bc$$
you could do:

syms a b c d real[/color];
det([a b; c d]);

I didn't realize you needed to do matrix arithmetic, so cells won't work.