Loren on the Art of MATLAB

Turn ideas into MATLAB

Note

Loren on the Art of MATLAB has been archived and will not be updated.

Make Code N-D Safe

Posted by Loren Shure,

1 views (last 30 days)  |   Likes   |   4 comments

I've recently been asked some questions about programming safely to account for N-dimensional data. Techniquest that are tried-and-true for two dimensions don't all scale to N dimensions.

Contents

Code That's Not Recommended

The following code doesn't catch dimensions higher than 2.

 if any(any(input))
     output = doAlg(input);
 end

This code is also not recommended because n will be a scalar even if input has more than 2 dimensions. Depending on what is done in the loop, the output might be the wrong shape/dimension (thanks to Jeremy so I could clarify this). 

 [m,n] = size(input);
 for i=1:n
     doSomething;
 end

Code That is Safe for Higher Dimensions

This code should work fine for any input.

 sz = size(input);
 if any(input(:))
     output = doAlg(input);
 end
 output = reshape(output,sz);

Benefits

If you consider N-dimensional input when you write functions, you are less likely to find bugs or wrong answers when you go to use it later. 

   * The code is easier to understand without so many any statements.
   * Code is robust to N-dimensional inputs.

Your Advice?

What techniques have you used to ensure your code works with all array shapes? List them here.




Published with MATLAB® 7.4


Category: 
Best Practice,
Common Errors
  • print

See Also

Comments

To leave a comment, please click here to sign in to your MathWorks Account or create a new one.