How do you write M-files in MATLAB that you would like to have work correctly whether the inputs are double precision or single? By correctly, I mean that the program gives an answer appropriate to the precision of the input. ... read more >>

Over the years, people have posted many versions of code for calculating Fibonacci numbers. I thought I'd collect a few of the ideas here and start a discussion on the merits of the different versions. ... read more >>

People have different ideas about what costs a lot, in terms of memory, in MATLAB. And sometimes people don't know the details. Today I am going to talk about when MATLAB makes copies of data, for both calling functions, and for... read more >>

There is a fairly constant stream of questions in many MATLAB venues, including the MATLAB newsgroup that boil down to not understanding the difference between command and function syntaxes in MATLAB. Today I try to set the record straight. ... read more >>

There have been several requests on the MATLAB newsgroup to calculate the area of a function on a non-rectangular domain. MATLAB's function dblquad uses the technique that I am going to illustrate today for rectangular domains. And I just noticed this entry on the File Exchange for doing 2-dimensional... read more >>

Today I'd like to tell you how you might improve the performance of reading and writing files using MATLAB's low-level file i/o functions. The key here is to disable the automated buffer flushing. ... read more >>

I'm feeling pensive today as I participate in development activities at MathWorks for Release 2006b. We are following a 6-month release schedule and the naming convention for the twice yearly releases is year followed by first "a" and then "b". This schedule requires ... read more >>

I'm pleased to introduce Jason Breslau, our guest blogger this week, who gives us his take on MATLAB, strings, and regular expressions. ... read more >>

Customers have long asked for a GOTO statement in MATLAB to allow them to use programming constructs familiar to them from other languages they already know. I am pleased to announce that a proposal is making its way through the design process at MathWorks and I thought I'd use... read more >>

Questions about using persistent variables arise from time to time in the MATLAB newsgroup. Today I'd like to show you a little about what you might think you can do, but can't with persistent variables. I am also curious to hear... read more >>