Introduction to Matlab

Matlab (MATrix LABoratory) is a program designed mainly for numerical computations.
It supports matrix operations, offers easy graphing commands, knows how to solve (numerically) algebraic and differential equations, computes Fourier and wavelet transforms, as well as many other things.

To start Matlab, type matlab in a shell.
If you do not want to have the fancy (and sometimes faulty) desktop, issue instead the command matlab -nodesktop.
To quit Matlab type quit at the Matlab prompt.
To abort a computation (e.g., because it takes too long), type ^C, Control-C.

One can get help from Matlab in one of the following ways (do help help to begin):

• help <item> displays information about the requested item (which can be a topic or a function);
  help describes the available topics.

  doc <item> displays HTML information about the requested item in a separate Help window. It often has more information than help.

• lookfor <keyword> searches all M-files for the keyword
• helpwin will open a separate window giving easy access to the covered topics
• helpdesk, provides information in HTML form (and also a link to manuals in PDF).