ABSTRACT
This chapter presents features and capabilities of MATLAB pertinent to numerical methods. These range from vector and matrix operations and symbolic calculations to plotting options for functions and sets of data. MATLAB has a large number of built-in elementary functions, each accompanied by a brief but sufficient description through the help command. MATLAB has four built-in functions namely, MATLAB rounding functions, MATLAB relational operators, MATLAB format options and element-by-element operations that round decimal numbers to the nearest integer via different rounding techniques. User-defined M file functions and scripts may be created, saved, and edited in MATLAB using the edit command. An anonymous function offers a way to create a function for simple expressions without creating an M file. The MATLAB command nargin is used for the purpose of setting default values for one or more of the input variables. The chapter concludes with guidelines to prepare user-defined functions and script files to perform specific tasks.
