ABSTRACT
As an interpretive programming language, the most attractive feature of MATLAB is that it incorporates a broad range of utility commands and intrinsic functions, such as mathematical functions for linear algebra and numerical integration, 2-D and 3-D graphics functions for visualising data, and functions for integrating MATLABbased algorithms with external applications and languages, as compared to traditional upper-level compiled programming languages such as FORTRAN, C, and C++. With the MATLAB language, we can program and develop algorithms faster than with traditional languages because we do not need to perform low-level administrative tasks such as declaring variables, specifying data types, and allocating memory. It should be mentioned, however, that MATLAB run time may be greater than that of compiled programming languages like FORTRAN and C, due to the fact that each row of code is first interpreted by the MATLAB command interpreter and then executed. In this chapter, some basic elements of MATLAB programming used in the following chapters are reviewed; the presentation follows the results given in Refs. [1 - 5].
