Suppose I have a m file fun.m such that fun(t,x,g) gives a particular value. However, fun is a black box, I do not know what exactly it does, as that m file may be written by another programmer. Here, fun accept scalar input of t and x; g is a function. What I can input is t,x and the function g which are decided by user. However, if I decide to use g to be specific function, I won't change the function, i.e. if I decide to use g=#(y)y.^2, then I want to write a program allowing another user to input a vector t and a scalar value of x. For example, if the user choose t=[1,2,3,4] and x=5, my program can output fun([1,2,3,4],5,#(t)t^2), while if the user choose t=[1,2,3,4,6] and x=10, my program can output fun([1,2,3,4,6],10,#(t)t^2).
Originally, I use for loop to solve the problem, and I want to use arrayfun if possible, what I write is as follow:
g=#(y)y.^2
TEST=#(T,t)arrayfun(#(s,x)fun(s,x,#(y)g(y)),T,t),
Unfortunately, TEST([1,2,3,4],5) gives error, saying that dimension does not match. I want to ask: is it possible to use arrayfun to do my task? If so, how to correct the above code to get the result?
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I have the following function that I wish to solve using fzero:
f = lambda* exp(lambda^2)* erfc(lambda) - frac {C (T_m - T_i)}/{L_f*sqrt(pi)}
Here, C, T_m, T_i, and L_f are all input by the user.
On trying to solve using fzero, MATLAB gives the following error.
Undefined function or variable 'X'.
(where X are the variables stated above)
This error is understandable. But is there a way around it? How do I solve this?
This is answered to the best of my understanding after reading your question as it's not really clear what you are exactly trying and what you want exactly.
Posting the exact lines of code helps a big deal in understanding(as clean as possible, remove clutter). If then the output that matlab gives is added it becomes a whole lot easier to make sure we answer your question properly and it allows us to try it out. Usually it's a good idea to give some example values for data that is to be entered by the user anyway.
First of to make it a function it either needs a handle.
Or if you have it saved it as a matlab file you generally do not want other inputs in your m file then the variable.
So,
function [out]=yourfun(in)
constants=your values; %you can set a input or inputdlg to get a value from the user
out= something something, your lambda thingy probably; %this is the equation/function you're solving for
end
Now since that is not all that convenient I suggest the following
%declare or get your constants here, above the function makes it easier
syms lambda
f = lambda* exp(lambda^2)* erfc(lambda) - frac {C (T_m - T_i)}/{L_f*sqrt(pi)};
hf=matlabFunction(f); %this way matlab automatically converts it to a function handle, alternatively put #(lambda) in front
fzero(hf,x0)
Also this matlab page might help you as well ;)
In matlab i know i can convert string into anonymous function with str2func.
For example;
s= '#(x) x.^2';
h= str2func(s);
h(2) would be 4
But what if i do not know the number of unknown? Let's say user of this program will enter lots of function to get a numerical solution of a system. When the user enters x^2, i should add #(x) to its beginning then convert it to a function. But in programming time i do not know how many function the user will enter with how many unknown. #(x) may should be #(x,y) as well as #(x,y,z). If the user enters the number of unknowns, how can i create and add the necessary prefix at runtime?
ps: number of unknown can be any integer number.
You need to know not only the quantity of variables but also their names and order. An expression may read x(c). Even if you know that the expression has two variables in it and are able to parse out x and c, you won't be able to tell if the user intended to define something like #(x, c) x(c), #(c, x) x(c) or even something like #(c, d) x(c) where x is actually a function.
Parsing the expressions just to get the names they use is something that you shouldn't have to do.
Restricting the variable names that are allowed can be messy. If the user is expecting MATLAB syntax and you are parsing as MATLAB, why make your life harder? Also, when you introduce a restriction like one-letter variable names only, you have to ask yourself if there will ever be a situation where you need more than 27 variables.
It would be much safer all around to have the user list the names of the variables they plan on using before the function, e.g. (x, y, pi) pi*(x^2 + y). Now all you have to do is prepend # and not worry about whether pi is a built-in or an argument. In my opinion the notation is quite clean.
I want to make symbolic functions theta1(t), theta2(t), theta3(t),...,thetaN(t) where N is some parameter I can define in MATLAB. I know that I can use something like sym('theta',[1 N]) to get [theta1, theta2, theta3,..., thetaN]. However, how can I do the same thing with theta being a function of t? The way to hard-code it would be like syms theta1(t) theta2(t) theta3(t) ... thetaN(t), but I want to make this general.
I do not want to directly use the sym command here because "support of character vectors that are not valid variable names and do not define a number will be removed in a future release", meaning something like sym('theta1(t)') would not be valid in future releases.
Any suggestions?
Figured part of it out. I could do something like the following
for i = 1:N
syms(strcat('theta',num2str(i),'(t)'))
end
However, if I want to assign a variable that contains all the symbolic expressions I'm still stuck. If I try
for i = 1:N
my_array(i) = syms(strcat('theta',num2str(i),'(t)'))
end
I get Error using syms (line 133). Using input and output arguments simultaneously is not supported. It works if I use sym instead of syms, but this leads to the warning I mentioned in my original post.
In my code, I have a line that looks like this:
f=#(test) bf{i}(5);
where bf is a cell array with functions from str2func() stored in it, i is a variable storing an integer, and the 5 is the argument to pass to the function. How can I get matlab to evaluate the line using the current value of i? Right now when I display f it outputs:
#(test)bf{i}(5)
Lets say i=1, I want it to output:
#(test)bf{1}(5)
Although technically the bf{1} should also be replaced with whatever function is stored in bf{1}. How can I force matlab to evaluate the variables in this statement?
When you create a function handle, the workspace variables are copied and the expression is evaluated when you call the function handle (Typically not a problem in memory consumption, matlab stores only changes).
Now the problem is, to tell Matlab when to evaluate what part of the expression.
If you are aiming for a better performance, pre-evaluate all constant parts of the function. Let's say your function is #(x)(g(3).*f(x)), in this case matlab would evaluate g(3) on every call.
Instead use:
f=#(x)(x.^2)
g_3=g(3)
h=#(x)(g_3.*f(x))
Now having the constant parts evaluated, you want to see the constants instead of the variabe name. I know two ways to achieve this.
You can use the symbolic toolbox, basically converting the function handle to a symbolic function, then to a function handle again. This not only displays the constants, but also substitutes f. This is not possible for all functions.
>> matlabFunction(h(sym('x')))
ans =
#(x)x.^2.*4.2e1
Another possibility is to use eval:
h=eval(['#(x)',sprintf('%e',g_3),'.*f(x)'])
Pre-evaluating constant parts of the expressions as I did in the first step is typically recommendable, but both solutions to get the constant visible in your function handle aren't really recommendable. The first solution using matlabFunction only applies to some functions, while the second comes with all the disadvantages of eval.
When using a multiple-output matlab function, do i need to callback all variables? or can I just take the first two variables? (if so..is it not recommended?)
lets say in function.m
[a, b, c] = function( )
in main.m
[var1, var2] = function;
When calling (almost) any function in matlab you can request fewer outputs than it specifies. So, yes the example you give should work perfectly fine.
There are some clever things you can do with this, such as using nargout within a function to see how many output arguments have been requested and only calculating the values that have been requested as an optimisation trick.
It depends on the definition of the function, and exactly which of the outputs you want to get.
Not all the function allow to do it, you can find all the options for each function in the beginning of the help documentation on the specific function.
If you want only the 2nd, or 3rd outputs, and you want also to save the computation-time of the results that does not interesting, you can use ~ option, like this (for versions 2009b and later):
[~, var1, var2]=function
Many functions allow for options to passed that change how the function behaves. I used/wrote various numerical solving functions a bit and one that nice amount of option, for instance is the LSMR function(s).
Otherwise, if you can manipulate the original either introduce an input(s) to do so before or at the end with an inline subroutine to generate the outputs you want.
Or if you can't it will return as either a cell array or a vector and you can pass an anonymous function to generate the desired outputs that way.
Really, can be done many ways. Very contextual.