Getting into an infinite loop in MATLAB function - matlab

I'm trying to plot a function on matlab that's defined such that:
Y=-100t ; 0>=t>=0.15
Y=-15 ; t>.15
I'm using the following code:
function [ Y ] = Gain( t )
for t=[0:0.01:0.15]
Y=-100*t
end
for t=0.15:0.01:2
Y=-15
end
plot (Gain)
but I'm going into an infinite loop!
Would someone please solve this problem for me.
Thank you.

Functions don't work like that in MATLAB, unfortunately. (Or at least I don't think they do). Try something like this:
function Y = Gain(t)
Y = -100*t;
Y(t >= 0.15) = -15;
end
x = 0:0.01:2;
plot(x, Gain(x))
MATLAB still uses C-esque functions, so you have to define it that way, using C-style syntax, instead of more math-like syntax, unfortunately. I'm multiplying the input values by -100, then for the ones that match up to where t is greater than 15, I replace those with -15. MATLAB is weird.
Edit: Sorry, previous code sample also used the wrong syntax.. MATLAB is weird.

I'm not certain what you're TRYING to do, but when you call the Gain function "from outside", so to speak,...
You enter the Gain function
The first for loop executes, overwriting passed-in value of t with each iteration. (Therefore, the value of t that you passed in is completely ignored, the way that you have this code written.)
The second for-loop executes, and
You call plot(Gain), which forces Gain to be called again, this time with no arguments. Back to 1.
Repeat forever.

Related

Declaring a functional recursive sequence in Matlab

I'd like to declare first of all, that I'm a mathematician. This might be a stupid stupid question; but I've gone through all the matlab tutorials--they've gotten me nowhere. I imagine I could code this in C (it'd be exhausting); but I need matlab for this particular function. And I don't get exactly how to do it.
Here is the pasted Matlab code of where I'm running into trouble:
function y = TAU(z,n)
y=0;
for i =[1,n]
y(z) = log(beta(z+1,i) + y(z+1)) - beta(z,i);
end
end
(beta is an arbitrary "float" to "float" function with an index i.)
I'm having trouble declaring y as a function, in which we call the function at a different argument. I want to define y_n(z) with something something y_{n-1}(z+1). This is all done in a recursive process to create the function. I really feel like I'm missing something stupid.
As a default function it assigns y to be an array (or whatever you call the default index assignment). But I don't want an array. I want y to be assigned as a "function" class (i.e. takes "float" to "float"). And then I'm defining a sequence of y_n : "float" to "float". So that z to z+1 is a map on "float" to "float".
I don't know if I'm asking too much of matlab...
Help a poor mathematician who hasn't coded since the glory days of X-box mods.
...Please don't tell me I have to go back to Pari-GP/C drawing boards over something so stupid.
Please help!
EDIT: At rahnema1 & mimocha's request, I'll describe the math, and of what I am trying to do with my program. I can't see how to implement latex in here. So I'll write the latex code in a generator and upload a picture. I'm not so sure if there even is a work around to what I want to do.
As to the expected output. We'd want,
beta(z+1,i) + TAU(z+1,i) = exp(beta(z,i) + TAU(z,i+1))
And we want to grow i to a fixed value n. Again, I haven't programmed in forever, so I apologize if I'm speaking a little nonsensically.
EDIT2:
So, as #rahnema1 suggests; I should produce a reproducible example. In order to do this, I'll write the code for my beta function. It's surprisingly simple. This is for the case where the "multiplier" variable is set to log(2); but you don't need to worry about any of that.
function f = beta(z,n)
f=0;
for i = 0:n-1
f = exp(f)/(1+exp(log(2)*(n-i-z)));
end
end
This will work fine for z a float no greater than 4. Once you make z larger it'll start to overflow. So for example, if you put in,
beta(2,100)
1.4242
beta(3,100)
3.3235
beta(3,100) - exp(beta(2,100))/(1/4+1)
0
The significance of the 100, is simply how many iterations we perform; it converges fast so even setting this to 15 or so will still produce the same numerical accuracy. Now, the expected output I want for TAU is pretty straight forward,
TAU(z,1) = log(beta(z+1,1)) - beta(z,1)
TAU(z,2) = log(beta(z+1,2) + TAU(z+1,1)) - beta(z,2)
TAU(z,3) = log(beta(z+1,3) + TAU(z+1,2)) - beta(z,3)
...
TAU(z,n) = log(beta(z+1,n) + TAU(z+1,n-1)) -beta(z,n)
I hope this helps. I feel like there should be an easy way to program this sequence, and I must be missing something obvious; but maybe it's just not possible in Matlab.
At mimocha's suggestion, I'll look into tail-end recursion. I hope to god I don't have to go back to Pari-gp; but it looks like I may have to. Not looking forward to doing a deep dive on that language, lol.
Thanks, again!
Is this what you are looking for?
function out = tau(z,n)
% Ends recursion when n == 1
if n == 1
out = log(beta(z+1,1)) - beta(z,1);
return
end
out = log(beta(z+1,n) + tau(z+1,n-1)) - beta(z,n);
end
function f = beta(z,n)
f = 0;
for i = 0:n-1
f = exp(f) / (1 + exp(log(2)*(n-i-z)));
end
end
This is basically your code from the most recent edit, but I've added a simple catch in the tau function. I tried running your code and noticed that n gets decremented infinitely (no exit condition).
With the modification, the code runs successfully on my laptop for smaller integer values of n, where 1e5 > n >= 1; and for floating values of z, real and complex. So the code will unfortunately break for floating values of n, since I don't know what values to return for, say, tau(1,0) or tau(1,0.9). This should easily be fixable if you know the math though.
However, many of the values I get are NaNs or Infs. So I'm not sure if your original problem was Out of memory error (infinite recursion), or values blowing up to infinity / NaN (numerical stability issue).
Here is a quick 100x100 grid calculation I made with this code.
Then I tested on negative values of z, and found the imaginary part of the output to looks kinda cool.
Not to mention I'm slightly geeking out over the fact that pi is showing up in the imaginary part as well :)
tau(-0.3,2) == -1.45179335740446147085 +3.14159265358979311600i

In Matlab, is there a way to take in a formula as parameter input?

This might seem like a strange thing to do, which it probably is. In my main (or how you call it in matlab) I would like to have all the information needed for the program to run. A change of variables or formulas should only happen in my main.
For example I would like to change the number of iterations and the formula of the hypothese in my main and let other function use these, instead of declaring them within the function themselves and having to edit it all over the place. The problem I face is not knowing how to do this properly for hypothese_formula and wonder if there is a better way of doing this?
function prog1()
iterations = 1;
hypothese_formula = x^2;
doSomethingWithFormulaAndIterations(hypothese_formula, iterations);
end
Practical: I would to do linear regression with a hypothesis of the formula and specific starting values of theta and don't want them to be hidden within a function. I don't know how to declare global formula's.
You can use anonymous functions.
function prog1()
iterations = 1;
hypothese_formula = #(x) x.^2
doSomethingWithFormulaAndIterations(hypothese_formula, iterations);
end

MATLAB Using fzero - returns error

I'm trying to use the MATLAB function fzero properly but my program keeps returning an error message. This is my code (made up of two m-files):
friction_zero.m
function fric_zero = friction_zero(reynolds)
fric_zero = 0.25*power(log10(5.74/(power(reynolds,0.9))),-2);
flow.m
function f = flow(fric)
f = 1/(sqrt(fric))-1.873*log10(reynolds*sqrt(fric))-233/((reynolds*sqrt(fric))^0.9)-0.2361;
f_initial = friction_zero(power(10,4));
z = fzero(#flow,f_initial)
The goal is to return z as the root for the equation specified by f when flow.m is run.
I believe I have the correct syntax as I have spent a couple of hours online looking at examples. What happens is that it returns the following error message:
"Undefined function or variable 'fric'."
(Of course it's undefined, it's the variable I'm trying to solve!)
Can someone point out to me what I've done wrong? Thanks
EDIT
Thanks to all who helped! You have assisted me to eventually figure out my problem.
I had to add another file. Here is a full summary of the completed code with output.
friction_zero.m
function fric_zero = friction_zero(re)
fric_zero = 0.25*power(log10(5.74/(power(re,0.9))),-2); %starting value for fric
flow.m
function z = flow(fric)
re = power(10,4);
z = 1/(sqrt(fric))-1.873*log10(re*sqrt(fric))-233/((re*sqrt(fric))^0.9)-0.2361;
flow2.m
f_initial = friction_zero(re); %arbitrary starting value (Reynolds)
x = #flow;
fric_root = fzero(x,f_initial)
This returns an output of:
fric_root = 0.0235
Which seems to be the correct answer (phew!)
I realised that (1) I didn't define reynolds (which is now just re) in the right place, and (2) I was trying to do too much and thus skipped out on the line x = #flow;, for some reason when I added the extra line in, MATLAB stopped complaining. Not sure why it wouldn't have just taken #flow straight into fzero().
Once again, thanks :)
You need to make sure that f is a function in your code. This is simply an expression with reynolds being a constant when it isn't defined. As such, wrap this as an anonymous function with fric as the input variable. Also, you need to make sure the output variable from your function is z, not f. Since you're solving for fric, you don't need to specify this as the input variable into flow. Also, you need to specify f as the input into fzero, not flow. flow is the name of your main function. In addition, reynolds in flow is not defined, so I'm going to assume that it's the same as what you specified to friction_zero. With these edits, try doing this:
function z = flow()
reynolds = power(10,4);
f = #(fric) 1/(sqrt(fric))-1.873*log10(reynolds*sqrt(fric))-233/((reynolds*sqrt(fric))^0.9)-0.2361;
f_initial = friction_zero(reynolds);
z = fzero(#f, f_initial); %// You're solving for `f`, not flow. flow is your function name
The reason that you have a problem is because flow is called without argument I think. You should read a little more about matlab functions. By the way, reynolds is not defined either.
I am afraid I cannot help you completely since I have not been doing fluid mechanics. However, I can tell you about functions.
A matlab function definition looks something like this:
function x0 = f(xGuess)
a = 2;
fcn =#(t) a*t.^3+t; % t must not be an input to f.
disp(fcn);
a = 3;
disp(fcn);
x0 = fsolve(fcn1,xGuess); % x0 is calculated here
The function can then ne called as myX0 = f(myGuess). When you define a matlab function with arguments and return values, you must tell matlab what to do with them. Matlab cannot guess that. In this function you tell matlab to use xGuess as an initial guess to fsolve, when solving the anonymous function fcn. Notice also that matlab does not assume that an undefined variable is an independent variable. You need to tell matlab that now I want to create an anonymous function fcn which have an independent variable t.
Observation 1: I use .^. This is since the function will take an argument an evaluate it and this argument can also be a vector. In this particulat case I want pointwise evaluation. This is not really necessary when using fsolve but it is good practice if f is not a matrix equation, since "vectorization" is often used in matlab.
Observation 2: notice that even if a changes its value the function does not change. This is since matlab passes the value of a variable when defining a function and not the variable itself. A c programmer would say that a variable is passed by its value and not by a pointer. This means that fcn is really defined as fcn = #(x) 2*t.^3+t;. Using the variable a is just a conveniance (constants can may also be complicated to find, but when found they are just a value).
Armed with this knowledge, you should be able to tackle the problem in front of you. Also, the recursive call to flow in your function will eventuallt cause a crash. When you write a function that calls itself like this you must have a stopping criterium, something to tell the program when to stop. As it is now, flow will call ifself in the last row, like z = fzero(#flow,f_initial) for 500 times and then crash. Alos it is possible as well to define functions with zero inputs:
function plancksConstant = h()
plancksConstant = 6.62606957e−34;
Where the call h or h() will return Plancks constant.
Good luck!

Function to find entries with same maximum value in a vector

In my project I need a function which returns the index of the largest element of a given vector. Just like max. For more than one entry with the same maximum value (which occurs frequently) the function should choose one randomly. Unlike max.
The function is a subfunction in a MATLAB Function Block in Simulink. And the whole Simulink model is compiled.
My basic idea was:
function ind = findOpt(vector)
index_max = find(vector == max(vector));
random = randi([1,length(index_max)],1);
ind = index_max(random);
end
But I got problems with the comparison in find and with randi.
I found out about safe comparison here: Problem using the find function in MATLAB. Also I found a way to replace randi([1,imax],1): Implement 'randi' using 'rand' in MATLAB.
My Code now looks like this:
function ind = findOpt(vector)
tolerance = 0.00001;
index_max = find(abs(vector - max(vector)) < tolerance);
random = ceil(length(index_max)*rand(1));
ind = index_max(random);
end
Still doesn't work. I understand that the length of index_max is unclear and causes problems. But I can not think of any way to know it before. Any ideas how to solve this?
Also, I'm shocked that ceil doesn't work when the code gets executed?? In debug mode there is no change to the input visible.
I thought about creating an array like: index_max = abs(vector - max(vector)) < tolerance; But not sure how that could help. Also, it doesn't solve my problem with the random selection.
Hopefully somebody has more ideas or at least could give me some hints!
I am using MATLAB R2012b (32bit) on a Windows7-64bit PC, with the Lcc-win32 C 2.4.1 compiler.
Edit:
Vector usually is of size 5x1 and contains values between -2000 and zero which are of type double, e.g. vector = [-1000 -1200 -1000 -1100 -1550]'. But I think such a simple function should work with any kind of input vector.
The call of length(index_max) causes an system error in MATLAB and forces me to shut it down. I guess this is due to the strange return I get from find. For a vector with all the same values the return from find is something like [1.000 2.000 1.000 2.000 0.000]' which doesn't make any sense to me at all.
function v= findOpt(v)
if isempty(v)
return;
end
v = find((max(v) - v) < 0.00001);
v = v(ceil(rand(1)*end));
end
I was indeed overloading, just like user664303 suggested! Since I can not use objects in my project, I wanted an function that behaves similar, so I wrote:
function varargout = table(mode, varargin)
persistent table;
if isempty(table) && ~strcmp(mode,'writeTable')
error(...)
end
switch mode
case 'getValue'
...
case 'writeTable'
table = ...
...
end
end
Wanted to avoid passing the dimensions for the table in every call and thought it would be enough if the first call initializes the Table with mode='writeTable'. Looks like this caused my problem.
No problems after changing to:
if isempty(table)
table = zeros(dim1,dim2,...)
end

Matlab plot won't return correct results

I have written a function that is the beginning of a Poisson Process
function n_t = PoisProc2(t,tao,SIZE)
n_t=0;
for n=1:SIZE
if t>tao(1,n)
n_t=n_t+1;
end
end
end
tao is simply an array of random doubles of length SIZE. For simplicity we'll say [1,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,20]
So this functions purpose is to count how many elements of tao that t is greater than for any given t.
This code works fine when I simply write
PoisProc2(3,tao,20);
the answer I get is 19 as expected, but if I write
x=1:.01:20;
y=PoisProc2(x,tao,20);
plot(x,y,'-')
y shows up as 0 in the workspace (I would expect an array of length 1901) and my plot also reads 0. I'm pretty new to Matlab, but this seems like a pretty simply thing I'm trying to do and I must be missing something obvious. Please help!
Your code does not work as you are giving a vector. So your if condition is not working as you expect.
First initialize n_t with a vector :
n_t=zeros(1,length(t))
instead of
if t>tao(1,n)
n_t=n_t+1;
end
Vectorize your expression :
n_t = n_t + (t>tao(1,n))
Cheers
Because x is a vector in your last example, the "if t>tao(1,n)" statement in your function behave totally different from what you think.
This function below should give you the right result.
function ret = PoisProc2(thresholds, vec)
ret = zeros(size(thresholds));
for k = 1:numel(thresholds)
ret(k) = numel(nonzeros(vec > thresholds(k)));
end
Side comments:
Your original function is quite C/Java style. You can see in my function, it's replaced by a one-liner "numel(nonzeros(vec > thresholds(k)))", which is more MATLAB style.
I think this can be done with hist() function. But this probably is easier to understand.