Data types
In Matlab variables can be many different things, the most frequent ones you will find are the following:
- Doubles are the default numerical type in matlab. They can store negative, decimal, numbers in standard form and arrays. They store numbers in 64 bits double-precision floating-point values. You can also have singles which are stored in 32 bits.
a = 1 b = -5 c = 2.523 d = 4.6^-6 e = [2, 5] f = [4, 5, 7; 2, 1, 8] -
Integers , which store integer values. There are many different ones such as int8, int16, int32, int64, uint8, uint16, uin32, uint64 but these are normally used only when you want optimise the computational requirements of your code.
g = int8(12) - Symbolics, this datatype is not native from Matlab as it actually comes from the Symbolic Math Toolbox. Symbolics, unlike doubles or symbols, are exact representations of numbers. They are also useful to create unknowns in equations. To create symbolic variables you can use sym or syms.
This example will create a symbolic variable with the exact value of one fifth
h = sym(1/5)
This example will create 3 symbolic variables: x, y and z.
syms x y z
To figure out the data type of a variable you can use the whos function or look at the Workspace panel, the data type will be indicated under Class.
