Matvec Users’ Guide

2.4. MATRIX OBJECT 11
Another method to create a vector object is to use one of object-creating function Vector(...) as shown
below:
> C = Vector(-5, 5, B)
i = 1 i = 2 i = 3 i = 4
-5 5 1 3
The i’th element of vector A can be accessed by A(i). Note that vector indexing starts from one rather than
zero. The usual algebraic operators such as +, -, *, /, .+, .-, .* ./,+=, -=, *=, /= are available.
If both A and B are vectors, then A*B returns an inner product of vectors A and B, whereas A.*B returns
a vector with each element being product of corresponding elements in A and B. The element-by-element
division can be done by either A/B or A./B.
The relational operators are ==, !=, , =. The logical operators are ||(OR), &&(AND) and
.||, .&&.
There are a lot of member functions for vectors such as max, min, mean, input, mat, diag, sin, etc.
A vector (v) can be easily converted to any size of matrix by using v.mat(m,n) as long as there are enough
elements to fill.
2.4 Matrix Object
See details in Chapter 3.
2.5 String Object
A string object in Matvec is defined as a sequence of characters. It can be created by using double-quotes
operator ". For example,
s = "Hello World";
A string object can also be created from a scalar object using the string() function. For example,
> "tan(10)="+string(tan(10))
tan(10)=0.648361
The operators and member functions for string objects are very limited. Indexing and concatenation
works as usual. For example
> s = "Hello World";
> s.size()
11
> t = "Greetings From MATVEC";
> s + t
Hello WorldGreetings From MATVEC
> s + ", " + t
Hello World, Greetings From MATVEC
> s([1,7])
HW
Some characters are so special that they cannot be included literally in a string object. Instead, they
are represented with escape sequences. An escape sequence is a two-character sequence beginning with a
backslash (\) followed by a special character. The following is a list of escape sequences implemented in
Matvec: