Octave Tutorial

GEN0001, Spring 2019

Contents
 Overview
 Start, quit, getting help
 Variables and data types
 Matrices
 Plotting
 Programming
Octave
 Functions and scripts
 Misc
 Octave and Matlab in practice

Matlab
Overview
Octave is the "open-source Matlab"
Octave is a great gnuplot wrapper
 www.octave.org
 www.mathworks.com

Octave and Matlab are both, high-level languages and

mathematical programming environments for:
 Visualization
 Programming, algorithm development
 Numerical computation: linear algebra, optimization,
control, statistics, signal and image processing, etc.
Overview
Matlab-Octave comparison:
 Matlab is more flexible/advanced/powerful/costly
 Octave is for free (GPL license)
 There are minor differences in syntax

This tutorial:
 This tutorial applies to Octave *and* Matlab
unless stated otherwise!

Current versions (spring 2018):

 Octave 4.2.2
 Matlab 9.4
Contents
 Overview
 Start, quit, getting help
 Variables and data types
 Matrices
 Plotting
 Programming
 Functions and scripts
 Misc
 Octave and Matlab in practice
Octave
• Download from:
• https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/octave/windows/octave-4.4.1-w64-64-
installer.exe
Octave Desktop

Workspace
Command
Window

Command
History

Explore the Octave Desktop

Start, Quit, Getting Help
 To start Octave from command line, type the
shell command octave, double-click Octave.app or
whatever your OS needs.
You should see the prompt:

octave:1>

 If you get into trouble, you can interrupt Octave

by typing Ctrl-C.

 To exit Octave, type quit or exit.

Start, Quit, Getting Help
 To get help, type help or doc

 To get help on a specific command (=built-in

function), type help command

 Examples: help size, help plot, help figure,

help inv, ...

 Type q to exit help mode

Contents
 Overview
 Start, quit, getting help
 Variables and data types
 Matrices
 Plotting
 Programming
 Functions and scripts
 Files I/O
 Misc
 Octave and Matlab in practice
 librobotics
Variables and Data Types
 Matrices (real and complex)
 Strings (matrices of characters)
 Structures

➛ Vectors? It's a matrix with one column/row

➛ Scalars? It's a matrix of dimension 1x1
➛ Integers? It's a double (you never have to worry)
➛ Boolean? It's an integer (non-null=true, 0=false)

Almost everything is a matrix!

Matlab has more types, e.g. OO-classes
Variables and Data Types
Creating a Matrix
 Simply type:
octave:1> A = [8, 2, 1; 3, -1, 4; 7, 6, -5]

Octave will respond with a matrix in pretty-print:

A =
8 2 1
3 -1 4
7 6 -5

➛ More on matrices, further down this tutorial.

Variables and Data Types
Creating a Character String
 Simply type:
octave:4> str = 'Hello World'

Octave can also deal with double quotes. For

compatibility reasons, use single quotes.
Variables and Data Types
Display Variables
 Simply type its name:
octave:1> a
a = 4

Suppress Output
 Add a semicolon:
octave:2> a;
octave:3> sin(phi);

Applies also to function calls.

Variables and Data Types
 Variables have no permanent type.
s = 3 followed by s = 'octave' is fine

 Use who (or the more detailed whos ) to list the

currently defined variables. Example output:
Variables in the current scope:

Attr Name Size Bytes Class

==== ==== ==== ===== =====
A 3x3 72 double
a 1x1 8 double
ans 21x1 168 double
s 1x5 5 char
v 1x21 24 double
Variables and Data Types
Numerical Precision
Variables are stored as double precision numbers in
IEEE floating point format.

 realmin Smallest positive floating point

number: 2.23e-308
 realmax Largest positive floating point
number: 1.80e+308
 eps Relative precision: 2.22e-16
Variables and Data Types
Control Display of Float Variables
 format short Fixed point format with 5
digits
 format long Fixed point format with 15
digits
 format short e Floating point format, 5 digits
 format long e Floating point format, 15
digits
 format short g Best of fixed or floating point
with 5 digits (good choice)
 format long g Best of fixed or floating point
with 15 digits
Variables and Data Types
Talking about Float Variables...
 ceil(x) Round to smallest integer
not less than x
 floor(x) Round to largest integer
not greater than x
 round(x) Round towards nearest integer
 fix(x) Round towards zero

If x is a matrix, the functions are applied to each

element of x.
Contents
 Overview
 Start, quit, getting help
 Variables and data types
 Matrices
 Plotting
 Programming
 Functions and scripts
 Misc
 Octave and Matlab in practice
 librobotics
Matrices
Creating a Matrix
 Simply type:
octave:1> A = [8, 2, 1; 3, -1, 4; 7, 6, -5]

 To delimit columns, use comma or space

 To delimit rows, use semicolon

The following expressions are equivalent:

A = [8 2 1;3 -1 4;7 6 -5]
A = [8,2,1;3,-1,4;7,6,-5]
Matrices
Creating a Matrix
 Octave will respond with a matrix in pretty-print:
A =
8 2 1
3 -1 4
7 6 -5

 Alternative Example:
octave:2> phi = pi/3;
octave:3> R = [cos(phi) -sin(phi); sin(phi) cos(phi)]
R =
0.50000 -0.86603
0.86603 0.50000
Matrices
Creating a Matrix from Matrices
octave:1> A = [1 1 1; 2 2 2]; B = [33; 33];
 Column-wise
octave:2> C = [A B]
C =
1 1 1 33
2 2 2 33

 Row-wise:
octave:3> D = [A; [44 44 44]]
D =
1 1 1
2 2 2
44 44 44
Matrices
Indexing
Always "row before column"!
 aij = A(i,j) Get an element
 r = A(i,:) Get a row
 c = A(:,j) Get a column
 B = A(i:k,j:l) Get a submatrix

 Useful indexing command end :

octave:1> data = [4 -1 35 9 11 -2];
octave:2> v = data(3:end)
v =
35 9 11 -2
Matrices
Colon ':', two meanings:
 Wildcard to select entire matrix row or column
A(3,:), B(:,5)

 Defines a range in expressions like

indices = 1:5Returns row vector 1,2,3,4,5
steps = 1:3:61 Returns row vector 1,4,7,...,61
t = 0:0.01:1 Returns vector 0,0.01,0.02,...,1

start increment stop

 Useful command to define ranges: linspace

Matrices
Assigning a Row/Column
 All referenced elements are set to the scalar value.
octave:1> A = [1 2 3 4 5; 2 2 2 2 2; 3 3 3 3 3];
octave:2> A(3,:) = -3;

Adding a Row/Column
 If the referenced row/colum doesn't exist, it's added.
octave:3> A(4,:) = 4
A =
1 2 3 4 5
2 2 2 2 2
-3 -3 -3 -3 -3
4 4 4 4 4
Matrices
Deleting a Row/Column
 Assigning an empty matrix [] deletes the
referenced rows or columns. Examples:
octave:4> A(2,:) = []
A =
1 2 3 4 5
-3 -3 -3 -3 -3
4 4 4 4 4

octave:4> A(:,1:2:5) = []
A =
2 4
2 2
-3 -3
4 4
Matrices
Get Size
 nr = size(A,1) Get number of rows of A
 nc = size(A,2) Get number of columns of
A
 [nr nc] = size(A) Get both (remember
order)
 l = length(A) Get whatever is bigger
 numel(A) Get number of elements in
A
 isempty(A) Check if A is empty matrix
[]

Octave only:
Matrices
Matrix Operations
 B = 3*A Multiply by scalar
 C = A*B + X - D Add and multiply
 B = A' Transpose A
 B = inv(A) Invert A
 s = v'*Q*v Mix vectors and matrices

 d = det(A) Determinant of A
 [v lambda] = eig(A) Eigenvalue
decomposition
 [U S V] = svd(A) Sing. value
decomposition
Matrices
Vector Operations
With x being a column vector
 s = x'*x Inner product, result is a scalar
 X = x*x' Outer product, result is a
matrix
 e = x*x Gives an error

Element-Wise Operations (for vectors/matrices)

 s = x.+x Element-wise addition
 p = x.*x Element-wise multiplication
 q = x./x Element-wise division
 e = x.^3 Element-wise power operator
Matrices
Useful Vector Functions
 sum(v) Compute sum of elements of v
 cumsum(v) Compute cumulative sum of
elements of v
 prod(v) Compute product of elements of
v
 cumprod(v) Compute cumulative product of
elements of v
 diff(v) Compute difference of
subsequent elements [v(2)-v(1) v(3)-
v(2) ...]
 mean(v) Mean value of elements in v
 std(v) Standard deviation of elements
Matrices
Useful Vector Functions
 min(v) Return smallest element in v
 max(v) Return largest element in v

 sort(v,'ascend') Sort in ascending order

 sort(v,'descend') Sort in descending order

 find(v) Return vector of indices of all

non- zero elements in v. Great in
combi- nation with vectorized
conditions. Example:
ivec = find(datavec == 5).
Matrices
Special Matrices
 A = zeros(m,n) Zero matrix of size m x n
 B = ones(m,n) Matrix of size m x n with all
1's
 I = eye(n) Identity matrix of size n
 D = diag([a b c]) Diagonal matrix of size 3 x 3
with a,b,c in the main
diagonal

Just for fun

 M = magic(n) Magic square matrix of size
n x n. (All rows and columns
sum up to the same
number)
Matrices
Random Matrices and Vectors
 R = rand(m,n) Matrix with m x n uniformly
distributed random numbers
from interval [0..1]
 N = randn(m,n) Row vector with m x n
normally
distributed random numbers
with zero mean, unit
variance
 v = randperm(n) Row vector with a random
permutation of the numbers
1 to n
Matrices
Multi-Dimensional Matrices
Matrices can have more than two dimensions.
 Create a 3-dimensional matrix by typing, e.g.,
octave:1> A = ones(2,5,2)

Octave will respond by

A =
ans(:,:,1) =
1 1 1 1 1
1 1 1 1 1
ans(:,:,2) =
1 1 1 1 1
1 1 1 1 1
Matrices
Multi-Dimensional Matrices
 All operations to create, index, add, assign,
delete and get size apply in the same fashion

Examples:
 [m n l] = size(A)
 A = rand(m,n,l)
 m = min(min(min(A)))
 aijk = A(i,j,k)
 A(:,:,5) = -3
 Assessment 1
1. Create the following matrix
2. Find its size
3. Find its transpose matrix A.
4. Find the second row of A and store it in vector B.
5. Add first column in F to B (element-wise addition)