I use R with Python a lot, Octave is the chosen language in Coursera course: Machine Learning by Stanford University.

So this article will only cover necessary concept to finish this Machine Learning course.

Index

In Octave, matrix and vector are indexed from 1, which differs from many other languages.

Output

One line not ending with a semicolon will print the result to output, with semicolon with suppress that output.

Or use disp(i); or sprintf(i)

String

Compare

strcmp, strmatch

Cell-array

Acess

ca = cell(2,1); % create cell array
ca{1} = 'abc'; % assign to first element
ca{2} = 'def'; % assign to second element
ca{1}; % access first element

Range

1:10 will create a 1x10 matrix or say 10-element vector with numbers from 1 to 10. 1:2:10 will create vector with each other numbers from 1 to 10, i.e. [1 3 5 7 9]. The middle 2 is the specified step.

Matrix, Vector

Assignment

% assign a matrix to A: 
A = [1 2; 3 4; 5 6]
A =
    1   2
    3   4
    5   6

% assign to second column
>> A(:,2) = [10 11 12]
% space, comma or semicolon doesn't matter here
>> A(:,2) = [10, 11, 12]
>> A(:,2) = [10; 11; 12]

Access

% access A at first row and second column.
>> A(1,2)
ans = 2

% access second row, here colon refers to all columns
>> A(2,:)
ans =
    3   4

% access second column
>> A(:,2)
ans =
    2
    4
    6

a(2)       # result is a scalar
a(1:2)     # result is a row vector
a([1; 2])  # result is a column vector

a = [1, 2; 3, 4]
all of the following expressions are equivalent and select the first row of the matrix.

a(1, [1, 2])  # row 1, columns 1 and 2
a(1, 1:2)     # row 1, columns in range 1-2
a(1, :)       # row 1, all columns

a(1:end/2)        # first half of a => [1, 2]
a(end + 1) = 5;   # append element
a(end) = [];      # delete element
a(1:2:end)        # odd elements of a => [1, 3]
a(2:2:end)        # even elements of a => [2, 4]
a(end:-1:1)       # reversal of a => [4, 3, 2 , 1]

Fill

>> A = ones(2, 3) # ones or zeros
A =
   1   1   1
   1   1   1

>> rand(2, 3)
ans =
   0.47210   0.10022   0.35182
   0.69316   0.71345   0.71179

Concatenate

>> B = [20 21; 22 23; 24 25]
>> C = [A B] % concatenate A B horizontally
ans =
    1   2   20   21
    3   4   22   23
    5   6   24   25

>> D = [A; B] % concatenate A B vertically
ans =
    1   2
    3   4
    5   6
    20  21
    22  23
    24  25

Transpose

>> A' % transpose
ans =
    1   3   5
    2   4   6

Max, Min

>> max(magic(4)) % return every column's max
ans =
    16  14  15  13

>> max(magic(4), [], 2) % return every row's max
ans =
   16
   11
   12
   15

>> [val, ind] = max(magic(4)) % retuns every column's max and their index in corresponding column
val =
    16  14  15  13
ind =
    1   4   4   1

>> max(max(A)); % max element in matrix
>> A(:) % convert matrix into one column
ans =
    1
    3
    5
    2
    4
    6
>> max(A(:)) % max element in matrix
ans =
    6

Sum

>> sum(A) % sum of column
>> sum(A, 2) % sum of row

Sum of diagonals in a square matrix

>> M = magic(4);
>> sum(sum(M.*eye(4))) % sum of diagonal top left to bottom right
ans = 34
>> sum(sum(M.* flipud(eye(4) ))) % sum of diagonal bottom left to top right
ans = 34

Flip

>> flipud(A) $ flip matrix upside down
ans =
    5   6
    3   4
    1   2

Matrix select

A(A==2)

Reshape

>> reshape(A, 2, 3)
ans =
   1   5   4
   3   2   6

Functions & control statements

Functions are saved in files with the file-ending .m for MATLAB.

function y = function_name(x1, ...
    x2) % x2 is optional
    if ~exist('x2', 'var') || isempty(x2)
        x2 = 1;
    end        
    y = x1 + x2;
% y is the return value
% x1 is a parameter
% is also possible to return multiple values
function [y1, y2] = function_name(x1)
    y1 = x1^2
    y2 = x1^3

>> for i=1:10
>>      disp(i)
>> end;

>> i = 1;
>> while (i ~= 10)
>>      disp(i);
>>      i = i+1;
>> endwhile;

% i = 10
>> if (i == 10)
>>      sprintf('yes')
>> else
>>      sprintf('no')
>> endif
ans = yes

Anonymous function

@(x1, x2) another_func(x1, x2) % anonymous function, just like Python lambda

Logic operations

not equal ~=

logical AND &&

logical OR ||

logical XOR xor(1,0)

Reference:

https://gist.github.com/obstschale/7320846

http://folk.ntnu.no/joern/itgk/refcard-a4.pdf