Re: why two indexes in 1d cell array ? (octave-3.4.2) ... how about more dimensions ?

[Ben Abbott]

On Aug 10, 2011, at 3:18 PM, Sergei Steshenko wrote:

> c =
> {
>  [1,1] = a string
>  [1,2] =
> "
> 
> I see _two_ indexes, i.e. "[1,1]...", "[1,2]", though to me it looks like
> created a _1d_ (just _one_ dimension) cell array;

Matlab originated from Fortran code. Thus, arrays were/are column-major.

        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Row-major_order#Column-major_order

When the source code switched to C, Matlab maintained the default column-major 
storage order for arrays. This means that A = 1:5 produces a single row with 5 
columns.

However, since C is row-major ...

        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Row-major_order#Row-major_order

... a 1D array requires two indices. The fist specifies the row [1], and the 
second the column.

For compatibility with Matlab, Octave adopted the same approach.

> Is this all expected and documented behavior ?

Yes this is expected and deliberate. If you search the manual. you'll find a 
few instances where the effect of "column-major" ordering is mentioned.

Ben