shape of x(y)

[John W. Eaton]

On  1-Aug-2000, Andy Adler <address@hidden> wrote:

| I'm trying to figure out the rules
| octave uses for index expressions of type: x(y)
| 
| They seems to be quite complicated, this
| is what I could figure out.
| 
|   x is matrix: result is same shape as y
|   x is vector: result is same orientation as x
|   x is scalar: result is column orientation
| 
| Is this correct?

Close, but in the last case, Octave actually uses the value of
prefer_column_vectors to decide whether to create a row or column
vector.  But that will likely change, since now I see it is not
compatible with Matlab, even if prefer_column_vectors is set to 0.

| I need to know so that I can
| make the sparse functions do the same thing
| as the current "full" matrix rules.
| 
| Additionally, I find these rules unecessarily
| complicated. Wouln't a rule like:
|   result is same shape as y
| work in all cases?

No, because then I don't think it would be compatible with Matlab.  It
appears that Matlab now returns

  x is matrix: result is same shape as y
  x is vector: result is same orientation as x
  x is scalar: result is same shape as y

| Or this this another example of bug-for-bug
| MATLAB compatibility?

Maybe, only it seems it is no longer compatible either (I thought that
it once was, at least if prefer_column_vectors was set to 0).

jwe



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