Page 822 - Mechatronics with Experiments

808 MECHATRONICS

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FIGURE A.2: MATLAB environment and main user interface windows.

saves/accesses the files from the Current Working Directory. If it cannot find a file in
the Current Working Directory, then it searches the deirectories defined in the “Path.”
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5. Launch Pad Window: to start different components of MATLAB , such as
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Simulink , StateFlow, and so on.
6. Profiler: The profile function is used to debug and optimize M-files by tracking their
execution time. For each function in the M-file, the Profiler records information about
execution time, number of calls, parent functions, child functions, code line hit count,
and code line execution time.
7. Help Window: a separate window that allows access to a complete online help on all
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of the MATLAB tools.
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MATLAB is used in one of two modes:
1. Interactive mode: the user types the commands in the “Command Window” and gets
results after executing that command.
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2. Programming mode: the user writes programs in MATLAB language (also called
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MATLAB script) and saves them in M-files. The name of the M-file is typed at the
command window to run the programs.

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A.1.1 Data in MATLAB Environment
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In MATLAB , a data variable is created by giving it a name and assigning a value to
that name by placing it on the left hand side of an assignment statement. For instance, the
following example shows how to create a variable named “x” and assign a value to it. By
default, it has data type of double.
>> x = 1.25 ;
Unlike in high level languages, such as C and Fortran, we do not need to declare the data
type of a variable before it is used.