dot

(.) symbol

Calling Sequence

123.33
a.*b

[123,..
456]

Description

:. Dot is used to mark decimal point for numbers : 3.25 and 0.001 : :.<op> used in conjunction with other operator symbols ( */ ^ ‘)

to form other operators. Element-by-element multiplicative operations are obtained using .* , .^ , ./ , .` or `.’. For example, C = A ./ B is the matrix with elements c(i,j) = a(i,j)/b(i,j). Kronecker product is noted .*. . Note that when dot follows a number it is always a part of the number so 2.*x is evaluated as 2.0*x and 2 .*x is evaluated as (2).*x.

: :.. Continuation mark. Two or more dots at the end of a line (or followed by a comment) causes the following line to be a continuation. Continuation lines are handled by a preprocessor which builds a long logical line from a sequence of continuation lines. So the continuation marks can be used to cut a line at any point. The following function foo:

function
  a=1
  `disp`_(a),..
  `disp`_('ok')
endfunction

is equivalent to:

function
  a=1

  `disp`_(a),`disp`_('ok')
endfunction

The logical line formed by physical line 3 and physical line 4 is

built as if it was entirely written in the physical line 4 while physical line 3 would be empty. This is done this way because continuation marks can be put anywhere even inside an expression.

:

Examples

//decimal point
1.345

//used as part of an operator
x=[1 2 3];x.^2 .*x // a space is required between 2 and dot

// used to enter continuation lines
T=[123,..//first element
   456] //second one

a="here I start a very long string...  //but I'm not in the mood of continuing
     - and here I go on"
y=12..
45

See Also

• star (*) multiplication operator
• hat (^) exponentiation
• slash (/) right division and feed back
• backslash () left matrix division.