Why does matlab index from 1

Answers Support MathWorks. Search Support Clear Filters. Support Answers MathWorks. Search MathWorks. MathWorks Answers Support. Open Mobile Search. Trial software. You are now following this question You will see updates in your activity feed. You may receive emails, depending on your notification preferences. Is it possible to put array index as zero in matlab? Show older comments. Ashutosh on 25 Sep Vote 0. Commented: Grady Fort on 26 Feb Accepted Answer: ES. I have boundary value problem in heat transfer.

My boundary point starts from 1. However due to the finite difference approximation of derivatives when applying equations at the boundaries the finite difference equation will encounter one point outside the boundary i.

I agree that it would be possible to add zero-based indexing to MATLAB, using either new notation or an object that overloaded all of our existing indexing notation. It could be backwards compatible in the sense that old code that didn't know about or use the new stuff would still work. But here is the key point: none of our existing code would work with the new object. You couldn't plot it; you couldn't print it; you certainly couldn't do any matrix operations with it.

Yes, over time, everything could be rewritten to handle the extension, but that is what we want to avoid. It would be like AM and FM radio -- two systems living in the same box, but with separate and independent underlying technology.

Matlab is intended as a way of making the functionality of programming languages accessible to people who haven't learnt to code. Having indices start at 0 can be a common source of bugs for people not familiar with programming, and the whole point of Matlab is to enable people to apply maths they understand to problems they need to solve, without much additional knowledge.

Most of the tasks that Matlab is used for, e. In addition to this, Matlab is short for "matrix laboratory", and in mathematics, the convention is typically to index matrices starting at 1, so it kind of makes sense that they will follow this convention. Unable to complete the action because of changes made to the page. Reload the page to see its updated state. Choose a web site to get translated content where available and see local events and offers.

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