MATLAB Cheat Sheet
+ - * / \ ^ (matrix), .* ./ .^ (element-wise), ' .' (transposes), == ~= < <= > >=, & | ~ xor, && ||.
Concept
% text, block %{... %} Continue a line help f, doc f, lookfor word
who, whos, clear x, clc, close all disp(x), fprintf('%d %.2f %s %g\n',...), sprintf
[1 2 3], [1; 2], a:s:b, linspace, zeros, ones, eye, rand, magic
size, numel, length, ndims, isempty A(r, c), A(:, k), A(end,:), v(mask), A(k) (linear)
A', reshape, A(:), repmat, cat, [A B], [A; B] v(k) = [], v(end + 1) = x
find, any, all, sort, unique, ismember, max, min
+ - * / \ ^ (matrix), .* ./ .^ (element-wise), ' .' (transposes), == ~= < <= > >=, & | ~ xor, && ||.
3, int16(3), single(3) true, v > 0 s(1:3), strcmp, sprintf String (MATLAB) +, contains, split c{k}, c(k) s.f = 1, struct(...) s.f, s.(name), [s.f] m(key), isKey, keys Table (MATLAB) table(...), readtable T.Var, T(rows,:)
readmatrix/writematrix, readtable/writetable, csvread/csvwrite, fopen/fprintf/fgetl/fclose, textscan, save/load, jsondecode/jsonencode, fullfile, dir, exist.
plot, scatter, bar, histogram/hist, stem, semilogx, loglog, surf, mesh, contour, plot3, imagesc, subplot/tiledlayout, hold on, xlabel, ylabel, title, legend, grid on, axis, colorbar, print/exportgraphics.
A \ b, lu, qr, chol, eig, svd, cond, rank roots, polyval, polyfit, conv, polyder interp1, interp2, spline, pchip trapz, cumtrapz, integral ode45, ode15s, odeset
fzero, fminbnd, fminsearch (+ toolbox fmincon, lsqcurvefit)
fft, ifft, filter, conv, movmean mean, median, std, var, corrcoef, accumarray, histc
tic/toc, timeit, profile on/viewer, preallocate with zeros, vectorize, parfor, gpuArray.
if c, ..., elseif c2, ..., else, ..., end
switch x, case 1, ..., case {2, 3}, ..., otherwise, ..., end
for k = 1:n, ..., end
while c, ..., end % break, continue
try, ..., catch err, ..., endfunction [a, b] = f(x, y) % file f.m
g = @(x) x.^2; % anonymous
h = @sin; % handle
arrayfun(@f, A); cellfun(@f, C, 'UniformOutput', false);Why It Matters
A compact reference speeds up daily work and interview preparation.
Example
The cheat sheet summarizes code that is demonstrated and verified in Modules 1–31.
Expected Result
Not applicable — use the tables as a quick reference.
Common Mistakes
Forgetting which functions need a toolbox (marked in Module 31).
Mixing MATLAB-only syntax ("...", table) into code that must run in Octave or older releases.
Best Practices
Keep your own cheat sheet of snippets from your projects.
Use doc for exact options — MATLAB functions have many name–value arguments.
Interview Relevance
Revision material for all interview levels.
Practice Questions
Without looking, write the code to read a CSV, compute column means and plot them as a bar chart.
List five functions that return two outputs and what the second output means.
Write the three ways to create the vector 0, 0.25, …, 1.
Which cheat-sheet functions are MATLAB-only?
Quick Quiz
Q1. (Multiple choice) Which continues a statement on the next line? A) \ B) ... C) ; D) % Answer: B.
Q2. (True/False) A(:) returns all elements of A as a column vector.
Answer: True. Q3. (Predict the output) numel(0:0.25:1) Answer: 5.
Q4. (Find the bug) x = linspace(0, 1, 0.1); Answer: The third argument is the number of points, not the step; use 0:0.1:1 or linspace(0, 1, 11).
Coding Challenge
Create the vector 0, 0.25, …, 1 in three different ways and verify that all three are equal.
a = 0:0.25:1;
b = linspace(0, 1, 5);
c = (0:4) / 4;
fprintf('equal: %d %d\n', isequal(a, b), isequal(b, c))