Mastering MATLAB 7 Errata

Here's the errata for the first edition of Mastering MATLAB 7. Corrections are listed in page order.

If you find any content or typographical errors not listed here, please contact the authors so we can update this list. Thanks.

• page 6: just before Section 2.2, the command

  help precendence

  should read

  help precedence

• page 18: the entries in the Trigonometric Function table with arguments in degrees are missing the trailing d in the function name. (Thanks to Jack Albers.)

  cos	Cosine with argument in degrees
  cot	Cotangent with argument in degrees
  csc	Cosecant with argument in degrees
  sec	Secant with argument in degrees
  sin	Sine with argument in degrees
  tan	Tangent with argument in degrees

  should read

  cosd	Cosine with argument in degrees
  cotd	Cotangent with argument in degrees
  cscd	Cosecant with argument in degrees
  secd	Secant with argument in degrees
  sind	Sine with argument in degrees
  tand	Tangent with argument in degrees

• page 19: the cartpol entry in the Coordinate Transformation Function table is missing the 2. (Thanks to Onder Eker.)

  cartpol

  Cartesian to cylindrical or polar

  should read

  cart2pol

  Cartesian to cylindrical or polar

• page 41: the vector y actually contains 11 elements. Therefore, the following example in the middle of the page is incorrect. (Thanks to Mark Stephenson.)

  » y(11)
  ??? Index exceeds matrix dimensions.

  should read

  » y(12)
  ??? Index exceeds matrix dimensions.

• page 65: in the first paragraph, the word columns should be rows. (Thanks to Brad Budlong.)

  reveals that you can place the second and third columns of A...

  should read

  reveals that you can place the second and third rows of A...

• page 72: the last example has the wrong sign. (Thanks to Brad Budlong.)

  » y = B(x) % grab True values
  y =
      5
     -3
      4
  

  should read

  » y = B(x) % grab True values
  y =
      5
     -3
     -4
  

• page 105: the third sub2ind example comments are incorrect. (Thanks to Hendrik Boshoff.)

  » sub2ind(size(F),1,2,3) % 1st element, 2nd column...

  should read

  » sub2ind(size(F),1,2,3) % 1st row, 2nd column...

• page 118: the third command has two typographical errors (Thanks to Rapaport Eliezer.)

  » kk(1:2:end) = pi % insert a noninteger value!
  Kkk =

  should read

  » kkk(1:2:end) = pi % insert a noninteger value!
  kkk =

• page 156: at the bottom of the page, the second argument to rmfield should be a character array or a cell array of strings. The example returns a list which is incorrect. (Thanks to Enrique Pacheco-Cabrera.)

  » circle3 = rmfield(circle,fnames{1:3})

  should read

  » circle3 = rmfield(circle,fnames(1:3))

• page 194: the operator for the short-circuiting logical OR is || rather than | as shown in the table. (Thanks to Onder Eker.)

  Short-circuiting logical OR (|)

  Lowest

  should read

  Short-circuiting logical OR (||)

  Lowest

• page 211: the formulas for two of the conversions are incorrect in the switch/case block. The meter to centimeter conversion requires a multiplication while the millimeter to centimeter conversion requires a division. (Thanks to Lynden Mahrt for catching this one.)

  case {'meter','m'}
    y = x/100;
  case {'millimeter','mm'}
    y = x*10;

  should read

  case {'meter','m'}
    y = x*100;
  case {'millimeter','mm'}
    y = x/10;

• page 227: the fourth line of code (containing Tar) should be at the end of the preceding comment line. The line word-wrapped inappropriately.
• page 227: the line of code beginning with exist should move to the right; it should be aligned vertically with the preceding and following lines of code.
• page 227: the comment in the last line of code on the page refers to the wrong variable (thanks to Fréderique Lotin).

  yname=inputname(2); % get x argument name if it exists

  should read

  yname=inputname(2); % get y argument name if it exists

• page 282: the vector b should be y, Therefore, the following statement in the middle of the page is incorrect. (Thanks to a reader from AOL.)

  » x=A\b % solution with maximum zero elements

  should read

  » x=A\y % solution with maximum zero elements

• page 314: the size of yi has an extraneous digit. (Thanks to Fréderique Lotin.)

  » size(yi) % result is all three columns interpolated
  ans =
     100    31

  should read

  » size(yi) % result is all three columns interpolated
  ans =
     100    3

• pages 318 and 319: the indices for xmax and ymax were switched, (thanks to Dr. A. E. Bryson.)

  » xmax = xi(j)

  should read

  » xmax = xi(i)

  and on page 319:

  » ymax = yi(i)

  should read

  » ymax = yi(j)

• page 321: the tsearch and dsearch arguments have misplaced decimal points, (thanks to Dr. A. E. Bryson.)

  » tsearch(x,y,tri,[-.5 1],[.1 .5])
  and
  » dsearch(x,y,tri,[-.5 1],[.1 .5])

  should read

  » tsearch(x,y,tri,[-.5 .1],[1 .5])
  and
  » dsearch(x,y,tri,[-.5 .1],[1 .5])

• page 333: the second linestyle argument for the plot command should be -- to generate a dashed line. (Thanks to Fréderique Lotin.)

  » plot(x,y,'-o',xi,yi,'-')

  should read

  » plot(x,y,'-o',xi,yi,'--')

• page 621: the help text is incorrect. The arguments to an assignment operator must match in size (thanks to Matthew Fig). The line

  %      c(i)=sum(A(i)==B);

  should read

  %      c(i)=sum(A(i)==B(:));

• page 685: in the function whoami, the lines that display the data are incorrect. The variables myname and myip are Java Strings. The sprintf function needs character strings. Therefore, the strings must be explicitly converted for printing. (Thanks to Desi Dimova for catching the typo in the text.)

  disp(sprintf('My host name is %s',myname));
  disp(sprintf('My IP address is %s',myip));

  should read

  disp(sprintf('My host name is %s',char(myname)));
  disp(sprintf('My IP address is %s',char(myip)));