Program Control Statements :: Basic Program Components (MATLAB®)

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Program Control Statements

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Conditional Control — if, switch Loop Control — for, while, continue, break Error Control — try, catch Program Termination — return

On this page…

Conditional Control — if, switch

Loop Control — for, while, continue, break

Error Control — try, catch

Program Termination — return

Conditional Control — if, switch

This group of control statements enables you to select at run-time which block of code is executed. To make this selection based on whether a condition is true or false, use the if statement (which may include else or elseif). To select from a number of possible options depending on the value of an expression, use the switch and case statements (which may include otherwise).

if, else, and elseif

if evaluates a logical expression and executes a group of statements based on the value of the expression. In its simplest form, its syntax is

if logical_expression
    statements
end

If the logical expression is true (that is, if it evaluates to logical 1), the MATLAB software executes all the statements between the if and end lines. It resumes execution at the line following the end statement. If the condition is false (evaluates to logical 0), MATLAB skips all the statements between the if and end lines, and resumes execution at the line following the end statement.

For example,

if rem(a, 2) == 0
    disp('a is even')
    b = a/2;
end

You can nest any number of if statements.

If the logical expression evaluates to a nonscalar value, all the elements of the argument must be nonzero. For example, assume X is a matrix. Then the statement

if X
    statements
end

is equivalent to

if all(X(:))
    statements
end

The else and elseif statements further conditionalize the if statement:

The else statement has no logical condition. The statements associated with it execute if the preceding if (and possibly elseif condition) evaluates to logical 0 (false).
The elseif statement has a logical condition that it evaluates if the preceding if (and possibly elseif condition) is false. The statements associated with it execute if its logical condition evaluates to logical 1 (true). You can have multiple elseif statements within an if block.
```
if n < 0             % If n negative, display error message.
    disp('Input must be positive');
elseif rem(n,2) == 0 % If n positive and even, divide by 2.
    A = n/2;
else
    A = (n+1)/2;     % If n positive and odd, increment and divide.
end
```

if Statements and Empty Arrays. An if condition that reduces to an empty array represents a false condition. That is,

if A
   S1
else
   S0
end

executes statement S0 when A is an empty array.

switch, case, and otherwise

switch executes certain statements based on the value of a variable or expression. Its basic form is

switch expression (scalar or string)
   case value1
      statements       % Executes if expression is value1
   case value2
      statements       % Executes if expression is value2
    .
    .
    .
   otherwise
      statements       % Executes if expression does not
                       % match any case
end

This block consists of

The word switch followed by an expression to evaluate.
Any number of case groups. These groups consist of the word case followed by a possible value for the expression, all on a single line. Subsequent lines contain the statements to execute for the given value of the expression. These can be any valid MATLAB statement including another switch block. Execution of a case group ends when MATLAB encounters the next case statement or the otherwise statement. Only the first matching case is executed.
An optional otherwise group. This consists of the word otherwise, followed by the statements to execute if the expression's value is not handled by any of the preceding case groups. Execution of the otherwise group ends at the end statement.
An end statement.

switch works by comparing the input expression to each case value. For numeric expressions, a case statement is true if (value==expression). For string expressions, a case statement is true if strcmp(value,expression).

The code below shows a simple example of the switch statement. It checks the variable input_num for certain values. If input_num is -1, 0, or 1, the case statements display the value as text. If input_num is none of these values, execution drops to the otherwise statement and the code displays the text 'other value'.

switch input_num
    case -1
        disp('negative one');
    case 0
        disp('zero');
    case 1
        disp('positive one');
    otherwise
         disp('other value');
end

Note For C programmers, unlike the C language switch construct, the MATLAB switch does not "fall through." That is, if the first case statement is true, other case statements do not execute. Therefore, break statements are not used.

switch can handle multiple conditions in a single case statement by enclosing the case expression in a cell array.

switch var
    case 1
        disp('1')
    case {2,3,4}
        disp('2 or 3 or 4')
    case 5
        disp('5')
    otherwise
        disp('something else')
end

Loop Control — for, while, continue, break

With loop control statements, you can repeatedly execute a block of code, looping back through the block while keeping track of each iteration with an incrementing index variable. Use the for statement to loop a specific number of times. The while statement is more suitable for basing the loop execution on how long a condition continues to be true or false. The continue and break statements give you more control on exiting the loop.

Note You can often speed up the execution of MATLAB code by replacing for and while loops with vectorized code. See Techniques for Improving Performance for more information on this.

for

The for loop executes a statement or group of statements a predetermined number of times. Its syntax is

for index = start:increment:end
    statements
end

The default increment is 1. You can specify any increment, including a negative one. For positive indices, execution terminates when the value of the index exceeds the end value; for negative increments, it terminates when the index is less than the end value.

For example, this loop executes five times.

for n = 2:6
    x(n) = 2 * x(n - 1);
end

You can nest multiple for loops.

for m = 1:5
    for n = 1:100
        A(m, n) = 1/(m + n - 1);
    end
end

Note You can often speed up the execution of MATLAB code by replacing for and while loops with vectorized code. See Vectorizing Loops for details.

Using Arrays as Indices. The index of a for loop can be an array. For example, consider an m-by-n array A. The statement

for k = A
    statements
end

sets k equal to the vector A(:,i), where i is the iteration number of the loop. For the first loop iteration, k is equal to A(:,1); for the second, k is equal to A(:,2); and so on until k equals A(:,n). That is, the loop iterates for a number of times equal to the number of columns in A. For each iteration, k is a vector containing one of the columns of A.

while

The while loop executes a statement or group of statements repeatedly as long as the controlling expression is true (1). Its syntax is

while expression
    statements
end

If the expression evaluates to a matrix, all its elements must be 1 for execution to continue. To reduce a matrix to a scalar value, use the all and any functions.

For example, this while loop finds the first integer n for which n! (n factorial) is a 100-digit number.

n = 1;
while prod(1:n) < 1e100
    n = n + 1;
end

Exit a while loop at any time using the break statement.

while Statements and Empty Arrays. A while condition that reduces to an empty array represents a false condition. That is,

while A, S1, end

never executes statement S1 when A is an empty array.

continue

The continue statement passes control to the next iteration of the for or while loop in which it appears, skipping any remaining statements in the body of the loop. The same holds true for continue statements in nested loops. That is, execution continues at the beginning of the loop in which the continue statement was encountered.

The example below shows a continue loop that counts the lines of code in the file, magic.m, skipping all blank lines and comments. A continue statement is used to advance to the next line in magic.m without incrementing the count whenever a blank line or comment line is encountered.

fid = fopen('magic.m', 'r');
count = 0;
while ~feof(fid)
    line = fgetl(fid);
    if isempty(line) | strncmp(line, '%', 1)
        continue
    end
    count = count + 1;
end
disp(sprintf('%d lines', count));

break

The break statement terminates the execution of a for loop or while loop. When a break statement is encountered, execution continues with the next statement outside of the loop. In nested loops, break exits from the innermost loop only.

The example below shows a while loop that reads the contents of the file fft.m into a MATLAB character array. A break statement is used to exit the while loop when the first empty line is encountered. The resulting character array contains the M-file help for the fft program.

fid = fopen('fft.m', 'r');
s = '';
while ~feof(fid) 
   line = fgetl(fid);
   if isempty(line)
      break
   end
   s = strvcat(s, line);
end
disp(s)

Error Control — try, catch

Error control statements provide a way for you to take certain actions in the event of an error. Use the try statement to test whether a certain command in your code generates an error. If an error does occur within the try block, MATLAB immediately jumps to the corresponding catch block. The catch part of the statement needs to respond in some way to the error.

try and catch

The general form of a try-catch statement sequence is

try
   statement
   ...
   statement
catch
   statement
   ...
   statement
end

In this sequence, the statements between try and catch are executed until an error occurs. The statements between catch and end are then executed. Use lasterr to see the cause of the error. If an error occurs between catch and end, MATLAB terminates execution unless another try-catch sequence has been established.

Program Termination — return

Program termination control enables you to exit from your program at some point prior to its normal termination point.

return

After a MATLAB function runs to completion, it terminates and returns control either to the function that called it, or to the keyboard. If you need to exit a function prior to the point of normal completion, you can force an early termination using the return function. return immediately terminates the current sequence of commands and exits the currently running function.

return is also used to terminate keyboard mode.

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