how to perform symbolic factorial ?

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I am trying to generate symbolic sums that represent, say, taylor series of some function. This series includes a factorial term but I have been unable to implement it. I may have something like: syms x n f=1/(1-x^4) f2=symsum((1/factorial(n))*f^(n),n,0,10) where f^(n) is the "nth" derivative of f. "factorial(n)" is a placeholder to illustrate what I am trying to accomplish. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. By the way, I am aware of the "Taylor" function. The above example was used to point out my problem area.

Accepted Answer

Walter Roberson
Walter Roberson on 7 Mar 2011
The MuPad factorial function name is fact() . This does not, however, appear to be exposed at the Matlab level, so you might need to use, (e.g.,)
f2=symsum((1/sym('factorial(n)'))*f^(n),n,0,10)
  3 Comments
Walter Roberson
Walter Roberson on 25 Mar 2011
Good question. It's a mystery to me as to why there were multiple copies of my comment!

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More Answers (1)

Andrew Newell
Andrew Newell on 7 Mar 2011
You can use
gamma(n+1)
to get n factorial. Gamma is a generalization of factorial to real numbers.
(edited to apply Walter's correction)
  4 Comments
Frank DiJoseph
Frank DiJoseph on 10 Mar 2011
I will try both responses. Thanks very much!
Frank DiJoseph
Frank DiJoseph on 10 Mar 2011
Thanks very much - this works also!

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