Help with a vector

Hello. My prof gave this code in class but I dont really understand how X(2:1:-1, 3:-1:1) produced ans2 = [6, 5, 4; 3, 2, 1]. His code is as follows:

X=[1,2,3;4,5,6]

ans1= [1, 2, 3; 4, 5, 6]

X(2:-1:1, 3:-1:1)

ans2= [6, 5, 4; 3, 2, 1]

Can someone please explain to me how ans2 is computed? Thank you.

Answer 1

[Walter Roberson]

X=[1,2,3;4,5,6]
X(2:-1:1, 3:-1:1)

2:-1:1 is the list of integers [2 1]

3:-1:1 is the list of integers [3 2 1]

So that is a call to index

X([2 1], [3 2 1])

When you index with vectors or arrays, MATLAB produces an output for each combination of entries. So it is going to produce an output for X(2, [3 2 1]) and an output for X(1, [3 2 1]) . In turn, X(2, [3 2 1]) would produce an output for X(2, 3), X(2,2), X(2,1)

So the output would be

[X(2,3), X(2, 2), X(2,1)
 X(1,3), X(1, 2), X(1,1)]