How to plot a simple curve

I am trying to learn MATLAB and have stumbled straight away. Can someone please tell me how you plot y = x^2 for x = 1 to 10.

 Accepted Answer

Keeping as close as possible to your notation, to be clear to you:
>> x = 1 : 0.1 : 10;
>> y = x.^2;
>> plot(x,y)
Note that the 0.1 is there to define the intervals. You'll get a smoother curve in your plot if this value is small; the vector will have correspondingly more elements.
I agree with Jiro that you will benefit from a careful read of the documents he references.

1 Comment

Robert
Robert on 23 Feb 2011
Thank you, this is what I needed, sometimes it can be difficult trawling through documentation when you just want a simple answer. And it was the dot before the power sign that had me lost.

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More Answers (7)

Or, if you want to be able to do this for a general function (or more):
g = @(x) x.^2; % Create your function for plotting.
h = @(x) x.^2.5; %Create a second function.
x = 1:.01:10; % Create the range for the functions.
plot(x,g(x),'r',x,h(x),'b') % Use a red line for the first, blue for second.
To only plot one function:
plot(x,g(x)) % See help plot for more options.
Jiro Doke
Jiro Doke on 4 Feb 2011
Edited: John Kelly on 13 Nov 2013

3 votes

This is a very basic question and we have many places in the documentation for you to learn:
  1. plot
  2. Learn MATLAB
plot(1:.1:10,1:.1:10.^2)%x = 1 to 10 with spacing of 0.1
Also read the getting started documentation.
%SCd

1 Comment

Your code will error, Sean de. You are trying to plot different length vectors!

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Another useful function for plotting simple expressions is EZPLOT:
ezplot('x^2',[1,10])
or
ezplot(@(x) x.^2,[1,10])
Erick
Erick on 11 Sep 2014

0 votes

hello, how do I change my axes to have different ranges? for my graph below? and I want the curves to run from the x-axis upward to right

2 Comments

I suggest posting this as a new question, rather than burying as an "answer" to a 3-year-old question.
haha,,,,,
set x axix and y axis limits
xlim()
ylim()

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le nhat
le nhat on 18 May 2016

0 votes

how to paint graph with data activity

1 Comment

I suggest posting this as a new question, rather than burying as an "answer" to a 5-year-old question.

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Ademolawa John
Ademolawa John on 29 Apr 2022

0 votes

hello , pls how can I plot this curve that run from top left to bottom right with Y axis running from 1 to 16 and x from 1.8 to 2.7. Thanks

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