Re: Why is different ^ and .^?

[Mike Miller]

On Tue, 24 May 2005, Javier Arantegui Jimenez wrote:

> Mike Miller said:
> > a^2 means a*a
> > a.^2 means "square every element of a"
> >
> > a^2  therefore requires that 'a' be a square matrix or scalar.
> > a.^2 does not require that 'a' have any particular dimensions
>
> OK. I understand it. But, could Octave be smart enough to distinguish 
> between those cases? I think that other programs, like Euler, don't need 
> to do this distinction.


Suppose 'a' is a square matrix, then what does this mean?:

a^2

I think it is best not to try to read the user's mind.  ;-)

See what I mean?

I don't know about Euler, but it sounds like you also are unsure of how it 
works.  We know how MATLAB works, and we try to keep Octave compatible 
with MATLAB, at least for simple functions like this one.

Mike



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