How do I differentiate in MATLAB?

Many students ask me how do I do this or that in MATLAB.  So I thought why not have a small series of my next few blogs do that.  In this blog, I show you how to differentiate a function.

The MATLAB program link is here.

The HTML version of the MATLAB program is here.

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%% HOW DO I DO THAT IN MATLAB SERIES?
% In this series, I am answering questions that students have asked
% me about MATLAB.  Most of the questions relate to a mathematical
% procedure.

%% TOPIC
% How do I differentiate a function?

%% SUMMARY
% Language : Matlab 2008a
% Authors : Autar Kaw
% Mfile available at
% http://nm.mathforcollege.com/blog/differentiation.m
% Last Revised : March 21, 2009
% Abstract: This program shows you how to differentiate a given function

%% INTRODUCTION
clc
clear all
disp(‘ABSTRACT’)
disp(‘   This program shows you how to differentiate’)
disp(‘   a given function and then find its value’)
disp(‘   at a given point’)
disp(‘ ‘)
disp(‘AUTHOR’)
disp(‘   Autar K Kaw of https://autarkaw.wordpress.com’)
disp(‘ ‘)
disp(‘MFILE SOURCE’)
disp(‘   http://nm.mathforcollege.com/blog/differentiation.m’)
disp(‘ ‘)
disp(‘LAST REVISED’)
disp(‘   March 21, 2009’)
disp(‘ ‘)

%% INPUTS

% Differentiate 7 exp(3*x) once and find the value of the
% first derivative at x=0.5
% Define x as a symbol
syms x
% Defining the function to be differentiated
y=7*exp(3*x);
% Defining the point where you want to find the derivative
xx=0.5;

%% DISPLAYING INPUTS
disp(‘INPUTS’)
func=[‘  The function is to be differentiated is ‘ char(y)];
disp(func)
fprintf(‘  Value of x where you want to find the derivative, x= %g’,xx)
disp(‘  ‘)
disp(‘  ‘)

%% THE CODE
% Finding the derivative using the diff command
% Argument 1 is the function to be differentiated
% Argument 2 is the variable with respect to which the
%    function is to be differentiated – the independent variable
% Argument 3 is the order of derivative
dydx=diff(y,x,1);
% subs command substitues the value of x
dydx_val=subs(dydx,x,xx);
%% DISPLAYING OUTPUTS
disp(‘OUTPUTS’)
derivative_func=[‘  The derivative of function ‘ char(y) ‘ is ‘ char(dydx)];
disp(derivative_func)
fprintf(‘  Value of dydx at x=%g is =%g’,xx,dydx_val)
disp(‘  ‘)

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This post is brought to you by Holistic Numerical Methods: Numerical Methods for the STEM undergraduate at http://nm.mathforcollege.com, the textbook on Numerical Methods with Applications available from the lulu storefront, and the YouTube video lectures available at http://nm.mathforcollege.com/videos and http://www.youtube.com/numericalmethodsguy

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