How do you drop the 'abs' that's sometimes attached to an output when we use the 'norm' function?

Here is some sample code:

 % 
  syms a theta
  param = [a*cos(theta), a*sin(theta), 0]
  norm(param)
 %

The output is:

 (abs(a*sin(theta))^2 + abs(a*cos(theta))^2)^(1/2).

What I want to see is:

(a^2*sin(theta)^2 + a^2*cos(theta)^2)^(1/2)

or the even more simplified version:

 a

Any ideas?

Answer 1

[Walter Roberson]

   syms a theta real

and you might want to simplify() the result of the norm()

The abs() is there because complex values are assumed.