am new to Matlab and can anyone help me with this question. Is there an alternative way of calculating the min and max of a vector without using functions min() and max()

Hello !

[Rik]

Yes. However, if we just give you an answer for this you won't learn anything. So what have you tried? What code have you written? How didn't that work?

[Peter Akortsu]

Hi Rik, thanks for the reply. I have no idea as to what code to write if am not to use min or max functions. Am totally new to programming and MATLAB. I have read the documentation on how to use min and max but the instruction from the homework makes it clear not to use then min and max functions. I don't want the easiest way out that is why I have not pasted the question. I just want to find out if there is a little bit complicated way I can think about finding min or max of a set of numbers without using the inbuilt functions.

[Rik]

As Joel outlined in his answer you need to think about what the min and max actually mean. What step-wise proces do you need to find the solution? There is a reason one of my professors told me he would rather give up his computer than his whiteboard when given a programming task: first design the process, then implement it in your language of choice.

An example of such a design might be this (this example will find the greatest common denominator). The design is written in comments, the code is a test to run.

%input: a, b (both integers saved as double)
a=2*3*19*31;b=2*17*31;
%first guess of the GCD is the smallest of the two
output=min(a,b);
%test if the guess is a denominator of both
if mod(a,output)==0 && mod(b,output)==0
else
    %if not decrease the guess by one
    output=output-1;
end
%repeat until the test returns true
while ~(mod(a,output)==0 && mod(b,output)==0)
    output=output-1;
end
%show factors with built-in function to confirm:
clc,disp(factor(a)),disp(factor(b)),disp(factor(output))

Answer 1

[Joel Meyer Espinoza]

for max you could use this

a=[4 3 6 4 10 23 2 5 6]
max=a(1,1)
for i = 1:size(a,2)
if max < a(1,i)
    max=a(1,i);
end
end

try to figure out min by yourself

it should not be difficult

[Joel Meyer Espinoza]

the box is part of the code dont know why it appears as a box

just comment for any further question

[James Tursa]

Please do not provide complete solutions to homework problems. Also, you should not use "max" as a variable name since that will shadow the MATLAB function max and will be a source of confusion later. Finally, Your code looks funny because you didn't format it by selecting it and pressing the "{ } Code" button.

[Joel Meyer Espinoza]

i noticed thanks james

i am new to the forum

just trying to improve with answering questions

[Rik]

If you click the edit button next to your answer you can see what I've done. See here for a GIF showing how to format your code on this forum. The changes to the content (i.e. changing the variable name to something different) is something I will leave to you.