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4.4: Extracting Rows, Columns, and Subarrays

  • Page ID
    136622
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    Once a matrix is created, we often do not want the entire matrix. We might want one row, one column, or a smaller section. MATLAB makes this easy with indexing and the colon operator.

    Example \(\PageIndex{1}\)

    Extracting a block of data.

    mat2 = [2 10 5; 6 20 17; 13 2 0];
    
    data_1 = mat2(1,:)      % entire first row
    
    data_2= mat2(:,3)      % entire third column
    
    data_3 = mat2([2,3],[1,2])  % rows 2 and 3, columns 1 and 2
    
    Solution

    The colon symbol means "all" in this context. So mat2(1,:) means row 1 and all columns. Similarly, mat2(:,3) means all rows and column 3.

    data_1 =
    
        2   10    5
    
    data_2 =
    
        5
       17
        0
    
    data_3 =
    
        6   20
       13    2

    This page titled 4.4: Extracting Rows, Columns, and Subarrays was last modified on Tue, 30 Jun 2026 02:11:56 GMT and is shared under a CC BY-NC-SA license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by Zara Noroozi.

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