15: Chapter Review

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This chapter presented scripts and suggested reasons to use them. We computed elements of a Fibonacci sequence, but because we used floating-point numbers, the results were sometimes only approximate. And we saw how to add comments to a program to document what it does and explain how it works.

Here are some terms from this chapter you might want to remember.

An M-file is a file that contains a script, which is a sequence of MATLAB/Octave commands. The search path is the list of folders where the interpreter looks for M-files.

A precondition is something that must be true when the script starts in order for it to work correctly; a postcondition is something that will be true when the script completes.

The target of an assignment statement is the variable on the left side.

Floating-point is a way to represent and store numbers in a computer. is a format for typing and displaying large and small numbers; for example, 3.0e8 represents \(3.0 \times 10^8\) or 300,000,000.

A verbatim is part of a program that provides additional information about the program, but does not affect its execution.

In the next chapter, you’ll learn how to write programs that perform repetitive tasks using loops.