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MATLAB - Operators
An operator is a symbol that tells the compiler to perform specific mathematical or logical
manipulations. MATLAB is designed to operate primarily on whole matrices and arrays. Therefore,
operators in MATLAB work both on scalar and non-scalar data. MATLAB allows the following types of
elementary operations −

Arithmetic Operators
Relational Operators

Logical Operators
Bitwise Operations

Set Operations

Arithmetic Operators
MATLAB allows two different types of arithmetic operations −

Matrix arithmetic operations

Matrix arithmetic operations are same as defined in linear algebra. Array operations are executed
element by element, both on one-dimensional and multidimensional array.

The matrix operators and array operators are differentiated by the period (.) symbol. However, as the
addition and subtraction operation is same for matrices and arrays, the operator is same for both
cases. The following table gives brief description of the operators −

Show Examples

Sr.No. Operator & Description

+
1 Addition or unary plus. A+B adds the values stored in variables A and B. A and B must
have the same size, unless one is a scalar. A scalar can be added to a matrix of any size.

-
2 Subtraction or unary minus. A-B subtracts the value of B from A. A and B must have the
same size, unless one is a scalar. A scalar can be subtracted from a matrix of any size.

3 *
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Matrix multiplication. C = A*B is the linear algebraic product of the matrices A and B. More
precisely,

For non-scalar A and B, the number of columns of A must be equal to the number of rows
of B. A scalar can multiply a matrix of any size.

.*
4 Array multiplication. A.*B is the element-by-element product of the arrays A and B. A and B
must have the same size, unless one of them is a scalar.

/
5 Slash or matrix right division. B/A is roughly the same as B*inv(A). More precisely, B/A =
(A'\B')'.

./
6 Array right division. A./B is the matrix with elements A(i,j)/B(i,j). A and B must have the
same size, unless one of them is a scalar.

\
Backslash or matrix left division. If A is a square matrix, A\B is roughly the same as
inv(A)*B, except it is computed in a different way. If A is an n-by-n matrix and B is a column
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vector with n components, or a matrix with several such columns, then X = A\B is the
solution to the equation AX = B. A warning message is displayed if A is badly scaled or
nearly singular.

.\
8 Array left division. A.\B is the matrix with elements B(i,j)/A(i,j). A and B must have the
same size, unless one of them is a scalar.

^
Matrix power. X^p is X to the power p, if p is a scalar. If p is an integer, the power is
9 computed by repeated squaring. If the integer is negative, X is inverted first. For other
values of p, the calculation involves eigenvalues and eigenvectors, such that if [V,D] =
eig(X), then X^p = V*D.^p/V.

.^
10 Array power. A.^B is the matrix with elements A(i,j) to the B(i,j) power. A and B must have
the same size, unless one of them is a scalar.

'
11 Matrix transpose. A' is the linear algebraic transpose of A. For complex matrices, this is
the complex conjugate transpose.

.'
12 Array transpose. A.' is the array transpose of A. For complex matrices, this does not
involve conjugation.
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Relational Operators
Relational operators can also work on both scalar and non-scalar data. Relational operators for arrays
perform element-by-element comparisons between two arrays and return a logical array of the same
size, with elements set to logical 1 (true) where the relation is true and elements set to logical 0
(false) where it is not.

The following table shows the relational operators available in MATLAB −

Show Examples

Sr.No. Operator & Description

<
1
Less than

<=
2
Less than or equal to

>
3
Greater than

>=
4
Greater than or equal to

==
5
Equal to

~=
6
Not equal to

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Logical Operators
MATLAB offers two types of logical operators and functions −

Element-wise − These operators operate on corresponding elements of logical arrays.

Short-circuit − These operators operate on scalar and, logical expressions.

Element-wise logical operators operate element-by-element on logical arrays. The symbols &, |, and ~
are the logical array operators AND, OR, and NOT.

Short-circuit logical operators allow short-circuiting on logical operations. The symbols && and || are
the logical short-circuit operators AND and OR.
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Show Examples

Bitwise Operations
Bitwise operators work on bits and perform bit-by-bit operation. The truth tables for &, |, and ^ are as
follows −

p q p&q p|q p^q

0 0 0 0 0

0 1 0 1 1

1 1 1 1 0

1 0 0 1 1

Assume if A = 60; and B = 13; Now in binary format they will be as follows −

A = 0011 1100

B = 0000 1101

-----------------

A&B = 0000 1100

A|B = 0011 1101

A^B = 0011 0001

~A = 1100 0011

MATLAB provides various functions for bit-wise operations like 'bitwise and', 'bitwise or' and 'bitwise
not' operations, shift operation, etc.

The following table shows the commonly used bitwise operations −

Show Examples

Function Purpose

bitand(a, b) Bit-wise AND of integers a and b

bitcmp(a) Bit-wise complement of a

bitget(a,pos) Get bit at specified position pos, in the integer array a

bitor(a, b) Bit-wise OR of integers a and b

bitset(a, pos) Set bit at specific location pos of a

Returns a shifted to the left by k bits, equivalent to multiplying by 2k.

bitshift(a, k) Negative values of k correspond to shifting bits right or dividing by 2|k|

bitxor(a, b) Bit-wise XOR of integers a and b

swapbytes Swap byte ordering

Set Operations
MATLAB provides various functions for set operations, like union, intersection and testing for set
membership, etc.

The following table shows some commonly used set operations −

Show Examples

Sr.No. Function & Description

intersect(A,B)
1 Set intersection of two arrays; returns the values common to both A and B. The values
returned are in sorted order.

intersect(A,B,'rows')
2 Treats each row of A and each row of B as single entities and returns the rows common to
both A and B. The rows of the returned matrix are in sorted order.

ismember(A,B)
3 Returns an array the same size as A, containing 1 (true) where the elements of A are found
in B. Elsewhere, it returns 0 (false).

ismember(A,B,'rows')
4 Treats each row of A and each row of B as single entities and returns a vector containing 1
(true) where the rows of matrix A are also rows of B. Elsewhere, it returns 0 (false).

issorted(A)
Returns logical 1 (true) if the elements of A are in sorted order and logical 0 (false)
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otherwise. Input A can be a vector or an N-by-1 or 1-by-N cell array of strings. A is
considered to be sorted if A and the output of sort(A) are equal.

6 issorted(A, 'rows')
Returns logical 1 (true) if the rows of two-dimensional matrix A is in sorted order, and
logical 0 (false) otherwise. Matrix A is considered to be sorted if A and the output of
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sortrows(A) are equal.

setdiff(A,B)
7 Sets difference of two arrays; returns the values in A that are not in B. The values in the
returned array are in sorted order.

setdiff(A,B,'rows')
Treats each row of A and each row of B as single entities and returns the rows from A that
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are not in B. The rows of the returned matrix are in sorted order.
The 'rows' option does not support cell arrays.

setxor
9
Sets exclusive OR of two arrays

union
10
Sets union of two arrays

unique
11
Unique values in array