MATLAB Function Reference |
Syntax
Description
mldivide(A,B)
and the equivalent A\B
perform matrix left division (back slash). A
and B
must be matrices that have the same number of rows, unless A
is a scalar, in which case A\B
performs element-wise division -- that is, A\B = A.\B
.
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 vector with n
elements, or a matrix with several such columns, then X = A\B
is the solution to the equation AX = B computed by Gaussian elimination with partial pivoting (see Algorithm for details). A warning message is displayed if A
is badly scaled or nearly singular.
If A
is an m
-by-n
matrix with m ~= n
and B
is a column vector with m
components, or a matrix with several such columns, then X = A\B
is the solution in the least squares sense to the under- or overdetermined system of equations AX = B. In other words, X
minimizes norm(A*X - B)
, the length of the vector AX - B. The rank k
of A
is determined from the QR decomposition with column pivoting (see Algorithm for details). The computed solution X
has at most k
nonzero elements per column. If k < n
, this is usually not the same solution as x = pinv(A)*B
, which returns a least squares solution.
mrdivide(B,A)
and the equivalent B/A
perform matrix right division (forward slash). B
and A
must have the same number of columns.
If A
is a square matrix, B/A
is roughly the same as B*inv(A)
. If A
is an n
-by-n
matrix and B
is a row vector with n
elements, or a matrix with several such rows, then X = B/A
is the solution to the equation XA = B computed by Gaussian elimination with partial pivoting. A warning message is displayed if A
is badly scaled or nearly singular.
If B
is an m
-by-n
matrix with m ~= n
and A
is a column vector with m
components, or a matrix with several such columns, then X = B/A
is the solution in the least squares sense to the under- or overdetermined system of equations XA = B.
Least Squares Solutions
If the equation Ax = b does not have a solution (and A is not a square matrix), x = A\b
returns a least squares solution -- in other words, a solution that minimizes the length of the vector Ax - b, which is equal to norm(A*x - b)
. See Example 3 for an example of this.
Example 1
Suppose that A
and b
are the following.
To solve the matrix equation Ax = b, enter
You can verify that x
is the solution to the equation as follows.
Example 2 -- A Singular
If A
is singular, A\b
returns the following warning.
In this case, Ax = b might not have a solution. For example,
A = magic(5); A(:,1) = zeros(1,5); % Set column 1 of A to zeros b = [1;2;5;7;7]; x = A\b Warning: Matrix is singular to working precision. ans = NaN NaN NaN NaN NaN
If you get this warning, you can still attempt to solve Ax = b using the pseudoinverse function pinv
.
The result x
is least squares solution to Ax = b. To determine whether x
is a exact solution -- that is, a solution for which Ax - b = 0 -- simply compute
The answer is not the zero vector, so x
is not an exact solution.
Pseudoinverses, in the online MATLAB documentation, provides more examples of solving linear systems using pinv
.
Example 3
Note that Ax = b cannot have a solution, because A*x
has equal entries for any x
. Entering
returns the least squares solution
along with a warning that A
is rank deficient. Note that x
is not an exact solution:
Data Type Support
When computing X = A\B
or X = A/B
, the matrices A
and B
can have data type double
or single
. The following rules determine the data type of the result:
A
and B
have type double
, X
has type double
.
A
or B
has type single, X
has type single
.
Algorithm
The specific algorithm used for solving the simultaneous linear equations denoted by X = A\B
and X = B/A
depends upon the structure of the coefficient matrix A
. To determine the structure of A
and select the appropriate algorithm, MATLAB follows this precedence:
X
is computed by dividing by the diagonal elements of A
.
1.0
if there are no zeros on any of the three diagonals.
A
is real and tridiagonal, i.e., band density = 1.0
, and B
is real with only one column, X
is computed quickly using Gaussian elimination without pivoting.
A
or B
is not real, or if B
has more than one column, but A
is banded with band density greater than the spparms
parameter 'bandden'
(default = 0.5
), then X
is computed using the Linear Algebra Package (LAPACK) routines in the following table. Real |
Complex |
|
A and B double |
DGBTRF, DGBTRS |
ZGBTRF, ZGBTRS |
A or B single |
SGBTRF, SGBTRS |
CGBTRF, CGBTRS |
X
is computed quickly with a backsubstitution algorithm for upper triangular matrices, or a forward substitution algorithm for lower triangular matrices. The check for triangularity is done for full matrices by testing for zero elements and for sparse matrices by accessing the sparse data structure.
Real |
Complex |
|
A and B double |
DTRSV, DTRSM |
ZTRSV, ZTRSM |
A or B single |
STRSV, STRSM |
CTRSV, CTRSM |
X
is computed with a permuted backsubstitution algorithm.
chol
). If A
is found to be positive definite, the Cholesky factorization attempt is successful and requires less than half the time of a general factorization. Nonpositive definite matrices are usually detected almost immediately, so this check also requires little time.
A
is
where R
is upper triangular. The solution X
is computed by solving two triangular systems,
Computations are performed using the LAPACK routines in the following table.
Real |
Complex |
|
A and B double |
DLANGE, DPOTRF, DPOTRS, DPOCON |
ZLANGE, ZPOTRF, ZPOTRS, ZPOCON |
A or B single |
SLANGE, SPOTRF, SPOTRS, SDPOCON |
CLANGE, CPOTRF, CPOTRS, CPOCON |
If A
is sparse, a symmetric minimum degree preordering is applied first (see symmmd
and spparms
) before X
is computed. The algorithm is
lu
). This results in
L
is a permutation of a lower triangular matrix and U
is an upper triangular matrix. Then X
is computed by solving two permuted triangular systems.
If A
is not sparse, computations are performed using the LAPACK routines in the following table.
Real |
Complex |
|
A and B double |
DLANGE, DGESV, DGECON |
ZLANGE, ZGESV, ZGECON |
A or B single |
SLANGE, SGESV, SGECON |
CLANGE, CGESV, CGECON |
If A
is sparse, then UMFPACK is used to compute X
. The computations result in
Note
The factorization P*(R\A)*Q = L*U differs from the factorization used by the function lu , which does not scale the rows of A.
|
P
is a permutation, Q
is orthogonal and R
is upper triangular (see qr
). The least squares solution X
is computed with
If A
is sparse, MATLAB computes a least squares solution using the sparse qr
factorization of A
.
If A
is full, MATLAB uses the LAPACK routines listed in the following table to compute these matrix factorizations.
Real |
Complex |
|
A and B double |
DGEQP3, DORMQR, DTRTRS |
ZGEQP3, ZORMQR, ZTRTRS |
A or B single |
SGEQP3, SORMQR, STRTRS |
CGEQP3, CORMQR, CTRTRS |
Note
To see information about choice of algorithm and storage allocation for sparse matrices, set the spparms parameter 'spumoni' = 1 .
|
Note
mldivide and mrdivide are not implemented for sparse matrices A that are complex but not square.
|
See Also
Arithmetic operators, linsolve
, ldivide
, rdivide
mkpp | mlint |
© 1994-2005 The MathWorks, Inc.