MATLAB: How to access number of rows in one step

Question

I have a matrix:

theMatrix = [2 3 4;5 3 2];

I can access the number of rows in the following two steps:

matrixSize = size(theMatrix);
rows = matrixSize(1);

Why can I not access it using the following?

rows = size(theMatrix)(1)
or
rows = (size(theMatrix))(1)

?

In my understanding size(theMatrix) returns a 1×2 vector, so that expression is: (1×2 vector)(1), which means return 1st value of vector. That is why I am confused.

[rows columns] = size(myMatrix); creates a redundant variable column. I do not want to know the number of columns – just the number of rows.

Answer 1

Try

 size(theMatrix,1)