MATLAB: In the command window, use a for loop to fill a vector v with the squares of 2, 3, 4, 5.

for loop

Hi there, I am trying to understand an in class example put am having difficulties completing the code the question is :
In the command window, use a for loop to fill a vector v with the squares of 2, 3, 4, 5. Start with
v = zeros(1,4)
After entering your for loop in the command window, v should be:
>> v 
v=
4 9 16 25
Heres what I have so far:
>> v=zeros(1,4);
i=1;
v(i)=2;
i=2;
v(i)=3;
i=3;
v(i)=4
i=4;
v(i)=5;
v =
       2     3     4     5
  for i=1:4 v=v(i).*v(i); disp(v); end;
however I am getting the message "Index exceeds matrix dimensions."
Can someone offer me some tips with approaching this problem

Best Answer

you are overwriting your vector instead of filling the array
v=zeros(1,4); % this is [0,0,0,0]
v=[2,3,4,5]% pre-assign values
when you index into v with the for loop variable i you overwrite v, see below
for i =1:4
v=v(i).*v(i); %<- this here overwrites your variable v completely on the first loop 
disp(v)%making it 2*2 when i =1, when i becomes 2 there is no longer a second index
end
 %corrected version
  for i =1:4
  v(i)=v(i).*v(i); %<- this here replaces your value at index i
  disp(v)
  end
Also another way to do this problem for future reference is to do vector math
v=[2,3,4,5]
v = v.*v
Related Question