Matlab → Basics → Arrays → Statistical Functions

Matlab has several useful built-in statistical functions. For example, consider a vector A, where A=[5 9 2 4] and we are interested in finding mean and variance of this data set. It can easily be done in Matlab using the commands mean and var. For example,

>> A=[5 9 2 4];
>> mean(A)
ans =
5
>> var(A)
ans =
8.6667

The next Table shows some more useful Matlab built-in statistical functions.

Command	Description	Answer
>> A=[5 9 2 4]; >> sum(A)	Calculate sum of the vector A.	20
>> A=[5 9 2 4]; >> mean(A)	Calculate mean (or average) of the vector A. Note that mean is used for arithmetic average.	5
>> A=[5 9 2 4]; >> geomean(A)	Calculate geometric mean of the vector A.	4.3559
>> A=[5 9 2 4]; >> sort(A)	Arrange the vector A in ascending order.	2 4 5 9
>> A=[5 9 2 4]; >> median(A)	Calculate median of the vector A.	4.5000
>> A=[5 9 2 4]; >> std(A)	Calculate standard deviation of the vector A.	2.9439
>> A=[5 9 2 4]; >> var(A)	Calculate variance of the vector A.	8.6667
>> A=[5 9 2 4]; >> cumsum(A)	Calculate cumulative sum of the vector A. That is, 5, 5+9=14, 14+2=16, 16+4=20	5 14 16 20
>> normcdf(0.3519) >> normcdf(-0.048)	The command normcdf returns the cumulative probability distribution function for a standardized normal distribution.	0.6375 0.4809