RIGHTDIVIDE Matrix Equation Solver/Divide Operator

Usage

The divide operator / is really a combination of three operators, all of which have the same general syntax:

  Y = A / B

where A and B are arrays of numerical type. The result Y depends on which of the following three situations applies to the arguments A and B:

A is a scalar, B is an arbitrary n-dimensional numerical array, in which case the output is the scalar A divided into each element of B.
B is a scalar, A is an arbitrary n-dimensional numerical array, in which case the output is each element of A divided by the scalar B.
A,B are matrices with the same number of columns, i.e., A is of size K x M, and B is of size L x M, in which case the output is of size K x L.

The output follows the standard type promotion rules, although in the first two cases, if A and B are integers, the output is an integer also, while in the third case if A and B are integers, the output is of type double.

Function Internals

There are three formulae for the times operator. For the first form

and the second form

In the third form, the output is defined as:

and is used in the equation Y B = A.

Examples

The right-divide operator is much less frequently used than the left-divide operator, but the concepts are similar. It can be used to find least-squares and minimum norm solutions. It can also be used to solve systems of equations in much the same way. Here's a simple example:

--> B = [1,1;0,1];
--> A = [4,5]

A = 

 4 5 

--> A/B

ans = 

 4 1