What does the symbol ";" mean in the statement "p1 = [x; y]"?

What does the symbol ";" mean in the following statement?

p1 = [x; y];

Answer 1

[Friedrich]

Hi,

this means x and y are combined vertically to a new vector. So p1 = [x;y] creates a vector

p1 = (x)
     (y)

Or simply try it with an example

p1 = [1;2]

[Manoj Murali]

Oh..but if i want to combine them horizontally can i use the following

p=[x y] ??

[Andrei Bobrov]

yes

[Jan]

Horizontal concatenation: [a, b], or [a b] or cat(2, a, b) or horzcat(a, b)

Vertical concatenation: [a; b], cat(1, a, b), vertcat(a, b)

Another method, which is prone to errors is using the line break as separator:

[a

b]

Answer 2

[k.v.swamy]

hi, p1 = [x; y]; means u r combining the vectors x and y in to a single vector p1.