Find the difference between two variables

So I have a graph of glacial melt per year and it has 169 variables. I need to know the difference between each point. For example on excel you do b-a=# c-b=# d-c=# and so on down the list. I have tried a few different ‘solutions’ for writing this code but it never works. Please help

[Stephen23]

 doc diff

Answer 1

[Matt J]

See the diff() command.

[Sitney Day]

Every time I try this command it tells me there are too many variables. This is a list of 164 that I need the difference between each

[Walter Roberson]

Make the variables columns in a numeric matrix, provided that they are all the same length.

You should probably be using readtable instead of storing into separate variables.

[Stephen23]

"Every time I try this command it tells me there are too many variables..."

That is because using 169 individual variables is the wrong way to use MATLAB. That data should be in one variable. Then processing and handling that data would be trivial (e.g. you could simply call diff on it).

[Matt J]

Every time I try this command it tells me there are too many variables.

Before using an unfamiliar command, you should read its documentation to learn its proper usage. In this case, you can see in the documentation for diff that there is no input syntax allowing 169 separate input arguments.