Writing a MATLAB script for equations

How would I write a mathlab script to convert failure rate ( lambda) into MTBF using the formula MTBF = 1/LAMBDA. I know Lambda must be assigned a value but not sure how I would write the script.

Any help at all would be much appreciated, thank you

Answer 1

[James Tursa]

E.g., put these lines in a file with a .m extension:

lambda = input('Input a value for lambda: ');
mtbf = 1 ./ lambda;

Are you supposed to specifically write a script file, or a function file?

[Fergal Ahern]

Thank you for your answer.

Im new to MATLAB, for this example it is to write a script file but what would be the difference between a script and function file?

[James Tursa]

If you had those two lines above in a file called myscript.m, and did this at the command line:

>> myscript

Then those lines would be executed as if you typed them in manually at the command line and all variables created by the script would remain in your workspace.

A function file, on the other hand, operates in its own separate workspace. It may take inputs and provide outputs. E.g., suppose you had a file called myfunction.m with the following code

function mtbf = myfunction(lambda)
if( nargin == 0 )
    lambda = input('Input a value for lambda: ');
end
mtbf = 1 ./ lambda;
return
end

Then myfunction would take an input (called lambda in the function workspace), calculate mtbf, and return mtbf to the caller. If the user called myfunction without an input, then the function would prompt the user for the lambda to use. The variables in the caller workspace do not have to be named lambda and mtbf ... they can be any valid name the user wants.

Sounds like you will be getting to functions later on ...