what is the difference between matrix and array in the meaning and functions?

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i want to know the difference between the matrix and array in terms of the meaning and function , if any one will answer please with an example thanks
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Accepted Answer

Arun Mathew Iype
Arun Mathew Iype on 29 Jul 2014
Edited: Jan on 30 May 2017
I agree with what dpb said above. Here is the example which will help you visualize.
Matrix
mat_A= [1 2 3; 3 4 5; 6 7 8]
Conventionally this is shown in 2 dimenstions (2D) as:
Mat_A =
1 2 3
3 4 5
6 7 8
Arrays : May be of various dimensions. The above is a 2D array or matrix. A 1D array is called a vector. arr_1D = [1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9] We can also have 3D, as well as, ND arrays. In case of a 3D array, imagine a Rubik’s cube with each cell having a value inside it.
Here is and example using MATLAB "rand" function >> Arr_3D = rand(2,2,2)
Arr_3D(:,:,1) =
0.8147 0.1270
0.9058 0.9134
Arr_3D(:,:,2) =
0.6324 0.2785
0.0975 0.5469
  3 Comments
Steven Lord
Steven Lord on 25 Jun 2022
Another way to explain this is by looking at the help text for the ismatrix function.
help ismatrix
ISMATRIX True if input is a matrix. ISMATRIX(M) returns logical 1 (true) if M is an m-by-n matrix, and logical 0 (false) otherwise. See also ISSCALAR, ISVECTOR, ISROW, ISCOLUMN, ISNUMERIC, ISLOGICAL, ISCHAR, ISEMPTY, SIZE. Documentation for ismatrix doc ismatrix Other functions named ismatrix categorical/ismatrix distributed/ismatrix tall/ismatrix datetime/ismatrix duration/ismatrix
So a 1-by-1 array is a matrix. A 3-by-3 array is also a matrix. But a 2-by-3-by-4 array is not a matrix.
ismatrix(zeros(1, 1))
ans = logical
1
ismatrix(zeros(3, 3))
ans = logical
1
ismatrix(zeros(2, 3, 4))
ans = logical
0

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More Answers (1)

Robin Szeto
Robin Szeto on 30 May 2017
All MATLAB variables are multidimensional arrays, no matter what type of data. A matrix is a two-dimensional array often used for linear algebra. source: https://www.mathworks.com/help/matlab/learn_matlab/matrices-and-arrays.html
  2 Comments
Stephen23
Stephen23 on 30 May 2017
Edited: Stephen23 on 30 May 2017
+1 This is true: all MATLAB array types are N-dimensional, with implicit infinite trailing singleton dimensions, as has been discussed many times before:
"Arrays in MATLAB are N-dimensional, with an infinite number of trailing singleton dimensions."

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