mldivide, \

Solve systems of linear equations Ax = B for x

Syntax

x = A\B

x = mldivide(A,B)

Description

x = A\B solves the system of linear equations A*x = B. The matrices A and B must have the same number of rows. MATLAB^® displays a warning message if A is badly scaled or nearly singular, but performs the calculation regardless.

• If A is a scalar, then A\B is equivalent to A.\B.

• If A is a square n-by-n matrix and B is a matrix with n rows, then x = A\B is a solution to the equation A*x = B, if it exists.

• If A is a rectangular m-by-n matrix with m ~= n, and B is a matrix with m rows, then A\B returns a least-squares solution to the system of equations A*x= B.

x = mldivide(A,B) is an alternative way to execute x = A\B, but is rarely used. It enables operator overloading for classes.

Examples

System of Equations

Solve a simple system of linear equations, A*x = B.

A = magic(3);
B = [15; 15; 15];
x = A\B

x = 3×1

    1.0000
    1.0000
    1.0000

Linear System with Singular Matrix

Solve a linear system of equations A*x = b involving a singular matrix, A.

A = magic(4);
b = [34; 34; 34; 34];
x = A\b

Warning: Matrix is close to singular or badly scaled. Results may be inaccurate. RCOND =  4.625929e-18.

x = 4×1

    0.9804
    0.9412
    1.0588
    1.0196

When rcond is between 0 and eps, MATLAB® issues a nearly singular warning, but proceeds with the calculation. When working with ill-conditioned matrices, an unreliable solution can result even though the residual (b-A*x) is relatively small. In this particular example, the norm of the residual is zero, and an exact solution is obtained, although rcond is small.

When rcond is equal to 0, the singular warning appears.

A = [1 0; 0 0];
b = [1; 1];
x = A\b

Warning: Matrix is singular to working precision.

x = 2×1

     1
   Inf

In this case, division by zero leads to computations with Inf and/or NaN, making the computed result unreliable.

Least-Squares Solution of Underdetermined System

Solve a system of linear equations, A*x = b.

A = [1 2 0; 0 4 3];
b = [8; 18];
x = A\b

x = 3×1

         0
    4.0000
    0.6667

Linear System with Sparse Matrix

Solve a simple system of linear equations using sparse matrices.

Consider the matrix equation A*x = B.

A = sparse([0 2 0 1 0; 4 -1 -1 0 0; 0 0 0 3 -6; -2 0 0 0 2; 0 0 4 2 0]);
B = sparse([8; -1; -18; 8; 20]);
x = A\B

x = 
   (1,1)       1.0000
   (2,1)       2.0000
   (3,1)       3.0000
   (4,1)       4.0000
   (5,1)       5.0000

Input Arguments

A, B — Operands

vectors | full matrices | sparse matrices

Operands, specified as vectors, full matrices, or sparse matrices. A and B must have the same number of rows.

• If A or B has an integer data type, the other input must be scalar. Operands with an integer data type cannot be complex.

Data Types: single | double | int8 | int16 | int32 | int64 | uint8 | uint16 | uint32 | uint64 | logical | char
Complex Number Support: Yes

Output Arguments

x — Solution

vector | full matrix | sparse matrix

Solution, returned as a vector, full matrix, or sparse matrix. If A is an m-by-n matrix and B is an m-by-p matrix, then x is an n-by-p matrix, including the case when p==1.

If A has full storage, x is also full. If A is sparse, then x has the same storage as B.

Tips

• The operators / and \ are related to each other by the equation B/A = (A'\B')'.

• If A is a square matrix, then A\B is roughly equal to inv(A)*B, but MATLAB processes A\B differently and more robustly.

• If the rank of A is less than the number of columns in A, then x = A\B is not necessarily the minimum norm solution. You can compute the minimum norm least-squares solution using x = lsqminnorm(A,B) or x = pinv(A)*B.

• Use decomposition objects to efficiently solve a linear system multiple times with different right-hand sides. decomposition objects are well-suited to solving problems that require repeated solutions, since the decomposition of the coefficient matrix does not need to be performed multiple times.

Algorithms

The versatility of mldivide in solving linear systems stems from its ability to take advantage of symmetries in the problem by dispatching to an appropriate solver. This approach aims to minimize computation time. The first distinction the function makes is between full (also called “dense”) and sparse input arrays.

Algorithm for Full Inputs

The flow chart below shows the algorithm path when inputs A and B are full.

Algorithm for Sparse Inputs

If A is full and B is sparse then mldivide converts B to a full matrix and uses the full algorithm path (above) to compute a solution with full storage. If A is sparse, the storage of the solution x is the same as that of B and mldivide follows the algorithm path for sparse inputs, shown below.

Extended Capabilities

Tall Arrays

Calculate with arrays that have more rows than fit in memory.

This function supports tall arrays with the limitation:

For the syntax Z = X\Y, the array X must be a scalar or a tall matrix with the same number of rows as Y.

For more information, see Tall Arrays for Out-of-Memory Data.

C/C++ Code Generation

Generate C and C++ code using MATLAB® Coder™.

Usage notes and limitations:

• For sparse matrix inputs, the standard math library must be C99 or later.

GPU Code Generation

Generate CUDA® code for NVIDIA® GPUs using GPU Coder™.

Usage notes and limitations:

• For sparse matrix inputs, the standard math library must be C99 or later.

GPU Arrays

Accelerate code by running on a graphics processing unit (GPU) using Parallel Computing Toolbox™.

Usage notes and limitations:

• If A is rectangular, then it must also be nonsparse.

• The MATLAB mldivide function prints a warning if A is badly scaled, nearly singular, or rank deficient. The gpuArray mldivide is unable to check for this condition. Take action to avoid this condition.

• 64-bit integers are not supported.

For more information, see Run MATLAB Functions on a GPU (Parallel Computing Toolbox).

Distributed Arrays

Partition large arrays across the combined memory of your cluster using Parallel Computing Toolbox™.

Usage notes and limitations:

• The MATLAB mldivide function prints a warning if A is badly scaled, nearly singular, or rank deficient. The distributed array mldivide is unable to check for this condition. Take action to avoid this condition.

• If A is an M-by-N matrix with N > M, for distributed arrays, mldivide computes a solution that minimizes norm(X). The result is the same as the result of PINV(A)*B.

For more information, see Run MATLAB Functions with Distributed Arrays (Parallel Computing Toolbox).