the meaning of length in my loop

hii so my lecturer provide us with a code, and he wants us to understand the meaning of each line sadly i couldnt understand what does the length(n) means like why is it equal to 1?

% Function have 4 inputs i.e., n, p1, p2, and p2

% Where n can be a number or row vector function y=padovan(n, p1, p2, p3)

P(1)=p1; P(2)=p2; P(3)=p3;

% Check if n is vector or not

if length(n) == 1

for i=4:n P(i)=P(i-2)+P(i-3);

end

else for i=4:length(n) P(i)=P(i-2)+P(i-3);

end

end

y=P(n);

Answer 1

[Star Strider]

The length function returns the largest dimension of its argument.

The line:

if length(n) == 1

It is not setting it equal to 1, it is testing logically if it is equal to 1.

Since this appears to be a homework assignment, I will let you explore the documentation in order to understand how the rest of the code works.

Answer 2

[Cris LaPierre]

Every function in MATLAB is documented. There, you can find a description, examples, and more. Check out the documentation for length here.