Top 10 MATLAB Interview Questions and Answers

This page describes a MATLAB questionnaire written by specialists in the MATLAB domain. These top 10 MATLAB interview questions and answers will help interviewees pass the job interview for a MATLAB programmer position with ease. These questions are also very useful as college viva questions.

Question 1: What types of operators are used in the MATLAB environment?

Answer 1: MATLAB supports relational, arithmetic, bitwise, and logical operators.

Question 2: What control flow statements are supported in MATLAB?

Answer 2: Like C and other languages, MATLAB supports if statements, switch statements, for loops, and while loops.

Question 3: What are MEX files in MATLAB?

Answer 3: MEX files are C or C++ programs that can be called directly within MATLAB during runtime. This allows you to integrate code written in other languages for performance or to utilize existing libraries.

Question 4: What is the main difference between a script and a function in MATLAB?

Answer 4: Both scripts and functions have the .m extension.

• Script files in MATLAB consist of a series of commands. They do not take any arguments, nor do they return any arguments or values. Scripts operate in the global workspace.
• Functions are like functions in any other programming language. They take arguments as input, perform operations, and can return arguments or values. Functions have their own workspace, separate from the global workspace.

Question 5: Are multi-dimensional arrays supported in MATLAB?

Answer 5: No, MATLAB primarily supports two-dimensional matrices. However, you can write your own functions to simulate and utilize multi-dimensional array features as per your specific application needs.

Question 6: How can one save the MATLAB environment data into a MATLAB data file and call the same in another MATLAB program whenever required?

Answer 6: MATLAB programmers can use the save and load commands for this purpose.

Question 7: Which operator performs element-by-element multiplication in MATLAB?

Answer 7: The operator is .*. When two matrices A and B are required to be multiplied element by element, it can be written as:

A .* B

Question 8: If one is appearing for a Digital Signal Processing (DSP) position, they may often be asked, “What is the difference between rand and randn?”

Answer 8: The functions rand and randn are often used to model Additive White Gaussian Noise (AWGN) channels.

• The function randn generates random numbers with a normal (Gaussian) distribution, with a mean value equal to zero and a variance value of one.
• The function rand generates random numbers with a uniform distribution between 0 and 1.

These functions are used in the awgn function in MATLAB for simulating noisy communication channels.

Question 9: What functions are used for interpolation and decimation in MATLAB?

Answer 9: Common functions include interp, interp1, and decimate.

Question 10: What functions are used for auto-correlation and cross-correlation in MATLAB?

Answer 10: The primary function used for both auto-correlation and cross-correlation is xcorr.

This set of MATLAB interview questions and answers is useful for both freshers and experienced candidates seeking MATLAB-related job positions.