# rectangular function in matlab

I am trying to program this function: $g(t)= \operatorname{rect}(t/T) \,f(t)$

I take: $t=0:1:20$ and I know how to program $f(t)$.

But I have a problem with the rectangular function. How to program this function in matlab?

function y = rect(x);

x = abs(x);

if x == 0.5
y = 0.5;
else
if  x < 0.5
y = 1;
else
y = 0;
end
end

end


put this in a file and name it "rect.m". make sure it's on your MATLAB search path.

• Just check if you like my edit ... – Matt L. Aug 11 '18 at 18:21
• hay @MattL., ever read about the Wicked Blble? (moral of story: proofreading by someone else is necessary sometimes.) – robert bristow-johnson Aug 11 '18 at 18:36
• Your original rect.m was indeed pretty wicked ... :) – Matt L. Aug 11 '18 at 19:21

There are a lot of ways

Using an inline function

clear all
x=linspace(-1,1,1024);
rect=@(x) (sign(x+.5)-sign(x-.5))/2
plot(x,rect(x))
title('rect')
xlabel('x')


rect(t/T) is left as an exercise ( give a man a fish and you feed him for a day, teach him how to fish and he will have an excuse to get out of the house)

If you know how to program any function $f(t)$, then you should know how to program a specific function $\mathrm{rect(t/T)}$.

However, Matlab already have a convenient function for that, window.m, which you can pad as desired:

N = 65;
w = window(@rectwin ,N);


But it is more interesting to exercise interesting features in Matlab, including the function handle @ for inline functions, and the function linkaxes.m, to easily test different options (as for discrete signals, different versions for the rectangular functions coexist):

% Choose among four types of discrete rectangular windows
time = (-20:20)'; T = 5;
f = @(t) sin(2*pi*t/30);
nCase = 4;
for iCase = 1:nCase;
switch iCase
case 1
%% Option 1: rectangular is defined as one on ]0,1[
w = @(t) ((t > 0) & (t < 1));
case 2
%% Option 2: rectangular is defined as one  on [0,1]
w = @(t) ((t >= 0) & (t <= 1));
case 3
%% Option 3: rectangular is defined as one  on ]-1/2,1/2[
w = @(t) (abs(t) < 1/2);
case 4
%% Option 4: rectangular is defined as one  on [-1/2,1/2]
w = @(t) (abs(t) <= 1/2);
end
h1(iCase)=subplot(nCase,2,2*(iCase-1)+1) ;
plot(t,[f(t) w(t/T)],'x-')
legend('f','w')
h2(iCase)= subplot(nCase,2,2*(iCase-1)+2);
plot(t,[f(t).*w(t/T)],'o-')
legend('f \times w')