David
Farruggio

# diff

Differences and Approximate Derivatives

### Syntax and Description

 diff(X) calculates differences between adjacent elements of X along the first array dimension whose size does not equal 1: If X is a vector of length m, then Y = diff(X) returns a vector of length m-1. The elements of Y are the differences between adjacent elements of X. $Y = \left[\begin{array}{cccc} X(2)-X(1) & X(3)-X(2) & ... & X(m)-X(m-1) \end{array}\right]$ If X is a nonvector p-by-m matrix, then Y = diff(X) returns a matrix of size (p-1)-by-m, whose elements are the differences between the rows of X. $Y = \left[ \begin{array}{c} X(2,:)-X(1,:) \\ X(3,:)-X(2,:) \\ \vdots \\ X(p,:)-X(p-1,:) \end{array}\right]$ diff(X,n) calculates the nth difference by applying the diff(X) operator recursively n times. In practice, this means diff(X,2) is the same as diff(diff(X)). diff(X,n,dim) is the nth difference calculated along the dimension specified by dim. The dim input is a positive integer scalar.

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