How to request an input

If I want the user to type in a 3x3 matrix of his/her choice before the program, what command will I use?

Answer 1

[Walter Roberson]

If it is before the program, you would not have any control over what the user used :-)

Perhaps you are thinking of input() or inputdlg()

[Antony]

Ok.

But simply if I want the user to enter a 3x3 matrix, what will that be?

[Antony]

Or simply if I say, create a program that takes any 3x3 matrix as input.

[Walter Roberson]

It is complicated and usually unproductive to program in such a way that it is not possible for the user to enter anything other than a 3 x 3 matrix. It is usually much simpler and faster to check to see whether what the user entered was indeed a 3 x 3 matrix and to reject it otherwise, perhaps looping back and asking again.

If you want to create a 3 x 3 array of locations in which to enter values, you can create 9 uicontrol('Style','edit') whose Position are set to show up as you want; or you could use a uitable() with Data set to cell(3,3)

Answer 2

[Image Analyst]

Or you can get fancy and use a table like the example in the help:

f = figure('Position',[200 200 400 150]);
fprintf('Here is what we are loading into the table:\n');  
dat = rand(3)
cnames = {'X-Data','Y-Data','Z-Data'};
rnames = {'First','Second','Third'};
hTable = uitable('Parent',f,'Data',dat,'ColumnName',cnames,... 
            'RowName',rnames,'Position',[20 20 360 100]);

% Get data back out
data = get(hTable, 'Data')