behavior of colon operator (:) with matrix or vector arguments

Question

We all know the matlab colon operator to create a linear sequence, i.e.

1:5 = [1 2 3 4 5]

Now I found that the arguments of the colon oper

Answer 1

The documentation for the colon operator says:

If you specify nonscalar arrays, MATLAB interprets j:i:k as j(1):i(1):k(1).

Your first example is interpreted as 1:3, the second as 1:5

Expressions with more than two : are parsed left-associative:

a:b:c:d:e==(a:b:c):d:e

.

    >> 1:2:3:4:5

ans =

     1     5