Do not understand my error message

I entered the following:

for s=1:ns
      if s=1
          y=1
      else y=theta
      end

and received the following error:

Error: File: hw1a.m Line: 16 Column: 17 The expression to the left of the equals sign is not a valid target for an assignment.

Line 16 is "if s=1" I do not understand the meaning of this error.

thank you for your help,

drew

Answer 1

[Azzi Abdelmalek]

ns=10
theta=100
for s=1:ns
    if s==1
        y=1
    else 
        y=theta
    end
end

Answer 2

[Image Analyst]

You need to use double equals s==1, and you're missing an "end". But really, you should take the y assignment out of the loop and do it like this:

y = 1;
for s = 1 : ns
    y=theta
end

It's more efficient because you're not having to do the "if" test. Presumably theta changes somewhere inside the loop that is just not shown.