MATLAB computations on variables?

Is it possible to conduct MATLAB operations on just a matrix of variables? For example, if I wanted to compute the inverse of matrix

A = [a b; c d]

without assigning any values to any of the 4 variables just to get a general form. Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

[Chris]

The symbolic toolbox is great for stuff like this.

https://www.mathworks.com/help/symbolic/symbolic-computations-in-matlab.html

syms a b c d
A = [a b;c d]

A = 

inv(A)

ans = 

[Walter Roberson]

Caution: the size of the matrix expands quite rapidly for larger matrices.

syms M [4 4]
inv(M)

ans =