how to initialize a variable with zero value ?

Hello all, I have one function which depends on two variables but it should not depend on the second variable until I change that variable. For example if two variables are x and y(x+y) then for functioning it should depend on x initially not on y. what should I do ? should I initialize y with zero value ? How to do that ?

Answer 1

[John D'Errico]

Of course it still depends on y! It is just that y was zero in the example that you just set.

Perhaps you wish to set a default value for y, so that if y is not provided, then it uses zero? Learn to use nargin to test if a variable was not provided in a function call.

help nargin

For example...

function z = f(x,y)
  if nargin < 2
    y = 0;
  end
  z = y.*(x+y);
end