another basic question for a beginner

I saw the 2 forms of writing:

• fzero(f,x0)
• fsolve(@(x)f,xo)

in both cases we use symbolic function (f) before the above orders.

I am trying to understand why in the first case we could write only "f", while in the second one we had to write the whole expression "@(x)f"?

Answer 1

[Star Strider]

Without knowing the relevant context, it is difficult to say.

The first syntax:

fzero(f,x0)

implies that ‘f’ is a function of one variable, and already exists in the workspace as a function handle.

The second syntax:

fsolve(@(x)f,x0)

actually throws this error when I run it (in R2018b):

Error using fsolve (line 281)
FSOLVE requires all values returned by functions to be of data type double.

The correct way to use that syntax is to express ‘f’ as a function to be evaluated:

fsolve(@(x)f(x),x0)

and this works correctly.