Symbolic Polynomial Manipulation

Symbolic polynomial manipulation as an exercise in OOP

This toolbox is a very simple polynomial manipulation package.
I originally wrote it some years ago as a means of learning how to work with objects in Matlab. When I decided to publish this package, I completely rewrote it from scratch just this week, as the old one had some bugs in it.

Why publish this at all? Because I think writing such a tool is a marvelous way to learn about OOP and the use of classes in Matlab. A second reason is that this toolbox is actually of use to me on occasion, whenever I need to manipulate simple polynomials in one or several variables. If, as is the case with me and you don't own the symbolic toolbox, you may find it of interest too. I have included the functions orthpoly and gaussquadrule, as neat applications of the sympoly tools.

I've also put in a helper document that discusses things I felt important in writing a toolbox like this.

If you wish to use these tools, they are quite easy to use. A few quick examples:

% This creates 3 sympoly objects in your
% workspace: x, y, z.
sympoly x y z

% Add 1 to x, put the result in p.
p = x+1

% arbitrary expressions
q = (x-1)^3 + x*y*z - (x+1)*(z-1)

There are many other examples in the ReadMe file, some involving arrays of sympolys, as well as many more.

Whatever use you do find for this toolbox, have fun with it. I did. I even get some use from it occasionally.

If by some amazing chance you do find any bugs, please e-mail me.