Explain this please?

x = 2;

e = 2.713;

c = 5 + (x < 2 || (e < pi));

c = 6

How does the value of c=6 after the code is executed? 2 is not less than 2, while e is not less than pi, so that is throwing me off. Thank you!

[Mil Shastri]

e = 2.713

pi = 3.1416

thus, (e < pi) indeed is true

[Walter Roberson]

But e is less than pi. 2.713 < 3.14159265358979323 [etc]

Answer 1

[Steven Lord]

c = 5 + (x < 2 || (e < pi));

Let's look at each section of the code inside the outer parentheses in turn.

x < 2

Since x is equal to 2, x < 2 is false.

(e < pi)

Since e is less than pi, this returns true. [By the way, you can use exp(1) to return the value of the constant e.]

(false || true)

This results in true.

So what is 5 + true? For many intents and purposes in MATLAB, you can think of false like 0 and true like 1. Indexing is the main exception; you can't index into an array with 0 but you can with false. [Search the documentation for "logical indexing" for more information on this.] So 5 + true is essentially 5 + 1 which results in 6.