Question about hard coding error

Hello,

I am using MATLAB grader and I received a message in one of the tests saying that: "it may have been that you hard coded some of the input values from the "code to call your function box". What does this error mean and how can i fix it?

Thank you

[Alejandro Peñuelas]

Hi. Hard coding happens when you define the value of a variable directly when it must be defined in the arguments of a function.

I would help if you provide some part of the source code that produces this error or even screenshots so we can help you better. Thanks.

Answer 1

[Walter Roberson]

Suppose that you are required to build a function f(x,y), and you happen know it will be called with y = 19, but you write the code like

function z = f(x,y)
  y = 19;       %this hard-codes a value for y instead of taking it from input
  z = x.^2 - y.^3;
end

You would have ignored the value that was passed into your code and would have used your own file instead.